Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR)

CIFAR has been successfully taking on difficult challenges for more than three decades. Our global research programs connect many of the world’s best minds – across borders and between disciplines – to shape new perspectives and spark groundbreaking ideas. By helping innovative pioneers push further, and inspiring young research leaders to join them, we are able to expand the boundaries of understanding in ways that would otherwise not be possible.

We offer our research fellows the rarest of commodities: freedom to take the kinds of intellectual risks that are essential for creating truly transformative knowledge. And then we help to share that knowledge – on everything from improving human health to advancing technology, from building strong societies to sustaining the Earth – with engaged stakeholders who are ready to put ideas into action.

The work of our fellows and advisors has transformed our understanding of population health, the Earth’s evolution, early brain development, artificial intelligence, the effect of institutions on prosperity, and much more.

CIFAR is a global convenor of leading researchers and organizations. With 12 research programs in its portfolio, CIFAR is now comprised of more than 400 fellows and advisors in more than 130 institutions in 17 countries.

CIFAR fellows are among the most highly cited and honoured researchers in the world. Eighteen Nobel Laureates have been associated with CIFAR since its inception, including the most recent recipient, Arthur B. McDonald, associate fellow in CIFAR’s program in Gravity & the Extreme Universe, who received the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics.

The Insitute is four years into an organizational transformation designed to broaden and deepen the impact of its research investments by emphasizing three points of accountability: creating transformative knowledge; positioning stakeholders to act; and nurturing the next generation of research leaders.

In April, 2016, CIFAR launched the CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars program, a new core element of the CIFAR Global Academy that provides competitive fellowships to support some of the most promising new university faculty members in the world.

CIFAR continues to form exciting new partnerships with prestigious international research institutes and new alliances with knowledge user communities to expand its global reach and impact. In November 2016, CIFAR hosted the CIFAR Forum on the Well-Being of the World’s Children, bringing together an internationally diverse gathering of senior leaders in government, NGOs and global research to generate insights with the potential to impact global policy and inform a new call for research proposals at CIFAR.

CIFAR is generously supported by the governments of Canada, British Columbia, Alberta, Ontario and Quebec, Canadian and international partners, as well as individuals, foundations and corporations. CIFAR’s international partners include the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Inria in France.