NSERC-CSE Research Communities Grants

Eligibility

Applicants:

This first Research Communities grant(s) will support unclassified research focusing on robust, secure, and safe AI. However, the funding is conditional on the applicant or one of the co-applicants, and some of the Research Community members (i.e., professors, students, and post-doctoral fellows) travel to Ottawa to conduct classified research at CSE throughout the grant period.

Canadian university researchers must be eligible to receive NSERC funds. CSE encourages researchers from multiple universities working in related domains to apply as a group to form a Research Community. However, only one application per researcher will be accepted under this call for proposals (as either applicant or co-applicant).

Applicants must ensure that they can respect the following conditions, or CSE reserves the right to reject the LOI or terminate the grant:

• When submitting the LOI, the applicant, or at least one of the co-applicants, must be a Canadian citizen, eligible for a TOP SECRET security clearance, and willing to work in Ottawa at CSE for at minimum two weeks per year. The identified researcher(s) must maintain their security clearance for the entire grant period.
• Within one year of the grant award, the grant recipient must submit the names of additional Research Community members (i.e., professors, students, and post-doctoral fellows) who are Canadian citizens, eligible for a TOP SECRET security clearance, and willing to work in Ottawa at CSE.
  • Students are welcome under CSE’s Student Program and will be expected to complete at least one semester of work at CSE.
  • Post-doctoral fellows and professors are welcome through CSE’s Interchange Program; the length of their visits will be variable.
• Over the grant period, the grant recipient must continue to submit the names of Research Community members (i.e., professors, students, and post-doctoral fellows) who are Canadian citizens, eligible for a TOP SECRET security clearance, and willing to work in Ottawa at CSE.

Summary

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) are partnering to fund Research Communities to conduct unclassified research on cutting-edge technologies in areas of strategic importance to CSE and the Government of Canada. A Research Community is defined as a group of researchers – and their research personnel (i.e., students, post-doctoral fellows, and research professionals) – from multiple Canadian universities working in related domains and sharing NSERC-CSE funds awarded to their project(s). The first Research Communities grants focus on robust, secure, and safe artificial intelligence (AI). CSE is the sole partner organization; no additional partner organizations will be accepted.

CSE is Canada’s foreign signals intelligence agency and technical authority for cyber security and information assurance. CSE is home to the Tutte Institute for Mathematics and Computing (TIMC), where researchers work with government, academia, and industry to tackle scientific challenges related to CSE’s mission. Data science and AI research at TIMC focuses on extracting information from large and complex datasets. Researchers aim to robustly, securely, and safely gather, parse, and extract salient information from those datasets.

Objectives

• Generate new knowledge in robust, secure, and safe AI from either a model-centric or data-centric view.
• Enhance the capacities of Canadian universities to undertake research related to robust, secure, and safe AI.
• Help produce a new generation of data scientists and engineers sensitive to the issues around robust, secure, and safe AI.