Yesterday's Federal Budget contained some positive news for the Canadian nuclear physics research community.

NSERC:
NSERC has received an increase of $15 million for the flagship Discovery Grant programs. There is also an increase in funding for the Industrial Postdoctoral programs, and some tweaking of how Indirect Costs of Research will be handled. It will probably take some time for NSERC to decide how to allocate the new Discovery Grant funds across the disciplines, so we do not know how this will affect the Subatomic Physics Envelope.

TRIUMF:
The TRIUMF Five Year review is not yet completed, so it was a very pleasant surprise to see the federal budget announce continued funding for the laboratory for the next 5 years. The funding announced yesterday is a base budget of $222 million for 2014-2020, which is the same as the current base funding. The final stages of the TRIUMF Five Year review will therefore concentrate on the fate of the additional $68 million requested over the next 5 years, separating this issue from that of the continued operation of the lab. The final decision on any increase in operating funds will be announced in next year's budget.

CFI:
No announcements were made in the budget regarding the Canada Foundation for Innovation. We can be cautiously optimistic that a new infusion of funds will be announced next year, should the federal budget be balanced in 2015, as projected.

Canada First Research Excellence Fund:
A new research fund totaling $1.5 billion over 10 years was announced in yesterday's budget, with the intention being to help Canadian universities compete more effectively on the international stage. It is similar to a proposal made by the 15 largest research universities in Canada, but it will apparently be available to all research-active universities on a competitive, peer-reviewed basis. The idea behind the fund mirrors the Excellence Initiative of the German Government. The funds will be administered by SSHRC, but otherwise few details are available.

For more details, please see the attachments below.