Grant: Major Facilities Access Grants

This application is for an MFA award to the Atlantic Region Magnetic Resonance Centre (ARMRC). The ARMRC has been supported continously for several cycles by the MFA program, most recently under the leadership of the previous Director, Bruce Grindley. The ARMRC provides nuclear magnetic resonance services (NMR) to academia and industry throughout the Atlantic Region, particularly the Maritime Provinces. NMR is a key method for analysis of chemical species in both liquids and solids, and the Centre is equipped with state-of-the-art spectrometers optimized for all kinds of materials. The Centre also has a staff of highly trained professionals, who assist users in the planning, execution, and interpretation of NMR-based experiments. NMR is an expensive technology, so it is highly efficient to concentrate a major research resource such as this as a regional centre. In addition to their work at the Centre, our staff travel to our partner institutions in the region to provide training and research support, in order to make the most of the time these researchers spend at the Centre itself. In the previous MFA award period, the ARMRC provided access to 240 users, including almost 90 graduate students and 115 undergraduates. 40% of the users were from outside Dalhousie University. The users produced some 180 publications, 70 of which were from outside Dalhousie.