Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies

The Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies was founded in 1991 and is the senior research institute at the University of British Columbia. It supports basic research through collaborative, interdisciplinary initiatives. The Institute brings together UBC scholars with researchers from around the world "to work together on innovative research, develop new thinking that is beyond disciplinary boundaries, and engage in intellectual risk-taking." The Institute has a varied program of scholars in residence, visiting scholars, distinguished professorship, multiple speaker series, and major special events.

To create collaborative, interdisciplinary, basic research programs for scholars at all stages of their career.

In 1991, Vancouver property developer Peter Wall donated 6.5 million shares of the Wall Financial Corporation (at the time, it was worth CAD$15 million and the largest private donation received by the University of British Columbia) to fund the Peter Wall Institute for Advanced studies, which had been conceived by Wall and then UBC President David Strangway. Strangway was quoted as saying, "Peter realized that there was an opportunity to create a university-based institute for advanced research which doesn't exist anywhere else. He made it clear from the outset that the money had to be used to generate new ideas and initiatives that wouldn't happen otherwise." As of March 2007, the market value of the shares stood at CAD$48 million. Also in 1994, the University dedicated a CAD$10 million Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies Endowment Fund to the Institute.

The Institute began active operations in 1994 with the appointments of UBC Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Michael Smith (1932–2000), and Prof. Raphael Amit, then Director of UBC's W. Maurice Young Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Research Centre, as Peter Wall Distinguished Professors. The Institute's first full-time director was Kenneth MacCrimmon from 1996 to 2002. The Institute acquired its own facilities at the Leon & Thea Koerner University Centre (formerly the Faculty Club) in 1999. In 2002, the Institute appointed as its new Peter Wall Distinguished Professor Dr. Brett Finlay, who teaches in the Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, the Department of Microbiology & Immunology, and at the Finlay Lab at the Michael Smith Laboratories at UBC, and whose research led to the developments of vaccines for SARS and E. coli. The professorship is valued at $100,000 per year for five years and is renewable for life.

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