ICICS and The Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies form a new partnership.

In recognition of the current funding landscape, one of the major goals of ICICS’ Strategic Plan is to foster new collaborative, multidisciplinary research groups to tackle important problems in computing, information, and cognitive systems. The Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies (PWIAS) promotes a similar approach to a wide range of basic research, aimed at fostering research excellence and interdisciplinarity, and creating a community of scholars across the UBC campus. It therefore made sense for ICICS Director Nimal Rajapakse to approach his counterpart at PWIAS, Dr. Diane Newell, about pooling resources. Newell, a social historian with an interest in science and technology, liked the idea, and the two of them identified the following programs for joint funding; each must target research in areas of mutual interest to ICICS and PWIAS:

1. Up to four PWIAS Theme Development Workshops per year, each consisting of an informal, half-day meeting of UBC researchers to exchange ideas about a research theme.

2. Up to two PWIAS Exploratory Workshops per year, in which 25-50 scholars from a broad range of disciplines are brought together for several days to discuss a proposed multidisciplinary research project with major potential impact.

3. Three PWIAS Early Career Scholar Awards per year, targeting tenure-track faculty whose multidisciplinary research shows great promise.

Under this three-year, renewable, partnership agreement, proposals must be submitted to PWIAS by a full ICICS member, as Project Leader. See www.pwias.ubc.ca/programs for funding amounts and further application details. PWIAS conference facilities and ICICS facilities will also be made available to ICICS and PWIAS members, respectively, upon approval of both directors.

Founded in 1991, the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies is the senior research institute at the University of British Columbia. It supports basic research through collaborative, interdisciplinary initiatives that have the potential to make important advances in knowledge. The Institute brings together scholars from UBC with distinguished researchers and experts from around the world to investigate fundamental research drawing upon and contributing to a wide range of diverse disciplines. Of overriding concern for all Institute activities is excellence in research characterized by being fundamental, interdisciplinary, innovative, and unique.