NSERC
The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) "aims to make Canada a country of discoverers and innovators for the benefit of all Canadians. The agency supports university students in their advanced studies, promotes and supports discovery research, and fosters innovation by encouraging Canadian companies to participate and invest in postsecondary research projects. NSERC researchers are on the vanguard of science, building on Canada's long tradition of scientific excellence."
The Collaborative Research Training Experience (CREATE) Program by NSERC supports the training of teams of highly qualified students and postdoctoral fellows from Canada and abroad through the development of innovative training programs that:
- encourage collaborative and integrative approaches, and address significant scientific challenges associated with Canada's research priorities; and
- facilitate the transition of new researchers from trainees to productive employees in the Canadian workforce.
These innovative programs must include the acquisition and development of important professional skills among students and postdoctoral fellows that complement their qualifications and technical skills.
In addition, these programs should encourage the following as appropriate:
- student mobility, nationally or internationally, between individual universities and between universities and other sectors;
- interdisciplinary research within the natural sciences and engineering (NSE), or at the interface between the NSE and health, or the social sciences and humanities. However, the main focus of the training must still lie within the NSE;
- increased collaboration between industry and academia; and
- with the addition of the industrial stream, an additional objective is to support improved job-readiness within the industrial sector by exposing participants to the specific challenges of this sector and training people with the skills identified by industry.
