Half of Canada’s six strongest fields are in humanities and social sciences, says new report by Council of Canadian Academies.
The six fields, in alphabetical order, are: clinical medicine, historical studies, information and communication technologies (ICT), physics and astronomy, psychology and cognitive science, and visual and performing arts.
Areas of emerging research strength identified in the report included wireless technologies and networking, information processing and computation, nanotechnologies, and digital media technologies.
Several fields of specialization were identified in other provinces, such as: agriculture, fisheries, and forestry in Prince Edward Island and Manitoba; historical studies in New Brunswick; biology in Saskatchewan; as well as earth and environmental sciences in Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia.
The report, The State of Science and Technology in Canada, 2012, was prepared at the request of the Government of Canada through the Ministry of Industry.