PROOF Centre of Excellence’s current major funder is the Networks of Centre of Excellence (NCE). In 2008 the NCE granted the PROOF Centre of Excellence $15 million in funding for five years through the Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR) program.
The goal of the NCE CECR program is to create internationally recognized centres of commercialization and research expertise in order to deliver economic, social and environmental benefits to Canadians. The CECR program’s goal is accomplished by investing in research and commercialization centres that yield numerous benefits:
Commercialization
- Enhancing capacity by bringing together existing research strength, infrastructure, networks and funding sources.
- Attracting investment (including foreign direct investment and venture capital).
- Attracting and retain top talent (including internationally recognized business leaders).
- Opening up new opportunities for Canadian firms to access world-class research equipment, facilities and networks.
- Developing relationships with major international centres and research programs.
- Strengthen domestic collaborations with benefits that spill over to a wide array of firms, sectors and regions of the country.
- Creating Centres with a strong commercialization orientation that will be expected to become self-sufficient by the end of the funding period.
Research
- Enhancing capacity by bringing together existing research strength, infrastructure, networks and funding sources.
- Attracting top research talent (including post-graduate and post-doctoral students) from around the world.
- Providing high quality post-graduate and post-doctoral training in innovative and internationally competitive research.
- Strengthening domestic collaboration to address significant research challenges.
- Opening up new opportunities for Canadian researchers to access world-class research equipment, facilities and networks.
- Developing relationships with major international Centres and research programs.
- Creating Centres with a strong research orientation that yield significant public benefits by the end of the funding period.
The CECR model integrates funding from the government with industry and academia in an environment of focused commercialization to truly change our understanding and ability of how best to prevent, manage and treat the leading disease burdens in the 21st century.
