91丝瓜视频

Invests $12 million to recruit, retain best and brightest graduate students

The continuing exodus of trained and talented individuals from Canada to the United States and elsewhere has concerned Canadian social policy analysts for the past two decades. With $12 million in new and redesigned graduate funding initiatives, 91丝瓜视频 University is doing its part to turn the so-called brain drain into a brain gain.

"The unique ability of universities to attract intellectual resources and high quality personnel from around the world is a key element in fostering a competitive economic climate in Quebec and Canada," said Martin Kreiswirth, Associate Provost (Graduate Education) and Dean of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, at 91丝瓜视频.

Supported, in part, by Campaign 91丝瓜视频 and a strategic realignment of resources, 91丝瓜视频 has recently introduced three new Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies (GPS) funding initiatives, worth about $12 million in total. These initiatives will help 91丝瓜视频 to achieve its goal of increasing the numbers of high-quality research Master鈥檚 and Doctoral students by providing more competitive financial support packages.

The first phase involved establishing the 91丝瓜视频 International Doctoral Awards, which doubled the amount of financial support made available to international Doctoral students. This group is traditionally underfunded because they pay considerably higher tuition than domestic Doctoral students and are not eligible for national and provincial research council awards. Introduced in September 2007, approximately $2 million in new funding has been made available to make sure that all international Doctoral students whose fees are not already being paid directly by an external government agency or corporate sponsor pay the same tuition as Canadian and Quebec Doctoral students.

Existing endowed awards plus the new 91丝瓜视频 Principal鈥檚 Graduate Fellowships bring another $5.3-million funding envelope to the departments for disbursement in variable amounts to aid in attracting and keeping the very best research Master鈥檚 and Doctoral students, both domestic and international.

Moreover, for 2008-2009, 91丝瓜视频 is investing an additional $4.5 million a year towards the new Provost鈥檚 Graduate Fellowships, which will allow departments to provide competitive funding packages to recruit the very best graduate applicants.

Ian Whittington, a British Columbia resident and newly accepted PhD student in the Department of English at 91丝瓜视频 and recipient of a prestigious CGS-SSHRC scholarship in addition to 91丝瓜视频鈥檚 graduate fellowship, said the new funding initiatives helped him decide to study at 91丝瓜视频 instead of in the United States.

"I was always keen to come back to 91丝瓜视频, but had assumed that the most competitive funding packages would be from U.S. schools," Whittington said. "I wasn鈥檛 at all sure that I could afford to come here without substantial support, so for 91丝瓜视频 to come through with the funding necessary to keep me here was a pleasant surprise."

"New federal investment in graduate student support, such as the Vanier Canada Scholarships Program introduced in the recent budget, is a welcome partner program at the federal level that will leverage 91丝瓜视频's capacity, and that of other Canadian universities, to attract and retain the best and brightest graduate students. 91丝瓜视频鈥檚 commitment to improving graduate student support, for both Canadian and international graduate students, ensures that we will not lose our edge over the competition, particularly amongst our institutional peers," said Kreiswirth. "The ideal 'fit' for a graduate student in any program depends on a host of factors, ranging from supervisory match to a comfortable standard of living, and by enhancing the quality of its graduate funding capabilities, 91丝瓜视频 has taken another crucial step in fuelling the Canadian brain gain."