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Healthy Canadians
Description
Enhancing the health and wellness of Canadians across all life stages.
Objectives
- Promote physical and mental health and wellness, including addressing the social, economic, and environmental determinants of health
- Prevent and treat disease, whether chronic, rare or infectious, including emerging public health threats and future pandemics
- Support Canada’s readiness for health emergencies
- Strengthen health care and primary care
Areas of focus
- Aging population (e.g., chronic conditions, dementia, healthcare systems)
- Antimicrobial resistance (e.g., OneHealth, microbiology, genetics)
- Brain health (e.g., Alzheimer’s, dementia)
- Indigenous health
- Mental health and wellness
- Precision medicine (e.g., treatment, prevention, diagnostics, imaging and analytics)
- Primary care (e.g., delivery models, access, and outcome improvements)
- Problematic substance abuse
- Public and population health
- Regenerative medicine (e.g., stem cells, tissue engineering, cell therapy)
- Vaccinology and therapeutics (e.g., vaccine development, CAR-T cell research)
Cross-cutting disciplines and applications
- Enabling technologies (e.g., AI, blockchain, genomics, quantum)
- Social sciences and humanities, including ethics
Innovative and Resilient Communities
Description
Building thriving communities that are inclusive, liveable, smart and safe.
Objectives
- Reduce economic and societal inequality, including through addressing systemic barriers to economic and social inclusion
- Improve and strengthen public institutions and public trust
- Support diverse forms of creativity to foster innovation
Areas of focus
- Data (e.g., data privacy, security, collection, analysis, communication, ownership, use)
- Governance and public institutions (e.g., democracy, security, public trust, law)
- Healthy communities (e.g., social dimensions of aging; economic and social determinants of health)
- Inclusive growth (e.g., business-sector innovation, digital economy, marginalization/inclusion, research barriers)
- Inclusive societies (e.g., reconciliation, systemic barriers, cross-cultural understandings, social cohesion, transportation, housing)
- Inequality (e.g., social, economic, health)
- Resilient infrastructure
- The North
- Technological solutions to address community opportunities and challenges (e.g., smart cities)
- Technology and society (e.g., impact and ethics of AI, bioscience, surveillance; impact of technology on relationships and human systems, transportation)
Cross-cutting disciplines and applications
- Enabling technologies (e.g., AI, blockchain, genomics, quantum)
- Social sciences and humanities, including ethics
Sustainable Food Systems
Description
Maximizing Canada’s agri-food potential to support economic growth and secure, equitable access to food.
Objectives
- Protect food sources through clean innovations in agri- and aqua-culture that enhance biosecurity, support biodiversity and improve water and waste management
- Enhance food quality, safety, stability and shelf life
- Develop and apply innovative technologies to improve agricultural processes and products and reduce carbon emissions
Areas of focus
- Agri- and aqua-culture (e.g., regenerative agriculture, genomics-enabled agriculture)
- Agri- and irrigation technology (e.g., smart/precision agriculture, plant biotechnology, nanobiotechnology)
- Bioeconomy
- Climate change research
- Food sovereignty (e.g.,Northern and Indigenous communities)
- Indigenous-led agriculture (e.g., Indigenous plants, products, and knowledge)
- Livestock health and sustainability (e.g., livestock vaccine research)
- Plant health
- Proteins and alternative food sources
- Safety and security of food supply chain (e.g., blockchain technology)
Cross-cutting disciplines and applications
- Enabling technologies (e.g., AI, blockchain, genomics, quantum)
- Social sciences and humanities, including ethics
Clean and Resource-Rich Canada
Description
Fighting climate change and protecting Canada’s environment while harnessing the potential of our natural resources to support a resilient, sustainable economy and high quality of life.
Objectives
- Fight climate change through the advancement of knowledge and applications in climate science (mitigation)
- Enhance resiliency to the adverse effects of climate change (adaptation)
- Preserve and protect the natural environment, including water, air and soil quality, and its biodiversity
- Develop sustainable approaches to resource extraction and processing that maximize economic value and minimize adverse environmental impacts
- Advance energy diversification and renewable and next-generation clean energy
- Develop and accelerate the adoption of clean technologies across the economy and society
- Integrate different knowledge systems, including traditional, community, and Western science
- Accelerate progress in difficult-to-decarbonize sectors of the Canadian economy, such as aerospace
Areas of focus
- Alternative energy technologies (e.g., carbon dioxide conversion; industrial-scale hydrogen production; high-performing clean battery technology; small modular reactors; wind and solar power; geothermal and waste heat)
- Circular economy (e.g., waste treatment, management and value creation; greening manufacturing; sustainable food packing and new compostable materials to replace single-use plastics)
- Clean technologies
- Clean transportation (e.g., electrification, green aviation, clean fuels and materials)
- Climate change research (e.g., mitigation; adaptation and resilience; climate monitoring, modeling and prediction; sensing technologies; human impacts; climate policy)
- Conservation ecology (e.g., biodiversity, OneHealth)
- Energy (e.g., sustainable oil and natural gas technologies and processes)
- Forestry (e.g., forest ecology, fire science, sustainable forest management)
- Green chemistry
- Low carbon materials for the construction sector
- Modern mining (e.g., sustainable mining technologies and processes)
- Northern and Arctic (e.g., polar science, Indigenous resilience and adaptation)
- Reducing energy consumption for the transport of data
- Water (e.g., oceans science and technologies, blue economy)
Cross-cutting disciplines and applications
- Enabling technologies (e.g., AI, blockchain, genomics, quantum)
- Social sciences and humanities, including ethics
Technologically Advanced Canada
Description
Advancing transformative and enabling technologies that will support a technologically advanced economy and society.
Objectives
- Develop enabling and digital technologies and leverage disruption to support innovation
- Transform manufacturing processes and practices to enhance productivity
- Advance knowledge on public acceptance and adoption of new technologies
- Accelerate transition to a more digitally enabled society
Areas of focus
- Artificial intelligence (e.g., machine and deep learning; human emotions/language applications, including Indigenous languages; surveillance, computer vision)
- Big data technologies and analytics (e.g., Internet of Things, blockchain, predictive and cognitive analytics)
- Biomanufacturing
- Cybersecurity (e.g., confidential computing technology and processes)
- Genomics and applied science
- Materials and processing technologies (e.g., new and advanced materials; chemical manufacturing; metal, non-metal, composite material, and photonics manufacturing; nanotechnology)
- Micro-electronics and semi-conductors design and manufacturing
- Next generation communication technology (e.g., 5G, 6G)
- Photonics
- Quantum technologies (e.g., quantum computing, quantum sensing)
- Smart and digital manufacturing (e.g., robotics, embedded sensors, 3D printing)
- Space economy
Cross-cutting disciplines and applications
- Enabling technologies (e.g., AI, blockchain, genomics, quantum)
- Social sciences and humanities, including ethics