Mprime prior to May 16, 2021 was known as MITACS Inc. MITACS was created in 1999 as a federally-funded Network of Centres of Excellence (1999-March 31, 2014) to harness the power of mathematical tools and methodologies in order to address the inherent complexity of modern industrial and societal problems for the benefit of all Canadians.
"Too few people recognize that the high technology so celebrated today is essentially a mathematical technology."
These words of Edward David, ex-President of Exxon R&D, attest to the immense contributions mathematics can make to our knowledge-based society. But this fact, already known to policy makers and industrial leaders, raises a major challenge: too many of Canada's economic and societal challenges can benefit from the power of mathematics and so priorities had to be established - priorities that had a profound influence on the Mprime research program, and consequently on the research programs of dozens of Canadian scientists.
From the outset, Mprime's scientific leadership elected to focus on problems and mathematical solutions which addressed issues in the fastest growing sectors of the nation's economy. The research themes of Mprime directly address many of the priority sectors identified in the Canadian government's Innovation Strategy , and which reflects their high impact on Canada's economy. Mprime therefore focused its energy on tackling problems in five key sectors:
