2000-01-13. MUN Gazette, vol. 32, no. 10

              .
Memorial
) University of Newfoundland
Publications Mail
Registration No. 551 988
' Volume 32 Number 10
A MEMORIAL UNIVERSITY OF NEWFOUNDLAND PUBLICATION
January 13, 2000
Health benefits
Photo by Chris Hammond
New digs
MUNSU President Leigh Borden stands outside the new University Centre. For more information
about the new building, see page 4.
Storm warning
The next time you wake up to a raging blizzard, reach for your radio
before reaching for your snow
shovel (or an extra quilt, or a cup of cocoa).
Memorial relies on local radio stations to
get the news out when classes are cancelled
due to inclement weather.
When a class has to be cancelled on the
St. John's campus — for a storm or any
other reason — professors should contact
departmental offices, which should then
contact the Division of University Relations
H at 737-8665. University Relations uses a
U code when informing radio stations of class
1 cancellations so that bogus information
I won't be accepted.
| At the Marine Institute in St. John's, the
j decision to close classes in wintry weather is
I made in consultation with Memorial's presi-
I dent. Some factors which influence the deci-
I sion are whether the City of St. John's has
declared a state of emergency and whether
public transportation is still operating.
If bad weather results in classes being
cancelled at Memorial — including the
Marine Institute — the information is provided to St. John's radio stations CHMR FM
at Memorial, VOCM/ VOFM, CBC Radio,
OZ FM, and Q Radio/KIXX Country. Students at Memorial's St. John's campus can
also listen to these stations to find out about
classes cancelled for other reasons.
When stormy weather strikes Sir Wilfred
Grenfell College in Comer Brook — though
class cancellations for this reason are rare —
Dennis Waterman, director of Administration and Finance makes the call, in consultation with the nearby College of the North
Atlantic. When in doubt, SWGC students
should tune in to Corner Brook radio stations CFCB, KJXX Country, or CBC Radio.
By Sharon Gray
Memorial has a new centre to promote interdisciplinary and inter-
faculty teamwork in funding
proposals and research in the health field.
The Newfoundland Centre for Applied
Health Research was established to take
advantage of a wave of national initiatives
in funding for health research in general
and applied health research in particular.
The director of the centre is Dr. Stephen
Bornstein, who joined Memorial as a faculty member in Political Science in September but is seconded to the Faculty of Medicine for five years. The centre is located on
the first floor of the medical school and currently consists of Dr. Bornstein and an
assistant, Gerona McGrath.
Dr. Bornstein sees the staff growing to
between five and seven people in the next
few years. "We need full-time researchers
to do research on grants and contracts and
we need people with expertise in writing up
grants and coordinating research teams."
The reason Dr. Bornstein sees this
expansion as possible and necessary has to
do with new funding opportunities. The
Medical Research Council of Canada will
be replaced by the Canadian Institutes of
Health Research (CIHR) in April, 2000. It
has a transitional budget of $225 million
and a projected annual budget that will far
exceed current funding for health within all
the national granting councils combined.
"The CIHR has a very broad mandate
including basic bio-medical research, population health, applied clinical research, and
health services research. The last three are
right up the alley of this new centre."
In addition, said Dr. Bornstein, the new
Canadian Health Services Research Foundation has a mandate to encourage
multi-disciplinary teams that can integrate
research across fields and disciplines. "Our
centre can help people write the grants, find
the funding partners, find the collaborators,
and later help administer the grant. We're
here to help make things happen."
The centre hopes to take advantage of
these new funding opportunities for interdisciplinary health research by helping
researchers across campus, in medicine and
in other faculties and schools, to work more
effectively with one another in interdisciplinary teams in a very broad target area —
applied health research. The centre will
work with existing research teams in the
health sciences area and the Health Care
Corporation such as the Patient Research
Centre, the Clinical Epidemiology Unit, the
Health Research Unit in Community
Health and the new Nursing Research Unit,
as well as other research teams that may
develop across campus.
In addition, the Newfoundland Centre
for Applied Health Research has been
designed to facilitate cooperation between
university researchers, the public policy
makers in government, and the health care
HSIMS Photo
Dr. Stephen Bornstein
boards. The objective is to get researchers
and decision makers working together in all
stages of an effective research/policy loop
— planning the research agenda, doing the
work, implementing new policies based on
the new scientific evidence, and evaluating
the outcomes.
Dr. Bornstein came to Memorial from
McGill University, where he was a professor of political science and also served as
associate dean of graduate studies and
research. From 1990 to 1995, he worked for
the Government of Ontario as assistant
deputy minister of intergovernmental
affairs.
Grenfell
meeting
By Pamela Gill
Researchers on the west coast of
the island were given an introduction to the Newfoundland Centre
for Applied Health Research recently.
Director Dr. Stephen Bornstein met
with researchers at Sir Wilfred Grenfell
College to explain his organization's role
within the larger scope of the new Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Memorial University's Centre for
Applied Health Research promotes interdisciplinary and interfaculty teamwork in
funding proposals and research. The centre encourages faculty to work with each
other, as well as with partners in the community, such as health-related fund-raising
organizations.
At a small gathering of Grenfell faculty, doctors and nurses, Dr. Bornstein
described the centre's role as "brokering
partnerships."
"There's a real possibility for
long-term collaboration between the centre in St. John's and the centre here," he
said, referring to Grenfell's Applied
Research Unit, which matches research
needs in the community with resources at
the college. "This is a resource to help
people connect with policy makers,
researchers and the people with the
money."