Research Committee
Mandate
” The Research Committee solicits input from the CS research community and works to shape government action and funding policies to further the progress of Computer Science research and support computer science researchers. It also advises the community about government and funding agency programs and policies and facilitates the sharing of best practices of how to use them.”
Mission
The mission of the Research Committee is to help further the CS research agenda, make sure that researchers are aware of new funding opportunities and the trends in research funding priorities, and that the needs of all CS researchers are well represented when helping the Science Policy makers in the Government, Industry Canada and granting agencies craft their program, priorities and policies. We need to educate both Universities and Granting Councils about discipline-specific evaluation criteria, for example, we should work on including highly selective CS conferences into bibliometric databases and metrics.
Goals
Make the case that CS research is relevant to everything that is important for society: economy, health, environment, safety and resilience, inequality etc.
Educate the other sciences and society about the importance of CS research, not just the tools created by CS that are already in use.
Listen to the CS community to find the new promising research areas for which we should be lobbying for funding.
Develop mechanisms, learning from the Computer Research Association (CRA) experience developing a mechanism based on wide participation of researchers (wisdom of crowds approach): individual researchers propose such areas, and facilitates team building for large collaborative projects or networks across the country.
Provide the leg-work, design mechanisms, find contacts, pass on information appropriately to other CS-Can | Info-Can Board committees, e.g. the Education or Outreach committee or to government funding agencies (NSERC, MITACS, CFI).
Composition of the Research Committee
The Research Committee is relatively small to allow for agility and better interaction. In order to ensure that the voices of the board and diverse Canadian CS community are heard, a Research Advisory Committee (RAC) is established for consulting the Research Committee on specific questions.
Committee Members
Research Advisory Committee (RAC)
RAC consists of approximately 20 members selected based on their research excellence and representing different broad research areas, geographical location and institution type, as well as gender diversity. Its mandate is to consult the Research Committee on particular questions concerning priorities, policies, research area specific questions, etc.
Members of the Research Advisory Committee (RAC)
- Alex Aravind, University of Northern British Columbia
- Mathieu Blanchette, McGill University
- Andrea Bunt, University of Manitoba,
- Martha Chechik, University of Toronto,
- Aaron Genest, Mentor Inc. (Siemens) – industry member,
- Paola Floccini, University of Ottawa,
- Satish Golapakrishnan, UBC ,
- Evangelos Milios, Dalhousie University,
- Parvin Mousavi, Queen’s University,
- Rita Orji, Dalhousie University,
- Joerg Sack, Carleton University,
- Alla Sheffer, University of British Columbia
If you are interested in joining this committee, please contact our office.
Gina van Dalen
Executive Director
gina_vandalen@cscan-infocan.ca