January 15, 2019

Editor: Justin Wan (secretary@caims.ca)

CONTENT

1. CAIMS Prizes and Awards: Nominations deadline January 31, 2019
2. CAIMS Election: Nominations deadline January 31, 2019
3. 2019 CAIMS*SCMAI Membership Renewal
4. Call for papers: Mathematics in Science and Industry (MSI)
5. NSERC liaison committee memo regarding an upcoming NSERC questionnaire

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Item 1
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CAIMS Prizes and Awards: Nominations deadline January 31, 2019

Nominations for the annual CAIMS Prizes and Awards will be closing soon. The deadline is fast approaching. If you want to nominate someone, now is the time! 1) Cecil Graham Doctoral Dissertation Award 2) CAIMS/PIMS Early Career Award 3) CAIMS*SCMAI Research Prize 4) CAIMS-Fields Industrial Mathematics Prize 5) Arthur Beaumont Distinguished Service Award Details of each prize/award as well as the supporting documents necessary for the nomination can be found at the nomination website: https://caims.ca/open-nominations/ A list of recent award recipients can also be found in the above website. Nominations must be submitted online by January 31, 2019.

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Item 2
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CAIMS Election: Nominations deadline January 31, 2019

Nominations for the 2019 CAIMS Election will be closing soon. The deadline is fast approaching. If you want to nominate someone, act now! CAIMS*SCMAI will be holding an election in this winter (March 2019) for: – President-Elect – Treasurer – Two Director positions The President-Elect position will be vacated by Thomas Hillen, who will become President at the 2019 Annual Meeting. At that time, Matt Davison will become the Past-President, in the position vacated by Ray Spiteri. The President-Elect appointment will be for two years. The Treasurer position will be vacated by Lucy Campbell. The term of Lucy Campbell will come to an end in 2019. The Treasurer position will be for a three-year term. The two Director positions will fill the positions to be vacated by Jane Heffernan and Tony Ware whose terms will come to an end in 2019. The Director positions will be for a three-year term. All members of CAIMS*SCMAI are invited to put forward names of candidates for these offices. Nominations should reach the CAIMS Secretary, Justin Wan (secretary@caims.ca) by January 31, 2019.

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Item 3
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2019 CAIMS*SCMAI Membership Renewal

If you do not want to miss CAIMS news, election, and other exciting activities, renew your CAIMS membership now (or sign up for a convenient lifetime membership!). Renewal is easy by simply clicking the link below: Individual memberships http://www.caims.ca/content/individual-membership Also please encourage your department chair to renew (or start!) an institutional membership: Institutional memberships http://www.caims.ca/content/institutional-membership Of course, CAIMS gives you many benefits, including a discount on SIAM and/or GAMM membership, a break on fees for our annual conference and, most importantly, the satisfaction of knowing you are supporting our Canadian Applied Mathematics Community. Thanks for your support of our society!

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Item 4
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Mathematics in Science and Industry (MSI): Call for papers

Help to build a strong reputation of CAIMS and MSI by submitting your next paper to MSI! MSI is an international journal that covers all aspects of Applied Mathematics. High quality is ensured by an excellent board of associate editors: Editors in chief: Thomas Hillen (University of Alberta, thillen@ualberta.ca) Ray Spiteri (University of Saskatchewan, spiteri@cs.usask.ca) Associate Editors: Lia Bronsard (McMaster University) Richard Craster (Imperial College on London, UK) Jane Heffernan (York University) Nicholas Kevlahan (McMaster University) Yong-Jung Kim (KAIST, Korea) Mark Lewis (University of Alberta) Kevin J. Painter (Heriot-Watt University, UK) Vakhtang Putkaradze (University of Alberta) John Stockie (Simon Fraser University) Jie Sun (Clarkson University, USA) Justin Wan (University of Waterloo) Michael Ward (University of British Columbia) Tony Ware (University of Calgary) We invite original papers and proposals for special issues. The first MSI issue is planned to appear in March 2019. For more details see: https://caims.ca/mathematics_in_science_and_industry/

