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Under the International Research Chairs Initiative, top specialists are sharing their advanced skills and knowledge to confront real-world problems in the areas of environment, health, and technology while mentoring a new generation of scholars and practitioners.

 

Alpina Begossi of the State University of Campinas, Brazil, and Fikret Berkes of the University of Manitoba examine how co-management of natural resources could help alleviate threats to food security in the coastal community of Paraty, in Brazil’s Rio de Janeiro State. Fishers are suffering from declining fish stocks. The project calls for a study of the local ecology and the diet of fisher families, and the implementation of a community-based plan for adaptive use of resources and diversification of the fishers’ sources of income.

 

Adalto Bianchini of the Federal University of Rio Grande, Brazil, is collaborating with McMaster University’s Christopher Wood on addressing pollution issues in two coastal sites in Brazil. Multiple uses in these areas (for example, a military base, a harbour, industry, fishing, preservation areas, aquaculture) have come into conflict as a rise in pollution has threatened marine life. The researchers will explore new management strategies and regulation of resource use, and will compare these areas with similar sites in Canada.

 

Yiming Shao of China’s Centre for Disease Control, and Jianhong Wu of York University are beginning a project to create mathematical models predicting the future spread of HIV infection in China. Effective disease control policies rely upon an understanding of patterns of transmission. China has a large database on infectious diseases and substantial expertise in crucial fields such as biostatistics, epidemiology, virology, and immunology. This project will add an understanding of how to bring together insights from those fields through interdisciplinary project design.

 

Xiaoyan Zhu of Tsinghua University in China, and Ming Li of the University of Waterloo work to bring the benefits of Internet search engines to more people in China. There, the impact of the Internet is limited because 1.3 billion people cannot read English, and only 163 million people (a fraction of the 580 million people who have mobile phones) have access to a computer. “Our solution is that the search engine should take on more responsibility,” says Li. The researchers are working to develop a search engine that can translate English to Chinese, and that provides short answers to short questions — making it suitable for sending answers over cellphones. 

 

The University of Ghana’s Anna Lartey and Grace Marquis from McGill University are addressing two crucial issues in Ghana: how to improve child nutrition in households affected by HIV; and how to reverse growing rates of childhood obesity in urban areas, caused by increases in junk food and lack of exercise. Lartey suggests that reversing the devastating effects of malnutrition will require reaching across boundaries to learn from other experiences, such as the fight against HIV/AIDS.   

 

“HIV has provided a lot of good lessons,” she says. “We’ve seen the world agree and quickly mobilize resources around that issue. We’ve seen a major emphasis on prevention. We’ve seen a multidisciplinary approach, with different groups coming together to look for a solution. The HIV experience can help us improve the health system. We should have the same model in mind when we look at problems like malnutrition.”

 

Ranjan Mallik from the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and Robert Schober of the University of British Columbia are scanning the horizon for new ideas to improve wireless communications technologies. The wireless industry is a huge economic driver in both India and Canada, but the growth it produces cannot be sustained without innovation arising from a long-term vision.

 

“The industry needs to increase speed and reliability of its products. It also needs to decrease complexity and cost. Sometimes there is a tradeoff between the two,” says Mallik. The project also places a major emphasis on training specialists.

 

Rachid Hakkou of the Université Cadi Ayyad in Morocco, and Mostafa Benzaazoua of Canada’s  Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue take aim at the problem of mine wastes, focusing on several sites in Morroco. The ultimate goal is to improve the health of people living around mines and abandoned mines by developing new technologies and building new capacities.

 

“We want to create a centre of advanced research for mining which would look at the impact of these mine wastes. Training people is very important,” says Hakkou. 

 

Nelson Sewankambo of Uganda’s Makerere University and McMaster University’s  John Lavis are working in 11 African countries to determine what processes are useful in promoting an evidence-based approach to creating health policies. Often, there is a gap between what researchers know to be effective and the priorities of national health policies.

 

Says Sewankambo: “There are a lot of interventions in the world of proven efficacy, but often these interventions do not reach the people who need them the most. If we can do something that promotes access to these types of interventions, our program will have made a significant contribution.”  

 

Sewankambo acknowledges, however, that breaking down the walls that keep researchers and policymakers from talking to each other will not be easy. “If things continue the way they have been going — with people working in separate silos — we will not succeed. It’s a major challenge to change the culture so that people can work together.”