"Canada Impact+ Research Chair in Transformative & Translational Food Manufacturing Technologies (Requisition 2059)"

Requisition 2059

The Canada Impact+ Research Chairs (Impact+) program is a one-time initiative designed to support institutions in attracting world-leading researchers whose work addresses critical national and global challenges. The program emphasizes both research excellence and tangible impact. Impact+ Chairs will receive long-term funding and institutional support to advance ambitious and transformative projects in Canada’s strategic priority areas, build and maintain exceptional research teams, and collaborate with partners across sectors and borders. Impact+ chairholders are expected to drive the translation of discoveries into applications, commercialization and social and economic benefits for Canada and the world, while also developing the next generation of highly qualified personnel.

The Impact+ program provides opportunities for internationally renowned scholars and scientists in areas of strategic importance to Canada. Only candidates who are internationally based (both working and residing outside of Canada) at the time of the intake’s application deadline are eligible to apply.

Nominees must be full professors or associate professors or, if recruited from outside the academic sector, must possess the necessary qualifications to be appointed at these levels.

Canada Impact+ Research Chair in Transformative & Translational Food Manufacturing Technologies

The Ontario Agricultural College is recruiting a Canada Impact+ Research Chair in Transformative & Translational Food Manufacturing Technologies, at an award value of $1,000,000/year, of which a minimum of $700k/year will be available to fund the direct costs of the research activities of the chairholder and their team. The term is for 8 years, with a possibility for a four-year funded extension, at 50% of the original award value. The funding supports expenses related to compensation, as well as research activities for the chairholder and the chairholder’s team, and up to 25% of the direct costs of research can be used for indirect costs of research.

The Chair in Transformative & Translational Food Manufacturing is aligned with the federal strategic priority area of food security. It addresses a critical and widely recognized gap between discovery-driven food research and successful implementation in manufacturing environments. While Canada has strong capabilities in food chemistry, formulation science, and product innovation, many promising technologies fail to progress beyond laboratory or pilot scale due to unresolved challenges related to scale-up, process stability, manufacturability and market readiness. This Chair will focus on the fundamental scientific and engineering principles that govern this transition, strengthening Canada’s capacity to translate food innovation into robust, scalable food manufacturing.

This Chair establishes translational food manufacturing as a distinct scholarly field with its own rigorous scientific foundations and direct relevance to industrial practice. The Chair will operate at the interface of discovery science and industrial reality, emphasizing translational research that is fundamentally rigorous yet informed by real production environments. The position will not focus on product or process design or incremental formulation, but rather on the enabling principles that determine whether technologies can be scaled, reproduced, and deployed reliably. By engaging closely with Ontario and Canadian food manufacturers of different commodities (e.g., dairy, cereals) in a pre-competitive framework, strategically using key available facilities, such as the Guelph Food Innovation Center (GFIC), the Chair will align academic inquiry with manufacturing needs while preserving academic independence.

Institutionally, the Chair complements the University of Guelph’s established strengths in food chemistry, product development, food safety, fundamental food science, and food processing by focusing explicitly on the science of scale-up and manufacturing translation. Nationally, the Chair aligns with Canadian priorities in agri-food innovation, advanced manufacturing, and industrial competitiveness, while maintaining a pre-competitive, research-driven orientation. By training highly qualified personnel with a deep understanding of manufacturing constraints, the Chair will contribute to a more resilient, innovative, and globally competitive Canadian food sector.

The ideal candidate is an outstanding international researcher with a strong quantitative background and the University of Guelph requires a Ph.D. in food science, food engineering, materials science, chemical engineering, or a closely related discipline. The successful applicant will have an established record of research excellence, recognized internationally, will show credible evidence of translational impact, such as granted or filed patents, documented industrial collaboration, or demonstrated experience moving beyond laboratory proof-of-concept. The successful candidate will be motivated to build an independent research program that integrates fundamental science with manufacturing constraints, and will communicate effectively with both academic and industrial stakeholders.

The program’s evaluation criteria are:

• Research/academic merit and leadership skills of the nominee
• Quality of the institutional support
• Quality of the research program
• Potential contribution to the excellence of the Canadian and international research ecosystem
• Potential for knowledge translation, mobilization and application of research results

The Government of Canada values knowledge mobilization, translation and commercialization as critical pathways to ensuring research delivers tangible benefits at both national and global levels. Impact+ Chairs are expected to move beyond discovery to generate social, economic and policy impacts, working in close collaboration with partners across various sectors.

Successful nominees will have the primary responsibility for directing the research program and all related activities, leading a team of personnel, and coordinating governance and administration with the host institution.

Application Process

The Impact+ nomination process consists of two stages. First, candidates apply to an open job posting at the University of Guelph. The U of G will then support the successful candidate in the development of an application for the federal funding program. Appointment to an Impact+ Chair position is contingent upon receiving an Impact+ Chair award. Awardees must begin their appointment within 12 months of accepting the award.

Interested external applicants should create an account on https://careers.uoguelph.ca/ and apply for the advertised faculty position (Requisition ID#2059) by submitting the recommended materials (in one merged PDF file uploaded to cv).

RECOMMENDED COMPONENTS OF APPLICATION

1. Cover letter that identifies alignment of research with the federal strategic priority
2. Curriculum vitae
3. Brief description of the proposed research program, including a description of how equity, diversity and inclusion have been incorporated into research design and research team and how your research will contribute to knowledge translation, mobilization and application of research results. (maximum four pages)
4. Career highlights describing the most significant contributions to the applicant’s field, including how they have led to societal benefits, and how they connect with your research plan. (Maximum two pages)
5. The names and email addresses of three references, two of which are arm’s length (not in conflict of interest)