New York, April 11th 2003 - The Université de Montréal and Columbia University signed an agreement today on scientific cooperation.  The agreement will encourage joint scientific projects focusing on areas such as the flourishing new field of the nanosciences, where Montreal, with the largest technological cluster in Canada, is a leading player. Columbia is one of six major universities in the United States designated by the National Science Foundation as a national nanoscale research center.

"New Yorkers and Montrealers are more than just neighbours. Our universities are duty bound to take the bridges that history and geography have created between our cities, and to extend them into the field of knowledge," says Robert Lacroix, Rector of the Université de Montréal. "The cooperation between our two universities is in its early stages, but already, on both sides, we have expressed our determination to carry it much further."

Honouring a great mind
The Université de Montréal also awarded today a Doctorate Honoris Causa to Dr. Eric R. Kandel, professor at Columbia University and Nobel Prize winner (Medicine, 2000).

In 125 years of existence, only twice has the Université de Montréal awarded a doctorate Honoris Causa  outside of its own walls. Dr. Eric R. Kandel, professor at Columbia University, researcher at the Hughes Medical Institute and the founding director of Columbia University's Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, is the recipient of this distinction today.

"It is an honour for the Université de Montréal to bestow the degree of Doctorate Honoris Causa on Dr. Eric Kandel. His research brings us closer to an answer to one of science's most fundamental questions: the nature of the human mind. And it is arguably one of the most beautiful aspects of the human mind to push the boundaries of knowledge further as Dr. Kandel has done throughout his distinguished career," says Robert Lacroix, Rector of the Université de Montréal.

About Université de Montréal
Université de Montréal is a leader among major research universities. With its two affiliated schools, the École Polytechnique and HEC Montréal, its campus is the largest in Québec. It offers undergraduate, masters and doctoral level programs in all areas of knowledge, has more than 50,000 students from 120 different countries and awards more than 2,500 master's and doctorate degrees every year. It ranks second among universities in Canada in terms of research funding and research grants per professor. Université de Montréal is committed to developing new knowledge and transmitting existing expertise.

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For information:
Sophie Langlois
Press Officer, Université de Montréal
(514) 343-7704
sophie.langlois@umontreal.ca