[CPM-SPIRE-L] Ukrainian students interested in Canada?

[Travis Gagie]

Hi everyone,

The first part of this email is general information for Ukrainian students
(undergraduate and graduate) wanting to come to Canada to study, maybe at
Dalhousie.  The last paragraph is for Ukrainian students (ideally PhD
students) wanting to come to Canada to study data compression and/or
compact data structures with me.

Canada has dropped most visa requirements for Ukrainians and is offering
3-year work permits (
https://www.canadavisa.com/canadas-special-immigration-measures-for-ukraine.html).
The main Canadian funding agencies for the sciences are offering special
funding for Ukrainian grad students and post-docs moving to Canada.  I've
pasted a snippet about that at the bottom.  A good place to find
opportunities is https://scienceforukraine.eu (but you have to zoom way in
to see all the ones in Canada; at the coarsest resolution it looks like
there's nothing in Quebec and only one position in the Atlantic provinces).

In case people follow the links and wonder, I've already pestered NSERC and
been told that when it says the applicant needs to hold an NSERC grant,
"the applicant" means the planned supervisor --- for example, I have an
NSERC Discovery grant --- and it also applies to students currently in
Ukraine as long as they can make it to Canada to start their studies by the
end of December 2022.

In Nova Scotia in particular --- the other provinces probably have
equivalent programs --- Research Nova Scotia has committed $100K CAD to
support Ukrainian students and researchers (
https://researchns.ca/ukrainian-emergency-research-support-program).
Canada has the third largest Ukrainian population in the world (Ukraine
itself is first and Russia is second), and Nova Scotia has about 9000
Ukrainian-Canadians, out of a total population of about a million.  (Ok, I
admit, we can't compete with Manitoba, where about 1 in 7 people is
Ukrainian-Canadian.)

At Dalhousie (my university) in particular, there are a number of people
from different fields (for example, "animal science, particularly poultry")
wanting to hire Ukrainian students.  I admit, I was skeptical of Dal's
announcements about supporting Ukrainian students, but when I got an email
from an undergrad wanting to do his fourth year here (in ML, alas, so not
with me), my dean said we'd provide financial support once he's admitted,
and when I tracked down the right person about his application (I'm not
putting an email address here, but let me know if you need it), the student
got this message:
---
"Please know that all of Dalhousie shares our support and thoughts for
those in Ukraine and within Ukrainian communities around the world.  Full
details on our available programs and majors can be found at dal.ca/programs
.  If you have specific questions about any of these programs, please do
not hesitate to let me know. Should you choose to apply, applications can
be submitted in one of two ways, either through dal.ca/application or
completion of the attached PDF. Please do not worry about submitting the
application fee, ***as this will be waived***. Once completed, please
connect back in with me, along with any unofficial transcripts you may
have. We can accept pdfs, photos, screenshots, whatever you may have. Once
we have all this information, I will see your application is reviewed asap."
---
(The emphasis on "as this will be waived" is mine, as that was the part
that surprised me most.)

Finally, if a student wants to come to Canada and Nova Scotia and Dalhouse
and wants to work with me specifically, I work on data compression and
compact data structures, mainly for bioinformatics and ideally for
computational pangenomics. (Please check my Google Scholar and DBLP pages
to see what I do, rather than my pathetic webpage!) I'd prefer PhD students
but will take masters students in a pinch. I have funding for a couple of
students even after the NSERC funding mentioned above runs out. I'm not
teaching in the winter so I'm planning to go back and finish my visit to
Czech Technical, that got cut short by the pandemic, but while I'm away
students can get to know Halifax and get their course requirements out of
the way.

Sorry for the super-long email!

Cheers,
Travis


===========


Tri-agency special response fund for Ukrainian research trainees

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and
Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and
Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) have established a
limited-time Special Response Fund for Trainees (Ukraine), or SRFT-Ukraine,
to initiate or maintain the employment or financial support—via stipend or
salary—of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers who are directly
impacted by the crisis in Ukraine.

Support can be requested for a period of up to 12 months, with the maximum
allowable amounts as follows:

- Master’s level: Up to $20,000
- Doctoral level: Up to $25,000
- Postdoctoral level: Up to $45,000

Applications will be accepted using a continuous intake up to December 22,
2022. Information for grant holders from each of the tri-agencies,
including details on the application process and eligibility requirements,
can be found at the below links:

- CIHR (https://cihr-irsc.gc.ca/e/52897.html)
- NSERC (
https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/Media-Media/NewsDetail-DetailNouvelles_eng.asp?ID=1317
)
- SSHRC (
https://www.sshrc-crsh.gc.ca/funding-financement/programs-programmes/srft-fsas-ukraine-eng.aspx
)
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