Trent researchers have received seven new three-year grants totalling $322,001 from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (sshrc) in the annual funding competition.

Both the success rates and the dollar amounts are higher than last year, says research dean Paul Healy. Fifty-four per cent of Trent's 13 applications were successful. The average national success rate is 25 to 30 per cent, he says. And Trent received 20 per cent higher funding than it did last year.

      Anthropologist John Topic won the largest chunk - $78,100 for a project he will conduct with Theresa Topic (Brescia College at the University of Western Ontario) called Catequil: The History of an Andean Oracle. The second highest funding - $69,605 - went to political studies professor Andreas Pickel to study Systemic Change by Design: Sources of Success and Failure in Post-Communist Transformation.

      Another nine faculty members at Trent hold instalments from previous grants. This brings the total value of sshrc research grants held at Trent for 1998-99 to $238,393 in 11 departments and programs.       Also receiving new grants are:

Andrew McDonald (History), The Canmore Dynasty 1058-1153: Scottish Kingship and the Emergence of Scotland, $24,000

Mark Neufeld (Political Studies), Globalization and Democracy: A Comparative Analysis of Political Discourse in Canada and Mexico, $28,992 James Parker (Psychology), Affect Regulation Abilities and Alexithymia, $24,000

Elaine Scharfe (Psychology), Stability and Change of Adult Attachment Representations During the Transition to Parenthood, $50,404

Alena Heitlinger (Sociology), Transnational, Emigre and Local Czech Feminisms, $46,758

NSERC grants six first-time awards

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (nserc) has awarded Trent researchers $683,300 for new and ongoing research projects next year - 18.5 per cent higher than this year.

Of the 29 funded projects in this annual competition for the federal funding dollars, six are first-time awards. "This is great news" because it means support for younger faculty projects, said research and graduate studies dean Paul Healy at Senate April 7.

One mathematician, two biologists and three chemists got the six new awards for the following projects:

Kenzu Abdella (Mathematics), Boundary Layer and Cloud Parameterization for Use in Climate Models, $17,900, first of four

Holger Hintelmann (ERS/Chemistry), New Speciation Approaches for Organometals in the Environment: Application of Stable Isotopes of Organometals for Isotope Dilution Measurements and Metylation Assays, $24,000, first of three

Carolyn Kapron (Biology), Embryotoxicity and Stress-Response Pathways in Mice, $20,000, first of a four-year grant

Dave Lasenby (Biology), The Role of Benthic Invertebrates in the Movement of Contaminants in Lakes, $15,000, first of four

Errol Lewars (Chemistry), Computational Chemistry: Studies of Molecules of Theoretical Interest, $15,000, first of two

Igor Svishchev (Chemistry), Physics and Chemistry of Atmospheric Aerosols, Clouds and Precipitation: Molecular-Based Approach, $27,500, first of three