January 18, 2008

KINGSTON RECEIVES $23 MILLION FOR RESEARCH

Today’s announcement represents the second round of funding under the Ontario Research Fund’s Research Excellence program. In this round, the government is providing $23,513,474 to support two world-class projects at Queen’s University in Kingston. Funding will be matched by six industry and other partners participating in the projects.

Astroparticle Physics Projects at SNOLAB
Discovering the nature of the universe

Lead researcher: Dr. Anthony J. Noble
Total project cost: $53,923,170
Provincial funding: $17,974,390

Key private sector partners:
Vale-INCO

Researchers from Queen’s University, in collaboration with Carleton University and Laurentian University, will set out to confirm age-old questions of the Universe – like how it came to be and how it’s evolving.

Through the project, researchers will create the ideal conditions to observe invisible dark matter particles (left over relics from the Big-Bang) known to make up about 25 per cent of the mass of the universe, but which scientists know virtually nothing about. The research will take place at  SNOLAB, a new international facility for astroparticle physics that is the lowest radioactivity research location ever created. In this unique ultra-clean environment two kilometres underground in Vale-Inco’s Creighton mine in Sudbury, it’s possible to make measurements that are impossible anywhere else in the world – and to observe the rare, but fundamental, scientific phenomena that take place only a few times a year.

Greenhouse Gas Emission Free and Energy Efficient Power Technology for Information Systems
Developing green technologies to power information systems

Lead researcher: Dr. Praveen Jain
Total project cost: $16,617,243
Provincial funding: $5,539,084

Key private sector partners:
Cistel Technology Inc, Eion Wireless, IE Power, Nortel Networks

Research being done at Queen’s University has the potential to create globally superior computer systems that are highly energy-efficient and environmentally friendly.

The goal of the project is to increase efficiency by 15 to 20 per cent within the next five years and develop new commercially viable IT-specific renewable energy power systems, including wind and solar-based systems. In the process researchers intend to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by millions of tonnes a year. Currently, information-processing centres (IPCs) consume large amounts of energy to run and maintain computer systems, servers and associated components. How much power is available and how it can be reliably and continuously supplied is of great interest to IPC owners and their engineers, suppliers, investors and utilities.

Ontario Research Fund – Research Excellence Program

This second round of funding under the Research Excellence program will invest  $114,709,614 to support 19 world-class projects at nine Ontario universities, institutes and hospitals. Funding will be matched by 107 major industry and other partners participating in the projects.

For more information about the Ontario Research Fund, please visit www.ontario.ca/innovation.

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