The Fields Institute Turns Twenty-Five 170725 Final book with covers | Page 101

Public Resources
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mathematical sciences institutes is the substitute for the
lack of broad and flexible direct support from Canadian
government research agencies.
4. The Fields Institute is a platform through which research
funds can be leveraged from multiple sources. This
includes private sector funding in some cases (the Centre
for Financial Industries is a brilliantly successful case)
as well as from public sources; examples include the
Institute Innovation Platform and the Fields Institute
National Science Foundation grant.
The Shape of Mathematical Research
Institutes
Mathematical sciences institutes around the world come in
various forms. There are institutes with permanent (and
stellar) academic members such as the Institute for Advanced
Study and the Institut des Hautes Études Scientifiques. These
require large budgets and enormous endowments, and in fact
they are more closely dedicated to the research programs
of their few members. Then there are institutes that host
weekly activities, workshops of high quality science, such as
Oberwolfach and Banff. But the institutes that I admire most
are those which develop longer term programs, such as the
MSRI, the Henri Poincaré, and of course the Fields Institute.
I like to think of Fields as being the most active, the busiest,
the one with the broadest range and scope of programs.
At any one day at Fields there could be three events
taking place in the various lecture and seminar rooms. One
weekend some time ago I came in on Saturday for an activity,
and there were three things going on. The following Sunday
there were only two. And events take place at all the
Principal Supporting Universities—on their campuses rather
than in Toronto. The format of our activities is enormously