Bishop’s University Membership to the Institut des Sciences Mathématiques: Thanks to the RESEARCH SUPPORT FUND

The Research Support Fund (RSF) of the Government of Canada is a program that provides funds to cover a portion of the costs associated with managing the research funded by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC). Research Support Fund grants are based on the funding received by researchers from the three federal agencies in the three most recent years for which data are available. One major objective of the RSF is to support the costs for management and administration of the institution’s research enterprise, which includes the training of faculty member and research personnel.

Funds from the RSF are allowing Bishop’s University to be an associate member of the Institut des Sciences Mathématiques (ISM). The ISM is a consortium of the mathematics departments of major universities in Quebec (Concordia University, McGill University, UQAM, Université de Montréal, Université de Sherbrooke, UQTR, Université Laval, HEC Montreal) which promotes mathematics and collaboration between member institutions (shared seminars, colloquium and courses). It also provides Bishop’s with scholarships, for example funding for summer undergraduate research internships and funding for students wishing to attend conferences and colloquia.

The Institut des Sciences Mathématiques also promotes mathematical sciences outside of academia, with a magazine distributed in high schools and Cegeps throughout Quebec, conferences for the general publics and Cegep students and their Math Circle. Promoting knowledge mobilization, the act of transforming knowledge into action, is also an objective of the Research Support Fund, an objective to which Bishop’s University is wholly committed.