BY CRAIG GILBERT
The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory is about to become more observant.
The Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) will announce major funding for the establishment of a new
international facility for underground science.
The president and CEO of the CFI, Dr. David Strangway, will be joined by Andy Mitchell, Secretary of State (Rural Development) (FedNor) on behalf of Allan Rock, Minister of Industry, to announce the funding at 8:30 am Monday in the Inco Cavern at Science North.
The CFI is an independent corporation established by the Government of Canada in 1997 to strengthen the capacity of Canadian universities, colleges, research hospitals, and other non-profit research organizations to carry out world-class research and technology development.
The investment will transform the existing Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) into a world-class research facility.
When the original SNO project was conceived in 1984, it was set up as a ?sunset? project with a specific end date.
Its outstanding success in the last two decades convinced the partners the experiment should be transformed into a permanent facility. The CFI?s investment will cover the cost of excavation of a new underground cavern, surface support, new labs at Laurentian University, experimental equipment as well as operational support for the next five years.
The administrative centre for this international project will be located at Carleton University. Dr. David Sinclair, Professor of Physics, will work with a consortium of six Canadian universities and numerous international partners.
The funding announcement comes on the heels of Dr. Art McDonald receiving the top prize for science and engineering from the National Science and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC). McDonald, a professor at Queen?s, was the ?driving force? behind the SNO. The Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal comes with $1 million in research funding.
?Designing and building a large underground experiment to reveal the ultimate truth about solar neutrinos was both a novel and high-risk endeavour,? NSERC President Tom Brzustowski said. ?Yet Art McDonald recognized that Canada had the ingredients to pull it off, and he did. ?Thanks to his great abilities as a scientist, mentor, leader and
co-ordinator, we have an amazing scientific facility in Sudbury.?