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Item 5
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NSERC liaison committee memo regarding an upcoming NSERC questionnaire

A request from the NSERC-Math-Stat Liaison group

This is a special plea to the mathematics and statistics communities. NSERC, in its wisdom, has decided to evaluate its non-individual Discovery programs (Institutes, sub-atomic physics, research ships, and the like) by what is essentially a customer satisfaction poll. Leaving aside questions of statistical accuracy, this certainly goes against the basic principles of scientific evaluation, such as international peer review. These points were made, to no avail. The result is that all the Canadian scientists who are funded by NSERC, or who have applied recently, will receive a questionnaire. (A version was received by some of us under the signature of “Benoit Gauthier”). The relevant pieces for us are on the institutes.

While there is no official competition between disciplines for these resources, in an indirect way there always is. We are asking you to respond to the questionnaire, and in doing so, to take a few seconds to remember the scientific activities you have participated in, the post-docs or students in your department that the institutes have at least partially funded, the colloquia or the summer schools that they organise, and perhaps also the extra cash they have managed to extract from provincial governments or your universities for mathematics and statistics. Also, perhaps, the international presence they give to mathematics in Canada. In short, make an effort to remember. Your answer, then, is of course your own…

There will also be a question about the math-stat long range plan (LRP), and the allocation of funds that followed. They are asking about whether funds should flow as a priority to individual grants or the institutes. A somewhat leading question, asking people if they should receive more money or if it should go to someone else; perhaps the context of there being no real increase to our institutes in a dozen years, in spite of there being a major addition (CANSSI) to the pool, should be borne in mind.

Une requête du comité de Liaison entre le CRSNG et la communauté en sciences mathématiques

Par ce message, le comité de liaison demande l’aide des communautés mathématiques et statistiques. Le CRSNG, dans sa sagesse, a décidé d’évaluer la portion non distribuée en subventions individuelles de son programme de subventions à la découverte, soit la portion couvrant les instituts, la physique sous-atomique, etc. Le questionnaire proposé est essentiellement un questionnaire de satisfaction de la clientèle. Même en mettant de côté les questions de validité statistique, ceci va à l’encontre des principes de base de l’évaluation scientifique, par exemple par un comité international de pairs. Mais, le comité de liaison n’a pas réussi à faire valoir son point. En conséquence, tous les chercheurs subventionnés pas le CRNSG ou qui ont soumis une demande de subvention récemment recevront le questionnaire (probablement envoyé sous la signature de Benoit Gauthier). La partie du questionnaire qui est importante pour le comité de liaison est celle qui porte sur les instituts.

Bien qu’il n’y ait pas de compétition « officielle » entre les disciplines, en pratique il y en a une déguisée. Nous vous demandons de répondre au questionnaire et, ce faisant, de prendre quelques secondes pour vous rappeler les activités scientifiques auxquelles vous avez participé, les étudiants ou postdocs que votre département que les instituts ont partiellement financé, les colloques, écoles d’été et ateliers qu’ils organisent, ainsi que l’argent des gouvernements provinciaux ou des universités que leur présence amène pour les mathématiques et la statistique, sans oublier la visibilité internationale qu’ils donnent aux sciences mathématiques au Canada. Vos réponses, bien sûr, vous appartiennent.

Le questionnaire comprend aussi une question sur le “math-stat long range plan (LRP)” et l’allocation des fonds qui a suivi. La question demande si ces fonds doivent aller en priorité aux subventions individuelles ou aux instituts. La question est en peu perverse lorsqu’on demande aux chercheurs s’ils préfèrent plus d’argent pour eux ou pour les autres… Comme élément de contexte pour vousaider à répondre, dans les douze dernières années il n’y a pas eu d’augmentationde l’enveloppe des instituts, en dépit du fait qu’il y a maintenant un institut de plus, l’INCASS, pour partager la même enveloppe globale.

Merci d’avance de prendre de temps de répondre.