2024 — A year of renewal & growth

By: Abeer Khan

12 Dec, 2024

December 12, 2024

A collage of CIFAR's highlights from the 2024 calendar year.

Reflecting on a year of partnership, growth and celebration

Thanks to our dedicated and talented community of researchers, donors and other supporters, we’ve introduced many exciting initiatives, deepened and fostered new partnerships, and continue to grow our research portfolio.

As 2024 draws to a close, let’s take a moment to reflect on a few highlights, milestones and collective achievements that made this year memorable.

Growing our Research Community

We’ve welcomed new scholars and appointed new researchers to our global research community. Most recently, we announced the two Co-Directors of the new CAISI Research Program at CIFAR, Nicolas Papernot and Catherine Régis.

This year, seven new Fellows joined our research programs and seven Fellows became Advisors and Program Directors in their respective programs. We also introduced 10 new CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars, representing some of today’s brightest early-career researchers. We appointed eight new Canada CIFAR AI Chairs and renewed 21 others in February and September. Learn more about our evolving research community.

Introducing the CAISI Research Program

In November, the Government of Canada announced the creation of the Canadian AI Safety Institute (CAISI), which will include a focused research program at CIFAR. The CAISI Research Program at CIFAR will advance Canadian-led fundamental and applied research on the technical and social-impact challenges of AI safety.

Welcoming Nobel and Kyoto Prize Winners

We welcomed three new Nobel Laureates with affiliations to CIFAR. Daron Acemoglu (MIT) and James Robinson (University of Chicago), who both served as Fellows in CIFAR’s Institutions, Organizations & Growth program, received the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel. Current CIFAR Advisor in Learning in Machines & Brains, Geoffrey Hinton (University of Toronto) was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics. Geologist Paul Hoffman was also awarded the 2024 Kyoto Prize in Basic Sciences.

Announcing the African Women in Research Symposium

In 2024 CIFAR was delighted to announce an upcoming ‘African Women in Research Symposium’ in partnership with the Mastercard Foundation. Africa has the youngest and fastest-growing population in the world, making young Africans the future of global research. By building capacity for individuals and partner institutions, this project reinforces our shared goals of strengthening the careers of next-generation leaders, the institutions they are a part of and building new pathways for women in science.

Twentieth edition of CIFAR’s DLRL Summer School

The twentieth annual edition of the CIFAR Deep Learning + Reinforcement Learning Summer School (DLRL), held this year at the Vector Institute in Toronto, brought to Canada the world’s top AI graduate students, post-docs and professionals eager to advance their knowledge of the foundational research, new developments and real-world applications of artificial intelligence.

REACH 2024

The Brain Issue, the latest edition of our annual magazine REACH, takes a deep dive into our most complex organ and highlights the many ways CIFAR researchers — across programs and borders — are pursuing some of its complex mysteries. From exploring how the brain gives rise to the “self” to uncovering the connection between the brain and gut, this edition of REACH unlocks the secrets of our most intricate organ.

Offering Public Learning Opportunities

Through the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy at CIFAR, we launched a free online course on the intersection of AI and Indigenous worldviews. We also partnered with Sun Life to deliver our free online course, Destination AI, to their employees across Canada.

Building Partnerships

With momentum under our new Strategy, CIFAR has formed key global partnerships with top science institutions in recent months. These institutions include the University of Tokyo, the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA) and ELLIS, a pan-European AI research network modelled after CIFAR. Our new partnerships look to advance AI for humanity’s benefit and strengthen CIFAR’s focus on identifying opportunities and challenges on the horizon.

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The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) is a globally influential research organization proudly based in Canada. We mobilize the world’s most brilliant people across disciplines and at all career stages to advance transformative knowledge and solve humanity’s biggest problems, together. We are supported by the governments of Canada, Alberta and Québec, as well as Canadian and international foundations, individuals, corporations and partner organizations.

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