The Fields Institute is a center for mathematical research activity, a place where mathematicians from around the world–from business, industry and financial institutions–come together to conduct research and formulate problems of mutual interest to finance and mathematics. R2 was incubated at the Fields Institute from 2006 to 2009, and is today a corporate affiliate member, along with four other companies. In 2010, our CEO, Dan Rosen, was inducted Fellow of the Fields Institute, a lifetime appointment conferred on “individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the Fields Institute, its programs, and to the Canadian mathematical community.” Dr. Rosen is a long-time contributor and organizer of the PRMIA Risk Management Seminars and Quantitative Finance Seminar Series held at the Fields, and was part of the organizing committee for the Institute’s six-month thematic program on Quantitative Finance (January-June 2010). He has also served on the Institute’s industrial advisory board for several years.
The Institute’s mission is to provide a supportive and stimulating environment for mathematics innovation and education by promoting the application of mathematics in contemporary society. The Institute’s Commercial and Industrial Mathematics program (CIM) connects the mathematics community with businesses that benefit from research in the mathematical sciences. The focus of the CIM Program is a collaboration with business to enable technology transfer between mathematical scientists and the information society.
The Fields Institute is named after the Canadian mathematician John Charles Fields (1863-1932), a pioneer and visionary who recognized the scientific, educational, and economic value of research in the mathematical sciences. There is no Nobel Prize in mathematics, and Fields felt strongly that there should be a comparable award to recognize the most outstanding current research in mathematics. He thus established the International Medal for Outstanding Discoveries in Mathematics, today known as the Fields Medal.