Grant: Canada First Research Excellence Fund

York University is Canada's third largest university with 11 faculties, 28 research centres and 288 partnerships with leading universities worldwide. Our CFREF proposal, Vision: Science to Applications (VISTA) brings together York’s world renowned Centre for Vision Research and six other synergistic Institutes and Centres spanning five Faculties to propel York's global leadership in interdisciplinary vision science from neurophysiology to perception and computational vision to new heights. VISTA is supported by over $187M in capital projects over the past 6 years and a new investment of $26M in capital project funding. We will attract the best and brightest international talent including Canada Research Chairs (CRCs), Research Enhanced Hires and highly-qualified graduate students and post-doctoral fellows to reach the next frontier in vision science at the interface between humans and technology, advancing science and innovation across multiple high-need sectors including health, rehabilitation, aging, neurotechnology, robotics, digital media and surveillance. We will enhance the research experience of our best existing people through the creation of VISTAdedicated York Research Chairs (YRCs), York’s internal program to promote research faculty retention through the provision of CRC-level benefits. The alignment of 13 new CRC and researchenhanced professorial hires, the allocation of up to ten YRCs and the support of 226 new graduate and postdoctoral trainees demonstrates our continued commitment to global research excellence. VISTA’s Mobilization and Commercialization Centre (MC2) will work with York’s Knowledge Mobilization unit and Innovation York to support commercialization of VISTA’s research into tangible impacts for Canadians through focused translational research and commercialization pathways.