Long-term ATLAS project and the rising generation of scientists
July 09, 2025
To support the Canadian contingent of ATLAS, principal investigator Robert McPherson will receive $18.8 million over three years from the NSERC Subatomic Physics funding program, federal industry minister Mélanie Joly announced today at TRIUMF in Vancouver.
UVic scientists have been an important part of the large international ATLAS Collaboration since it was formed in 1992 and, along with other Canadian team members, continue to play leadership roles in the operation of the general-purpose particle physics experiment, the production of scientific results that push the frontiers of knowledge and the detector upgrades that are currently in progress. Indeed, scientists from UVic are among global researchers honoured with the for their work with the ATLAS Collaboration at the largest particle physics laboratory in the world, the Large Hadron Collider at the intergovernmental organization CERN.
Currently, the Canadian ATLAS team totals 160 researchers at all career stages – including NSERC grant eligible faculty and scientists, postdoctoral fellows and students‑ led by McPherson, an honorary research professor of physics and astronomy at UVic and NSERC principal investigator and spokesperson (lead) of the ATLAS Canada collaboration.
“This ongoing support from the Canadian government is crucial to our continuing advancement of fundamental knowledge about the universe and how it works,” says McPherson, a particle physicist who has been involved with the program since 1997. “Some of these funds are for student stipends, salaries for postdoctoral research associates and travel for all ATLAS Canada members, mainly for field work at CERN, but with some funds for conference travel and national meetings.”
The funds announced today will also pay the Canadian portion of the annual ATLAS Maintenance and Operations costs, which are assessed based on the number of PhD-holding scientific authors on ATLAS publications.
The new funding ensures that Canada, and UVic, will continue to contribute to breakthrough science.