Collaboration with our international partners occurs through:
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Focused research periods, where MITACS scientists spend two or more weeks visiting teams at other partner sites, collaborating on identified research problems. Additionally, MITACS research teams similarly host scientists.
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Training of highly-qualified personnel, which sees the planning of graduate training schools, industrial problem solving schools, providing funding for students to travel to conduct research with a partner and graduate internships.
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Networking and events, involving funding for travel, meeting organization and other associated
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Africa
In November 2007, MITACS co-organized a meeting in Uganda to discuss potential collaboration surrounding the modelling of infectious diseases such as HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB. Attendees from the Uganda Department of Public Health and The AIDS Support Organizations (TASO), as well as mathematicians from the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, University of Ottawa, University of New Brunswick, York University, McMaster University and University of Manitoba met for three days. The result was the formation of the Canada-Africa Biomathematics Network (CABN).
The first initiative of the CABN was a graduate training workshop for August 2008. This intense, two-week math "boot-camp" brought African and Canadian grad students up to speed on the latest mathematical modelling skills which will be deployable in future global public health crises.
New collaborations resulting from the CABN are already bearing fruit. Robert Smith? (University of Ottawa) and Senelani Hove-Musekwa (National University of Science & Technology in Zimbabwe) have co-authored a paper detailing, from a mathematical perspective, the optimal way to spray insecticide in Sub-Saharan Africa to control mosquitoes, a major carrier of the malarial parasite.
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Australia
In Australia, MITACS collaborates with MASCOS - the ARC Centre of Excellence for Mathematics and Statistics for Complex Systems. Founded in 2003 to stimulate research activity having economic, social, and cultural benefits to Australia, MASCOS is active in six universities and has a distributed structure similar to MITACS. MASCOS and MITACS will collaborate mainly in the theme areas of finance and security.
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China
MITACS collaborations with the Mathematical Centre of the Chinese Ministry of Education (MCME) are funded by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), a public corporation created by the Canadian government to help communities in the developing world find solutions to social, economic, and environmental challenges.
The MCME was created to pool mathematical expertise at the country's best research universities and institutions. MITACS and MCME have a long-standing history of collaboration on joint meetings dating back to 1999. This was substantially expanded in 2003 when the SARS crisis hit both countries and the two organizations launched the Canada-China Exchange Program. MITACS and MCME are collaborating mainly in around issues of disease spread with additional activities planned in the biomedicine theme.
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European Union
The BioSim Network of Excellence, representing the European Union, collaborates with MITACSin the area of biomedicine. Established in 2004 under the European Commission's 6th Framework Programme, BioSim uses mathematical and computer simulation techniques to develop in silico models of cellular, physiological and pharmacological processes to gain a deeper understanding of biological processes. It funds 19 projects that involve 200 scientists at 26 universities in 10 EU countries.
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France
On July 2, 2008, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and French Prime Minister François Fillon announced a unique collaboration between Canadian and French mathematicians on key issues of information and communication security and health at a ceremony this afternoon on Parliament Hill.
The two prime ministers signed a joint declaration recognizing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between MITACS - the Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems, a Canadian Network of Centres of Excellence (1999-March 31, 2014) – and INRIA – L’institut national de recherche en informatique et en automatique, the French national institute for research in computer science and control.
Under the terms of the MOU, MITACS and INRIA will hold joint workshops, support graduate student exchanges between French and Canadian universities and one to three month research visits for both junior and senior mathematicians to visit the other country. Canadian scientists will benefit from unprecedented contact with leading French mathematicians and industry partners and the resulting research innovations.
The two organizations will also collaborate on issues related to health, furthering the development of mathematical models to help to characterize, diagnose and treat disease such as cancer. Mathematical models are used by scientists to better understand the complex processes within the human body and how these processes relate to a person’s health.
Thus far, MITACS is collaborating with the following organizations in France:
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Université Joseph Fourier and the Institute National Polytechnique de Grenoble
- Cryptis: Formations en Cryptologie et Sécurité de L’information
- Master Parisien de Recherche en Informatique
- École Supérieure et d’application des Transmissions
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Germany
In Germany, MITACS is actively collaborating with Matheon - the Mathematics for Key Technologies. Matheon is a DFG Research Centre founded in 2002 focusessing on mathematical modeling, simulation and optimization of real-world processes. The centre encompasses three major universities and two mathematical institutes in Berlin. The main areas of collaboration between MITACS and MATHEON are in the biomedicine and finance themes.
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Mexico
MITACS partners with le Consejo Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnologia - or CONACYT - Mexico's national research funding agency in the Banff International Research Station (BIRS). In collaboration with other partners including Canada's Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) the US' National Science Foundation and the Alberta Science Research Authority, BIRS provides an environment for optimizing opportunities for creative interaction and the exchange of ideas, knowledge, and methods within the mathematical sciences and with related sciences and industry.
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USA
The Institute for Pure and Applied Mathematics, an NSF Mathematical Sciences Institute begun in 2000 to make connections and foster collaborations and connections between mathematics and other disciplines and broaden the range of applications in which mathematics is used. IPAM runs thematic programs that bring together scientists and other stakeholders on specific topics. IPAM and MITACS will collaborate on biomedicine and security research and on a new innovative training program.