$10M backs northern research facility and Indigenous data platform

The Canada Foundation for Innovation marked National Indigenous Peoples Day yesterday with the first investments from its Northern Fund, a research infrastructure program designed for northern institutions and communities. 

The two investments total $10 million, split between $5 million from the Northern Fund and $5 million from CFI’s Infrastructure Operating Fund, which covers ongoing maintenance costs.

Two Nunavut-based organizations split the funding equally. 

SIKU, the Indigenous Knowledge App, is a digital platform built by the Arctic Eider Society in Sanikiluaq, Nunavut. It has more than 40,000 users across northern communities and supports more than 100 community-led research and environmental monitoring projects. 

The platform brings together Indigenous Knowledge and scientific approaches for work ranging from sea ice and climate studies to wildlife ecology.

Indigenous data sovereignty is a core design principle of the platform. Users own their data, and no one can use it without permission.

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The $5 million will fund software, digital storage, and AI analysis and data visualization tools so communities can run their own research programs on the platform.

“This funding is going to really make a difference for Indigenous communities to now fully run their own projects, research and monitoring programs on SIKU, to visualize and analyze their data using an Indigenous lens, and have Indigenous Knowledge play a key role in science and decision making,” says Lucassie Arragutainaq, chair of the Arctic Eider Society.

The Qaujigiartiit Health Research Centre in Iqaluit will use the other $5 million to build a new facility for collaborative research workspaces and retrofit an adjacent building into a patient-oriented research unit. The funding also covers upgrades to networks, servers, and security infrastructure for handling sensitive patient data.

The centre has spent two decades conducting health research grounded in both Inuit and Western approaches.

The Northern Fund defines “North” as Yukon, the Northwest Territories, Inuvialuit Settlement Region, Nunavut, Nunavik, and Nunatsiavut. It remains open for proposals across all research disciplines from northern universities, colleges, research hospitals, and non-profit research organizations.

“With interest intensifying in the Arctic, particularly in defence, climate adaptation, economic and resource development, it’s critical that northern communities have the research spaces, tools and capacity to guide this growth,” says Sylvain Charbonneau, president and CEO of the Canada Foundation for Innovation.

Both projects build digital and physical capacity in communities where research infrastructure has historically been funded from the outside and governed from the south.

Final shots

• SIKU already has more than 40,000 users and supports more than 100 community-led projects. The new funding adds AI analysis and data visualization to a platform built for northern research priorities.
• The Northern Fund is open for proposals from eligible northern universities, colleges, research hospitals, and non-profit research organizations.
• Qaujigiartiit’s funding will build a new research facility and add stronger digital infrastructure for sensitive health and patient data.