Building upon the original goals of the BWF Preterm Birth Initiative, a recently convened Pregnancy Think Tank has helped shape the next generation of BWF preterm birth awards. Growing evidence suggests the interrelatedness of the duration of pregnancy, fetal growth, and adverse pregnancy outcomes such as preterm birth, preeclampsia, intrauterine growth restriction, stillbirth, and maternal medical complications including maternal mortality.

Other areas of interest are climate change and environmental impact on pregnancy, complications associated with ART, and epigenome-wide association studies.

We seek to expand the scope of this award mechanism to capture these and other pregnancy outcomes as we believe they will be mutually informative and accelerate discovery. Each award will continue to provide up to $500,000 over a four-year period ($125,000 per year).

The initiative is designed to stimulate both creative individual scientists and multi-investigator teams to approach healthy and adverse pregnancy outcomes using creative basic and translation science methods. The formation of new connections between reproductive scientists and investigators who are involved in other areas is particularly encouraged.

Commercialization stream funding is focused on scaling innovative technologies, products and services to the real world or commercial environment. It ensures technologies and best practices are suitable for commercial use and ready to be widely used.

This stream will fund activities which may include:

• market validation — conducting market research to determine the size and quality of market opportunity for a new and promising technology, product or service
• product development — creating prototypes, performing field trials, removing any barriers to a market launch or private sector adoption and optimizing a minimum viable product that best meets the needs of customers (will advance technologies through TRL 7-9)

The NSERC Donna Strickland Prize for Societal Impact of Natural Sciences and Engineering Research recognizes an individual or team whose outstanding research in the natural sciences and engineering (NSE), conducted in Canada, has led to exceptional benefits for Canadian society, environment or economy.

If you are interested in being nominated for one of these awards, please contact Dr. Batia Stolar, Associate VP, Research & Graduate Studies, at bstolar@lakeheadu.ca.

The Brockhouse Canada Prize for Interdisciplinary Research in Science and Engineering recognizes highly collaborative Canadian teams of researchers from different disciplines who have combined their expertise to produce achievements of outstanding significance in the natural sciences or engineering.

The Synergy Awards for Innovation honour partnerships of strong, complementary and collaborative teams who have generated new knowledge and accelerated the application of research results to create benefits for Canada and Canadians. The awards recognize outstanding teams that have combined their expertise and resources to create partnerships resulting in significant impacts.

Synergy Awards for Innovation include two categories:

• University partnerships: A partnership between one or more eligible Canadian universities and one or more non-academic partner organizations. The highlighted research partnership must focus on natural sciences or engineering.
• College partnerships: A partnership between one or more eligible Canadian colleges and one or more non-academic partner organizations. The highlighted research partnership can be across the spectrum of natural and social sciences, engineering, humanities or health.

Arthur B. McDonald Fellowships recognize early-stage academic researchers in the natural sciences and engineering, and support them in enhancing their research capacity so that they can become leaders in their field and inspire others. NSERC awards up to six McDonald Fellowships each year.

The NSERC John C. Polanyi Award recognizes and supports a university researcher or team of researchers whose work has led to a recent outstanding Canadian advance in the natural sciences or engineering.

The Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering is awarded annually to an individual whose body of work, conducted in Canada in the natural sciences or engineering, has demonstrated persistent excellence and influence.

if you are interested in being nominated for this award, contact Dr. Batia Stolar, Associate VP, Research & Graduate Studies at bstolar@lakeheadu.ca.

The NSERC Awards for Science Promotion recognize individuals and groups who inspire others by promoting science to the general public.

Examples of science promotion activities that could be considered for the award include:

• organizing science camps, fairs, clubs or mentorship programs with youth organizations
• enhancing equity, diversity and inclusion in existing programs
• creating new learning materials
• sharing best practices for science and engineering outreach
• developing co-op programs or job shadowing opportunities related to science and engineering
• arranging demonstrations, visits or lectures
• writing books or articles
• creating radio or television programs
• engaging the public through multimedia programs