1) Canadian Government to Facilitate Space Data Partnering Opportunity with the UK
With the mantra of a whole of government approach at work, a team effort by several government departments is underway to organize a space-data partnering mission to the United Kingdom (UK) next March.
Specifically, Global Affairs Canada (GAC) is partnering with the National Research Council’s (NRC) Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) with support from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) on this mission to the UK.
According to the email notification circulated by GAC and forwarded by the CSA, the “mission aims to establish a collaborative R&D network of Canadian and British companies and research partners active in the global geo-information market. “
In characterizing the opportunity GAC states “within a global market for geospatial information estimated by GeoBuiz at over $300 billion and growing at 14% p.a. (per annum), the UK is identified as having ‘rich data infrastructure and a conducive policy framework for adoption’, which is an ideal complement to Canada, which ‘makes high-quality and authoritative spatial data to support innovation’. Together, the UK and Canada have many of the key ingredients for globally competitive geo-information services as well as the industries to deliver the systems necessary to capture, curate and convert data into information, information into decisions, and decisions into advantage.”
GAC notes that further details of the mission and a call for applications will be announced at the end of October on the Canadian International Innovation Program (CIIP) website and circulated through various email networks.
According to GAC the opportunity would benefit;
- Innovative, profit-oriented SMEs or Canadian research institutes working on applied or commercially-driven research and technology;
- Organisations working in global value chains providing value-added geo-information for decision support, including:
- Operators and end-users deriving value from geo-information services;
- Decision support tool developers and integrators;
- Analytics and algorithm service providers;
- Information system (HW/SW/Operations) developers; and
- Information sub-system developers, including instruments, communications, platforms, operations, or infrastructure.
More information on the mission is available by contacting Dr. Caroline Martin, Trade Commissioner for Science & Innovation at the High Commission of Canada in London: Caroline.Martin@international.gc.ca.
2) New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) – Transformation Stream
We are anticipating a call for proposals in October 2019 for the Transformation Stream of the New Frontiers in Research Fund. The Transformation stream is designed to support large-scale, Canadian-led interdisciplinary research projects that address a major challenge with the potential to realize real and lasting change (high reward). The challenge may be fundamental, leading to a scientific breakthrough, or applied, with a social, economic, environmental or health impact. Projects are expected to be world-leading, drawing on global research expertise, where relevant.
The Transformation stream grants will support projects that:
- tackle a well-defined problem or challenge;
- propose a novel world-leading approach that is different from the current state-of-the art approaches to the issue;
- are interdisciplinary, bringing different perspectives to the defined problem; and
- have the potential to be transformative, defined as the potential to create a significant and real change or impact—a noticeable leap or tangible breakthrough versus an incremental advance.
Further details can be found here. As these are large-scale, interdisciplinary research projects, if you are considering applying, please contact a Research Facilitator to discuss further.
