Reach 2025: President’s Message
Dear CIFAR community,
I'm thrilled to share with you the 2025 issue of REACH. This year’s theme, Beyond, perfectly reflects our unique model and mission – research that explores bold ideas, new frontiers and connections to create a better future.
In this issue, we go beyond disciplines, exploring unexpected collaborations, such as research being done at the intersection of the human microbiome and architecture to redesign buildings for better human health. We're also fostering interdisciplinary teams of scholars and public- and private-sector partners who are working together to develop responsible AI solutions for health care.
You'll discover the many ways CIFAR researchers are going beyond boundaries: whether it’s finding innovative energy solutions, or uncovering the deep-rooted causes of hate, or investigating the intersections of art, ecology and geopolitics through food.
We’ll take you beyond borders to Switzerland for our Forum on Radical Interdisciplinarity. And beyond the present, with support from partners like the Ralph M. Barford Foundation helping us anticipate future challenges. Finally, we’ll look beyond the current generation of research talent, highlighting early-career researchers and their bold ideas – such as developing low-cost, hand-held quantum sensors to detect clean drinking water.
These stories highlight the remarkable breadth and brilliance of our global research community. At CIFAR, we take pride in our long-standing commitment to identifying and supporting unexplored areas of research – challenging skepticism and pushing boundaries. It’s a testament to our belief in high-risk, high-reward scientific exploration that the work of longtime members Geoffrey Hinton and Paul Hoffman is now celebrated with the Nobel Prize in Physics and the Kyoto Prize, respectively. I’m pleased to share stories of their academic journeys in this issue that showcase how CIFAR has supported their bold thinking.
Of course, the important work featured and the continued work across our 15 research programs and the Pan-Canadian AI Strategy would not be possible without our donors, government and research partners, whose support and generosity enable CIFAR to drive meaningful impact and address critical challenges on the horizon.
I hope you enjoy this issue of REACH. Your continued contributions to CIFAR make it possible to advance transformative research that goes “beyond.”
STEPHEN J. TOOPE
OC, LLD, FRSC
President & CEO, CIFAR
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