fgfgfgfg
	The Centre for the Study of Learning and Performance, named a Concordia research centre in June, has been awarded a grant by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) in its second round of competition. The award of $193,422 will go toward a $500,000 project called Special Instructional Environments (CSLP-SIE). The CSLP is affiliated with Concordia's Departments of Education, Psychology and TESL (Teaching English as a Second Language). Its principal researchers are Education Professor Philip Abrami, who is the director, Patsy Lightbown (TESL), Roy Lyster (Second-Language Education, McGill), Richard Schmid (Chair, Education), and Norman Segalowitz (Psychology/Leonardo Project). The Centre works closely with classroom teachers, offering them training and technical support and providing them with new ideas, doing research on the complex skills involved in learning, and training some graduate students in the Education, Psychology and TESL Departments. Also in the second round of CFI grants, awards were made to groups that include four more Concordia researchers: Asim J. Al-Khalili (Electrical and Computer Engineering), for the System-On-Chip Research Network submitted by Queen's University; Patrick Gulick (Biology), for a project on plant productivity submitted by McGill University; Leslie M. Landsberger (Electrical and Computer Engineering), for the Consortium de micro/nanoingénierie des matériaux et des systèmes, submitted by the École Polytechnique; and Nathalie Phillips (Psychology), for the Montreal Network for the Study of Language, Mind and Brain, submitted by McGill University. The second CFI round provided grants totalling $363 million to support 214 infrastructure projects in 59 Canadian universities, colleges, hospitals, and not-for-profit research institutions, and are expected to leverage an additional $545.3 million in funding from the provinces and external partners. It brings to $893.3 million the CFI grants announced so far across Canada. The fund was launched in 1997 by the federal government with a budget of $1.9 billion. Organizers intend to hold three more competitions between 2001 and 2005. - Barbara Black