LFS Today Dec 14, 2020

LFS Holiday Café

Don’t forget, the LFS Holiday Café is happening this Wednesday, December 16 at 3:00pm! All faculty, staff and graduate students are invited. What you can expect during this virtual event:

• A year’s end message from Dean Rickey Yada.
• A quick-round Research Café, where our new faculty members will present: Gurcharn Brar, Matias Margulis, Risa Sargent, Tamara Cohen and Thorsten Knipfer.
• Presentation of the Shynkaryk Service Award (for staff), the Richards Service Award (for faculty) and the Graduate Student Service Award.
• Holiday cheer! Be sure to turn on your camera and wear your best/ugly holiday sweater.
• Don’t forget to send your holiday photos to karen.lee98@ubc.ca to be included in the slideshow.

If you didn’t receive the Zoom link in your Outlook calendar already, please email eric.skalij@ubc.ca.

UBC Wellbeing Workshop: Pet-ditate

Pets and mindfulness can both improve our feelings of wellbeing. In these sessions we will be combining our pets and mindfulness in these 20 minute mindfulness sessions to deepen our connections with our pets and focus on the present moment which can reduce feelings of stress.

Register here!

Details of each class
Each session will focus on a different mindfulness exercise that you can do along with your pet. Sessions can be attended individually or as a series. 

Part 1: Gratitude for a pet. Monday December 14, 2020 12:00 p.m. – 12:20 p.m. 

Part 2: Appreciation of a pet’s qualities. Wednesday December 16, 2020 12:00 p.m. – 12:20 p.m. 

Part 3: Tuning into a pet’s body sensations. Friday December 18, 2020 12:00 p.m. – 12:20 p.m. 

Who is this for?
All UBC faculty, staff and pets at all levels of meditating experience. If you don’t have a pet, you can imagine a pet you know.

Your facilitator
Aisha Tejani is a Workplace Wellbeing Associate with UBC HR and has taught mindfulness with a non-profit for over 4 years to over 1,800 participants.

Agritech Grant Program

The B.C. Agritech Grant Program (https://www.gov.bc.ca/agritechgrant) is now open and receiving applications. The program is intended to position the Province as a hub for agritech development, enhance domestic food security, and stimulate the development and testing of technologies that can make local food production more efficient and competitive.

The Agritech Grant Program will invest up to $3 million, as part of StrongerBC, the Province’s Economic Recovery Plan, to increase the development, scale up and expansion of B.C. agritech companies and technologies. Grants of up to $500,000 are available to eligible companies. Applications will be accepted until February 12, 2021.

If you have a project that you think may be eligible, please visit our website.

For more information about the Program, please email: BCAgritechGrantProgram@gov.bc.ca or call: 1 (236) 478-3761.

Project team members would be happy to provide answers and further details.

Call for Proposals: Supporting Talent in Research at the University of Padua

The University of Padua (Italy) is about to launch the third edition of the Supporting TAlent in ReSearch@University of Padua – STARS@UNIPD call for proposals. Such intramural funding Programme supports excellent 2-year research projects to be performed by outstanding Principal Investigators (PIs) of any age and nationality, choosing Padua and one its 32 Departments as their working base and committing to submit an ERC project proposal with the University of Padua as their Host Institution.

The STARS@UNIPD call aims at promoting and encouraging high quality, innovative and ambitious research in all scientific areas, offering support to ground-breaking ideas with definite potential to turn into competitive proposals for international funding, such as the prestigious European Research Council grants.

In particular, STARS Starting Grants (STARS-StG) are designed to fund promising international PIs who have been awarded their first PhD within a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 7 years (prior to 1st January 2021) and are about to establish their own research team and/or starting their own independent research.

The call and its annexes will be officially published on 11 January 2021 on the Programme web page https://www.unipd.it/en/stars2021 .

The on line procedure for the submission will be available from 11 January and the application deadline is on 12 April 2021 at 1:00 p.m. (Italy time zone).

Any further clarification requests can be addressed to the University of Padua International Research Office: talent.stars@unipd.it.