Report on Mathematical Community meeting in Toronto, September 7th.

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Hello to all

I am writing to report on a meeting held in Toronto on Saturday, September 7. The meeting was attended by representatives of the mathematical community from across the country. I also want to solicit your input on a document to be submitted to the Mathematics Review Panel outlining the positions we wish them to take, and recommendations we want to see made. This document must be ready very soon, so it would be very helpful if you submitted ready-for-prime-time prose to Ken Davidson at the following address:

krdavids@math.waterloo.ca

More details are provided below.

The most important outcome of this meeting was a letter we drafted and sent to NSERC officials regarding the NNCMS proposal. We wrote the letter following a lengthy discussion of the NNCMS proposal and its relation to the proposal put forward by the CRM and its partners in Montreal. This letter is attached below. Not to put too fine a point on it, your good will, cooperation and support are needed to maintain a united community. The importance that we attach to this goal would be hard to overstate. We hope this goal is just as important to our colleagues across the country as it is to us.

Here is the text of the letter:

The signatories of this letter as representatives of the mathematical community wish to reaffirm the highest priority that their community places on the NNCMS application. We acknowledge and appreciate the fact that NSERC has agreed to set up a special mechanism and appropriate criteria to adjudicate this application. We are convinced that funding at an appropriate level is essential to effect a historical transition to a new level of national collaboration including the development of a permanent basis for outreach to other disciplines and a spectrum of industrial applications. We feel strongly that this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

The letter was signed by all in attendance, see below.

The meeting was held at the Fields Institute from 9:30 am to 5:00 pm. The discussions focused on three issues:

• The Mathematics Self Study and the Math Review Panel,
• The Steering Committee,
• The National Network Proposal.

The attendees were, in no particular order:

• Nassif Ghoussoub, UBC and PIms
• Luc Vinet, CRM
• Yvan Saint-Aubin, UM
• Francois Lalonde, UQAM,
  Mathematics Steering Committee for NSERC reallocations process

  Don Dawson, FI

  Bill Langford, FI

  Richard Wood, AARMS and Dal

  Hermann Brunner, MUN, CMS Vice President,

  Mathematics Steering Commitee for NSERC reallocations process

  Ken Davidson, Waterloo, CMS Vice President,

  Mathematics Advisory Committee, NSERC Liaison Committee

  Richard Kane, UWO, convenor of the NSERC Mathematics Review Panel,

  Mathematics Steering Committee for NSERC reallocations process

  Steve Halperin, Chair, UT

  Bill Smith, Guelph and CAMS

  Michael Ward, UBC,

  Mathematics Steering Committee for NSERC reallocations process

  Sherman Riemenschneider, UA

  Ian Goulden, Waterloo

  Georg Schmidt, McGill

  Eddy Campbell, Queen's U,

  Mathematics Steering Committee for NSERC reallocations process

Richard Kane outlined his work on the self study document to date and which is due to be submitted within a few days to the Mathematics Review Panel. The document is descriptive, and while issues are discussed, no positions are taken nor recommendations made.

We desire that positions be taken and recommendations made by the Review Panel. The group asked the Mathematics Advisory Committee to write a submission to the Review Panel outlining our concerns. A preliminary list of issues to be discussed in that document is:

1. The important role to be played by the NNCMS in the future of Mathematics in Canada.
2. Underfunding of mathematicians receiving grants from GSCs 336/337. Others, who appear to us to be mathematicians, do (sometimes much) better if their work allows them to apply to some other GSC. Some refer to this as the "edge" effect. In essence, we see people in similar disciplines doing similar work getting more money from other GSCs.
3. An increasing tendency at NSERC to micro-manage our use of operating grants. For example, old rules concerning the purchase of books and new ones concerning visitors: no visits of over three months to be supported from grants, and no more than $2K per month to be paid to such visitors.
4. There is no money in the base budget of the GSC for equipment. Increasingly, mathematicians reach out to other scientists through high-speed computers which are expensive.
5. We thought it appropriate to outline the budgets required for operating grants of two sizes: an average researcher and a top researcher. Your suggestions are welcomed (everywhere, particularly here).
6. PDFs can and do play a very important role in our discipline but it is very difficult to fund them especially at small schools. The formats of the site visits to Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Edmonton and Vancouver were discussed. It was agreed that we should suggest to the Review Panel that time should be allowed for sessions as follows: departmental representatives, researchers, graduate students, PostDoctoral Fellows, and a general session.

   I hope this brief summary of the events of the day serves to keep you up to date. I would appreciate it if you would circulate this document to all members of your department. Everybody should feel free to comment.

   Sincerely Yours,

   eddy campbell