January 18, 2008

ONTARIO RESEARCH FUND

The Ontario government is investing $527 million over five years through the Ontario Research Fund to support leading-edge research and development in Ontario’s universities, institutes and hospitals, and to leverage support from the federal government and private industry.

The fund is a key part of the province’s plan to support scientific excellence that can be developed into innovative goods and services that will boost Ontario’s economy.

The fund is made up of two streams:

• The Research Excellence program funds project operating costs, such as researchers’ salaries
• The Research Infrastructure program supports the acquisition of new research infrastructure.

The Ontario Research Fund is designed to provide one window for research funding. Proposals for funding are evaluated through a competitive, peer-review process. For more information, please visit www.ontario.ca/innovation.

Research Excellence Program – Round Two

Today’s announcement represents the second round of funding under the Research Excellence program. In this round, the government is providing $114,709,614 to support 19 projects. Funding will be matched by 107 major industry and other partners participating in the projects.

The research will:

• Support a cleaner, greener environment
• Support better health for Ontarians
• Support world-class science in a number of fields such as computing and astrophysics.

Including this round of funding, the Ontario Research Fund will have invested a total of $230 million for 45 projects and leveraged $460 million from 280 industry and other partners.

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