Canadian Institute for Advanced Research

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Founded in 1982, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research is a virtual institute dedicated to collaborative advanced research and scholarship of relevance to the Canadian and global community. Membership of the institute is by invitation and consists of senior scholars and scientists drawn from universities and research agenicies throughout Canada. The institute is unique both for its pursuit of knowledge for knowledge's sake, for its emphasis on long-term, collaborative approach to research.

Currently, CIAR supports research in 12 major multidisciplinary areas:

Cosmology and Gravity

Earth System Evolution

Evolutionary Biology

Experience-based Brain and Biological Development

Genetic Networks

Institutions, Organizations, and Growth

Nanoelectronics

Neural Computation and Adaptive Perception

Quantum Materials

Quantum Information Processing

Social Interactions, Identity and Well-Being

Successful Societies

CIAR sets its own research agenda, and works with senior academics around the world to identify major new areas of scholarly research where Canada has major potential to lead. The organization assembles diverse groups of scholars in its programs, many of whom are established leaders in their fields, and others of who are rising academic stars. The organization invests only in the researchers themselves, not in buildings, equipment, or laboratory supplies.

CIAR supports advanced research by providing program members with such time-freeing benefits as teaching release, funding to hire graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, and general research funding.

The hallmark of the CIAR research model is the unusual spirit of "deep collaboration" that is encouraged at regular program meetings. These meeting exist to bring together researchers from different countries, institutions, disciplines and levels of experience, who might never otherwise meet.

CIAR has a reputation for fostering new connections, ideas, and long-term relationships that lead to groundbreaking avenues of research and knowledge creation.