Of the 19 scientific centres at universities across the country receiving operational funding from the federal government, four are from the University of Saskatchewan.
USask Vice President Research, Baljit Singh, adds that the total funding across Canada is more than $628-million and the four USask centres will receive nearly $170-million of that, meaning these projects are receiving about 27 per cent of the operational funding.

For three of the centres, it’s retained funding.  They are the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, the Canadian Light Source synchrotron, and SuperDarn, which monitors space weather which can effect things like navigation, GPS, and electrical grids. Global Water Futures Observatories is the fourth and its operational funding from the government is new.  GFWO operates across seven provinces and territories to monitor and support the development of solutions for the impending water crisis due to things like climate change, poor water management, toxic contaminants and environmental degradation.

Baljit says all four projects deal with trying to protect humanity – the pandemic, changes in the atmosphere, climate change and water security issues, and the CLS allows us to develop new technologies, materials and nano-materials to support a variety of scientific enterprises across the world.  USask President Peter Stoicheff says this investment highlights the critical contributions our world-class research centres are making nationally and globally.