MONTREAL — When Canada’s Conservative government presented its 2011 budget in late March, the fiscal plan didn’t contain too many surprises for science funding. Like previous budgets, the proposal offered modest increases to the country’s national research agencies and replenished the coffers of Genome Canada, its genomics and proteomics outfit. But the budget also contained a flashy and unprecedented new move: a multimillion-dollar earmark for neuroscience research.

Under the Conservatives’ proposed scheme, the government would contribute up to C$100 million ($105 million) over several years to the Canada Brain Research Fund, a public-private partnership led by the Brain Canada Foundation in collaboration with the Canadian Association for Neuroscience and Neurological Health Charities Canada (NHCC). The government money would then be matched by funds raised from private sources by Brain Canada to support large, multidisciplinary neuroscience grants, postdoctoral fellowships and training programs.

Read the full story at Nature Medicine(subscription required). Published online 5 May 2011.

Magnetic Resonance Imaging scan of a head. Released under the GFDL by en:User:TheBrain on 20 May 2003.

Written by Hannah

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.