Dr. Sophie D'Amours: Green forests, green dollars: rebuilding Canada’s forest products industry leadership through innovation Innovation and knowledge are the centerpieces of a remarkable transformation of Canada’s forest products industry. The old vision of exporting logs and pulp is being swept away by a new paradigm of sustainable forest management, innovative and value-added products, integrated […]

Dr. Daniel Krewski: Decision-making in an uncertain world Are cell phones safe? Are there valid replacements for animals in toxicology tests? What are the health threats from emerging diseases? Questions about safety and reliability pervade today’s complex technology-driven world. Yet definitive answers rarely come quickly or easily. This talk will explore some of the fundamental […]

James Franklin: Geoscience as a Key to Canada’s Economic Competitiveness, Wealth and Development While mining and energy currently contribute more than $45 billion annually to the Canadian economy, clouds are rolling over the horizon. In as little as 10 years, the global appetite for both conventional and high-technology metals will likely outstrip supply. The pace […]

Dr. Richard Peltier: The Lowdown on the Meltdown Gravity measurements from space reveal a rapid loss of land ice from both Greenland and Antarctica. These observations, the most accurate yet, confirm the link between increasing greenhouse gas concentrations in the lower atmosphere and accelerated warming in the northern hemisphere—a warming that is amplified as ice […]

Dr. Stephen Larter: Alternate futures for the oil sands industry: from the age of steam to the age of biology Underground steam injection has made in situ recovery of oil sands bitumen possible, but it comes at a high cost. The boiling of water consumes energy and can create significant carbon emissions of its own. […]

Dr. Andreas Athienitis: Cities in the Sun: The Path Towards Smart Net-zero Energy Solar Buildings and Communities Imagine a building that acts as a small power plant, able to produce as much energy on-site as it consumes over a year. Net-zero energy buildings (NZEBs) are today becoming technically possible by combining energy efficiency measures with […]

Dr. Thierry Chopin: Towards a More Sustainable and Diversified Aquaculture Fulfilling aquaculture’s growth potential requires responsible technologies and practices. Sustainable aquaculture must be ecologically efficient, environmentally benign, provide diversified products, and be both profitable and societally beneficial. Integrated Multi-Trophic Aquaculture (IMTA) combines farmed fish with species of seaweeds and invertebrates in such a way that […]

The pharmaceutical sector is under stress: globally, research budgets are decreasing, and research and development sites are closing. New R&D models are required to ensure the development of drugs to treat diseases like Alzheimer’s and mental illness. The Structural Genomics Consortium, founded in 2003, works to identify proteins that are potential drug targets – one […]

Line Rochefort, Université Laval Thursday February 7, 2013 Major disruption of natural landscapes is too often the unavoidable consequence of extracting economic value from Canada's natural resources. While Université Laval biologist Line Rochefort is under no illusion about the difficulty of bringing disturbed systems back to a viable natural state, she and her colleagues have […]

Paul C. Van Oorschot, Carleton University Thursday March 7, 2013 At this breakfast, we will explore the key questions related to security and mobile devices:What software is running your smartphone, how did  it get there, and who is responsible for it? The answers are surprising - for example, today's dominant smartphone platform delegates essentially all […]

Gordon McBean, Western University Thursday April 18, 2013 North Americans are now confronted with a growing number of catastrophic weather events. With near unprecedented fury, these events frequently disrupt communities and economies over huge areas. In the last two years alone, direct costs to Canadian insurers reached nearly $3 billion. Warmer temperatures mean more hot […]

Howard Wheater, University of Saskatchewan Thursday May 23, 2013 While Canada is widely perceived as water-rich, forces such as climate change, pollution and competing water needs are creating unprecedented challenges to our water security. Governance issues pose major challenges since many water bodies cross provincial, state or national borders, with high-stakes consequences for upstream and […]