CFI names new head

Eliot A. Phillipson, currently the chair of the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto, is to become the new president and chief executive officer of the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), effective July 1, succeeding David Strangway. The CFI is an independent corporation created in 1997 by the government of Canada to fund research infrastructure with a remit “to strengthen the capacity of Canadian universities, colleges, research hospitals, and other nonprofit research organizations.”Strangway announced last August that he would be stepping down on March 31, 2004. The CFI's senior vice president, Carmen Charette, will serve as acting president during the interim period.Asked by The Scientist about his 6 years at the CFI helm, Strangway said he felt the CFI had “accomplished more than I anticipated we could do. I think what I see as something really great can be summed up in three key words: empower, decentralize, and compete.” “With funds now coming from CFI and from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and through the Canada Research Chairs program, as well as CFI money for hospital research costs, indirect costs, and support for graduate students, it means that Canadian researchers have been given an enormously powerful tool to decide where they're going to spend their money. They are able to set priorities and reach for the stars,” he said.The CFI funds up to 40% of a project's infrastructure costs. These funds are invested in partnerships with eligible institutions and their funding partners from the public, private, and voluntary sectors who provide the remaining 60% of a project's cost. Since 1997, more than $2 billion CDN ($1.5 billion USD) has been allocated in 56 municipalities across the country, covering about 3000 research projects. The CFI is currently funded by the government through 2010. “We just finished a major [grants] competition, a new government is in place, and there won't be another major competition for a bit,” explained Strangway, who is nearing 70, “so there's a natural breathing spell here, which can give a new person time to settle in. This was the right time [to leave] for David Strangway and also for CFI.”Phillipson told The Scientist that the CFI had had “a transforming effect on the sciences in Canada by increasing competitiveness and especially in recruiting and retaining people. It's done that across the spectrum of the sciences. If you take a broad view of the progress of science in the last 50 years of the 20th century, it has been characterized by differentiation. But as we go into the 21st century, it's going to be increasingly a case of integration and convergence across scientific disciplines and across geographic boundaries.”As a result, he says, those increasingly blurred boundaries—both scientific and geographic—will see more and more money allocated to research with some life science-related component. About half CFI's grants could now be characterized as health-related. Although reluctant to go into specific detail about his priorities until he takes over officially, he nevertheless told The Scientist, “Clearly, the life sciences are a major and important piece of the CFI funding.”Phillipson, who is scheduled to relinquish his chair in the Department of Medicine in June, has been a continuous recipient of Medical Research Council/Canadian Institutes of Health Research funding support since 1971 for his research into the regulation of respiration during sleep. The recipient of numerous international honors and awards, he will later this year receive the President's Award of the European Respiratory Society.

CFI names new head

Eliot Phillipson will control Canada Foundation for Innovation's $3.5 billion CDN budget

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