The Palais des congrès and Fonds de recherche du Québec focus on promoting the scientific community and int'l conventions

The Palais des congrès de Montréal, its Ambassadors Club and the Fonds de recherche du Québec have formed a major partnership aimed at acknowledging the role Québec’s researchers and scientists play in bringing international conventions to Montréal and helping to organize them. These organizations, which contribute to promoting and branding Montréal as a prime host city for large-scale scientific conventions, wish to encourage researchers to get actively involved in the process of organizing events that are international in scope.

“Supporting researchers proactively by spurring them to organize international conventions helps generate significant intellectual and economic benefits for the city and Québec,” declared Raymond Larivée, President and CEO of the Palais des congrès de Montréal, a Québec government corporation. “Montréal is known globally as a knowledge hub thanks its world class researchers, universities and research centres. By supporting these researchers, the whole province gains international recognition as well as a wealth of new knowledge,” added Dr. Pavel Hamet, President of the Ambassadors Club.

“Attracting a major scientific convention requires researchers and student researchers to invest time and energy, but it is an investment that pays off in the long run. It enables them to establish meaningful collaborations and to raise their profiles within large research networks, and thus enhance their reputations within the global scientific community. We must support our researchers and student researchers in their efforts to organize international conventions and acknowledge their fine work in this area, which is what the FRQ and Palais des congrès are endeavouring to do with this partnership,” emphasized Rémi Quirion, Québec’s Chief Scientist.

The partnership’s activities will include setting up the Prix Relève, a competition that will award grants aimed at recognizing researchers involved in the process of securing and organizing major international scientific conventions. The Forum will also be back for a second year after a successful inaugural edition in 2016, which turned the spotlight on the impact these conventions have on scientific organizations, and tackled the strategies, issues and impacts associated with promoting Québec research. Winners of the FRQ’s Star Student Researchers competition will continue to be honoured at the Palais des congrès de Montréal’s Recognition Award Gala, an event that pays tribute to the decision-makers who help bring a convention to the Palais. In short, the partnership will serve to create even deeper ties between the scientific community and the Palais des congrès to foster the hosting of even more major conventions in Montréal, events that will generate both intellectual benefits and tourism revenues for the entire community.

Some sectors, such as life sciences and aerospace, are more widely represented by virtue of the number of events they hold. For example, 37% of the international conventions hosted at the Palais des congrès are healthcare-related, which affords the researchers and universities involved in organizing events in that field widespread visibility.

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