They sure don’t make it easy to find but there is a way to search Canada’s Social Science and Humanities Research Council awards for research. I ran a search for nanotechnology projects spanning the 2005-6 and 2006-7 fiscal years and found four projects. Two at the University of Alberta and two at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia. Hmmm….here are the titles (and researchers and universitites):

• Giorgio Agamben’s political ontologies: a study of biopower, biopolitics, and nanotechnology. (Charles A Barbour at the U of A)
• A field perspective on nanotechnology path creation: an examination of carbon nanotubes. (Michael Lounsbury at the U of A)
• Opportunity creation from the confluence of technologies. (Eliicia Maine, SFU)
• Bionanotechnology in British Columbia: conceptualizations of social implications. (Karen M Woods, SFU)

Those were all awarded in 2006. For fun, I went back to the 2001-2 fiscal year and found one other researcher (she got two grants for the same project) in 2003-4

• Weaving new technologies: social theory and ubiquitous computing. (Anne Galloway, Carleton University, Ontario)

It doesn’t seem like a lot especially when I see some of the work being done in the UK and in the US.

On other fronts, I stumbled across an old (2004?) Neal Stephenson interview with Slashdot (I think the writer is Adam Shand). They make no mention of Diamond Age, which is more or less Stephenson’s nano novel. Still, he provides an interesting take on being a science fiction writer and making money as a writer. In fact, if you’re interested in Neal Stephenson interviews, etc., you can go here for a listing.