Canada has set up a new program to attract 20 of the world’s brightest researchers by next fall. The program, known as the Canada Excellence Research Chairs, will endow each chair with 10 million Canadian dollars, or about $9.3-million, over seven years to set up what a government news release called “ambitious research programs” at Canadian universities.

The government hopes the program will serve as a magnet for excellence, bringing in Nobel-class scientists. Holders of the new chairs will concentrate on four areas the government believes are central to the country’s future prosperity: environmental sciences and technology, natural resources and energy, health and life sciences, and information and communication technologies.

Universities must apply for the chairs by next spring, when a short list of 40 projects will undergo peer review.

The new program is modeled on the successful billion-dollar Canada Research Chairs program, which was marked initially by a gender controversy. —Karen Birchard