ABSTRACT
The Prairie Ecosystem Study (PECOS) involved the University of Saskatchewan and the University of Regina in an interdisciplinary study that included the natural, agricultural, and health sciences. PECOS was funded by the Tri-Council Ecosystem Research Program (TRICERP), a granting council to administer Green Plan funding from Environment Canada. TRICERP projects were available only to universities, and had to include research in at least two of the three areas of the national granting councils: the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), and the Medical Research Council (MRC, now the Canadian Institute for Health Research). PECOS involved more than 40 professors and research scientists, guiding the graduate study of 29 students, as well as 5 postdoctoral fellows, several undergraduate research assistants, research associates, health professionals, and technicians. PECOS was community based in that residents of the study area made suggestions about the overall design of the study, helped to connect PECOS with the community, participated in a community canvass to encourage completion of a questionnaire discussed in the chapter by McDuffie et al., and served as subjects in several health-related studies.
