FQRNT Renews Its Support for GERAD: $2.34 Million
May 26, 2009
The Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la nature et les technologies (FQRNT) has renewed its support for the world-renowned Group for Research in Decision Analysis (GERAD), under its Strategic Clusters program. The $2.34 million subsidy will be paid out in annual $390,000 instalments over six years.
GERAD is a joint research centre, created in 1979, bringing together experts in quantitative methods for management – mathematicians, computer scientists and engineers – mainly from HEC Montréal, the École Polytechnique de Montréal, McGill University and the Université du Québec à Montréal.
The Group enjoys a first-class international reputation in the mathematics of decision making and its applications in large systems. GERAD offers an intellectually stimulating environment fostering multidisciplinary exchanges, as well as a top-flight training ground for researchers and practitioners in applied mathematics.
HEC Montréal researcher-professors make valuable contributions in such fields as distribution management, logistics, mathematical modelling, game theory, simulation, data mining and decision theory. Some twenty of them are GERAD members, and three HEC Montréal chairs are in fact directly associated with the Group. These are the Canada Research Chair in Distribution Management, the Data Mining Chair and the Chair in Game Theory and Management, held by professors Gilbert Laporte, Pierre Hansen and Georges Zaccour, respectively. In addition, about one hundred graduate and postgraduate students from the School are involved in GERAD research activities, another indication of the strategic importance of decision-making assistance as a priority research field for HEC Montréal.