Funding, News and Announcements

Updates from the Digital Research Alliance of Canada (November 2023 issue)

The Alliance welcomes new Researcher Council members

The Alliance is very pleased to welcome four new members to the Researcher Council: 

• Saiqa Aleem, Assistant Professor in the Department of Engineering, Thompson Rivers University 
• François Claveau, Canada Research Chair in Applied Epistemology and Associate Professor in the Department of Philosophy and Applied Ethics, Université de Sherbrooke 
• Mélanie Courtot, Director of Genome Informatics, Principal Investigator at the Ontario Institute for Cancer Research in Toronto and Assistant Professor in the Department of Medical Biophysics, University of Toronto 
• Ken Penner, Professor of Religious Studies at St. Francis Xavier University 

The new members bring highly valuable expertise and perspectives to the Researcher Council.
 
We also wish to thank the following outgoing members for their important contributions: Susan Brown (University of Guelph), Constance Crompton (University of Ottawa), Carl D’Arcy (University of Saskatchewan), Benoît Dupont, Université de Montréal) and Laura Estill (St. Francis Xavier University). Read more

Researcher Council members recognized for their contributions to science

Rebecca Davis, Associate Professor at the University of Manitoba, was awarded the 2023 Canada's Most Powerful Women: Top 100 Award by WXN (Women's Executive Network). This award recognizes Dr. Davis’s research in many areas, including antibiotic discovery, early detection of Parkinson’s disease, sustainability in chemical synthesis and feature development for the accelerated discovery of drug compounds.
 
Girma Bitsuamlak, Professor and Director of the WindEEE Research Facility and WindEEE Research Institute at Western University, was recognized by Western as a newsmaker of the year. Dr. Bitsuamlak was featured on Global News (The new reality tornadoes. Is your home ready for extreme weather?) and CBC (Inside a tornado simulator and Wildfires, floods, hurricanes and earthquakes: What you need to know when disaster strikes).

First-of-its-kind open textbook on RDM in Canada

Research Data Management in the Canadian Context: A Guide for Practitioners and Learners (Kristi Thompson et al., eds.), is an open, peer-reviewed textbook for RDM in Canada. The Alliance was pleased to contribute to this work through financial support for the cover and participation of two of its staff. Lee Wilson, Director of Research Data Management, co-authored the chapter “Research Data Sharing and Reuse in Canada: Practice and Policy”, and Lina Harper, Curation Officer, co-authored “Data Management Planning for Open Science Workflows”. The timely publication aligns with the Tri-Agency Policy on Research Data Management, the growing demand for scholars and practitioners with expertise in RDM, and the necessity of teaching resources to develop RDM expertise.

Over 50 members of Canada’s DRI community, including francophone and Indigenous members, were involved in the development of the textbook, making it a truly national, networked, collaborative and community-based initiative. The textbook is currently available in English, with a French edition forthcoming. 

Connecting with the DRI community at national and international events

Alliance CEO George Ross spoke about different models of infrastructure investment on the panel, “Transforming the Science and Innovation Landscape”, at the Canadian Science Policy Conference in Ottawa. 

Alliance staff joined colleagues from around the world for SC23 in Denver, Colorado, to learn about the latest advancements in high performance computing and share the impact of high performance computing (HPC) on research in Canada.

Recordings of recent Alliance workshops and webinars

What is "open data" anyway? An introduction to licensing and copyright for research data in Canada – November 7, 2023
The Curation Events Working Group’s recent online workshop covered the basics of copyright and open licensing in the context of research data management. Presentation slides (English and French) are also available.
 
Cybersecurity Awareness Month – October 2023
The Alliance participates in Cybersecurity Awareness Month each year in October to help train and support Canadian researchers with the latest cybersecurity practices to help safeguard them and their research. This year, our Cybersecurity Training and Awareness Working Group coordinated a series of cybersecurity webinars, workshops and presentations. Thank you to everyone who took the time to participate!

Take part in Visualize This!

Visualize This! is a Canada-wide competition celebrating the innovative ways visualization can help researchers explore datasets and answer important scientific questions. Challenge your creativity; experiment with cutting-edge visualization tools and contribute to the growth of data visualization in Canada. The contest closes December 10, 2023. Learn more

Events

Visit our Training Calendar for online and in-person training events offered by our advanced research computing regional partners. 

Work With Us

If you would like to help us advance and invest in national DRI activities that will allow researchers to achieve scientific breakthrough and research excellence, please apply to our open positions today.

• Project Coordinator

Become an Alliance Member

The Alliance is accepting applications to join its growing membership of over 100 Canadian post-secondary institutions and research organizations. Become part of a national, bilingual not-for-profit organization accelerating Canada’s research future. We invite you to learn about Alliance membership and its benefits by emailing membership-adhesion@alliancecan.ca and visiting Become a member.