Canada’s Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics was awarded C$25 million (€16 million) by the Canadian Federal government at a groundbreaking ceremony in June. Soon after, the province of Ontario, which will host the institute, announced that it would be providing a further C$15 million for the institute, bringing total Canadian public funding for the new institute to slightly more than C$54 million.
The Perimeter Institute was founded in 1999 when Mike Lazaridis, founder and chief executive of the company Research in Motion (RIM), set up a board of directors to determine how best to go about establishing a world-class institute devoted to fundamental physics in the Canadian town of Waterloo. After visiting many institutes for advanced research in physics around the world, the board concluded that the new institute should be independent, focusing on foundational, non-directed research, be resident-based with a flat hierarchy, and should have a strong public outreach programme.
The institute was officially launched on 23 October 2000 with a C$100 million donation from Mike Lazaridis and an additional C$20 million from RIM executives Doug Fregin and Jim Balsillie. The City of Waterloo donated a site for the institute’s new building, along with temporary accommodation in a former post office and national revenue building. An international eight-member scientific advisory committee was selected in late 2000, and had its first meeting in Waterloo in spring 2001. Research began in autumn 2001 with a core scientific staff of five and four postdoctoral fellows in quantum gravity, string theory, quantum information theory and quantum computing.
