The Fields Institute Turns Twenty-Five 170725 Final book with covers | Page 49

CHAPTER 6
The Competition
Rob Prichard
“I also saw [Fields] as attracting new resources as much as
spending them ...”
The idea of the Fields Institute predated my becoming
President of the University of Toronto. It was strongly
supported by the Department of Mathematics and the Faculty
of Arts and Science. After being temporarily housed at
the University of Waterloo, it was agreed that the Institute
needed a permanent home. There would be a province-wide
competition to settle the permanent location of the Institute,
and a competitive process was established. I believe Peter
Nicholson chaired it.
If there had never been a competition for the permanent
location, it would have remained at Waterloo and done fine.
But by holding a competition, the Board of the Fields Institute
forced potential hosts to make their strongest possible bids.
It was in this context that we decided to put our proposal
forward.