Federal budget boosts funding for TRIUMF

Canada’s 2019 federal budget, unveiled March 19, also included substantial funding for TRIUMF, Canada’s particle accelerator centre, which was co-founded by UVic 50 years ago and continues to be a substantial nexus for UVic-led research. There are currently 18 TRIUMF scientists serving as adjunct faculty members at UVic in particle physics and its related fields.

The five-year federal funding of $292.7 million represents the largest single investment in TRIUMF to date.

In addition to bolstering TRIUMF’s commercialization initiative, the funding will support two major research platforms at TRIUMF: the Institute for Advanced Medical Isotopes and the UVic-led Advanced Rare Isotope Laboratory (ARIEL).

“UVic is a founding partner of TRIUMF,” says Vice President Research David Castle, “and our scientists’ research areas including particle physics, accelerator physics, medical physics and nuclear astrophysics. This five-year funding boost ensures that TRIUMF and UVic can continue to lead in cutting-edge research to advance science, medicine and business.”

ARIEL is the highest-power rare isotope facility of its kind for producing isotopes for fundamental research in nuclear physics, quantum materials and applications in medicine. ARIEL’s high-powered, superconducting radio frequency electron linear accelerator will support researchers in their pursuit of critical advances in the understanding of isotopes while shedding light on some of the most fundamental questions in science, like:

• How and where are the heavy elements—from iron to uranium—produced in the universe?
• What are the best quantum materials for next-generation superconductors or batteries?
• How can we use rare isotopes in the fight against cancer or Alzheimer’s disease?

Funded advances in isotope target and ion-source technologies at ARIEL will enable the production of entirely new isotopes, while tripling TRIUMF’s output of rare isotopes—with associated benefits in science, medicine and business.