Bishop's University Joins National Effort to Capture Gravitational Waves from Colliding Black Holes

Canada NewsWire

SHERBROOKE, QC, April 1, 2026

SHERBROOKE, QC, April 1, 2026 /CNW/ - Bishop's University has received $800,000 from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Government of Québec, and other partners — part of a $12-million pan-Canadian collaboration — to join a national collaboration tackling some of the most fundamental questions in modern astrophysics, including what happens when black holes collide.

When black holes at the centres of galaxies collide, they send ripples through the fabric of spacetime itself — ripples that we can detect to study the mysterious origins of these black holes in the early universe. Bishop's University is now part of the national effort to build the infrastructure to detect these ripples called 'gravitational waves'.

The Gravitational Wave Astrophysics Infrastructure Network (GRAIN) is a $12-million pan-Canadian collaboration bringing together researchers from six universities to build the hardware, computing capacity, and software needed to detect and analyze gravitational waves using detectors both on Earth and in space. Notably, the 2026 CFI Innovation Fund investment unlocks Canadian participation in the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA), a $2-billion European Space Agency mission that will shoot lasers between a constellation of three spacecrafts that will be launched into orbit to detect gravitational waves.

At Bishop's, the investment supports the work of Dr. John Ruan, Canada Research Chair in Multi-Messenger Astrophysics. Dr. Ruan's team uses gravitational waves alongside light to push the frontier of this new field and answer some of astrophysics' deepest questions: Why are there black holes at the centres of galaxies? Where do the universe's heaviest elements originate? GRAIN will enable his team to join the effort to solve these cosmic mysteries.

"LISA will detect gravitational waves from black hole collision at the centres of galaxies for the first time, which will be a landmark discovery worthy of a Nobel Prize," said Dr. Ruan. "The GRAIN project ensures that Canadian researchers — including our team at Bishop's — will lead parts of this effort, by delivering critical software infrastructure to the mission."

Bishop's is one of six universities in the GRAIN consortium, alongside UBC, McGill, Université de Montréal, the University of Lethbridge, and the University of Manitoba — a collaboration that reflects the University's growing national profile in astrophysics research.

"Bishop's is a small university asking very big questions," said Dr. Matthew Peros, Interim Associate Vice-Principal (Research). "Being part of a national collaboration of this scale speaks to the strength of our researchers, and also the impact that small institutions can have on cutting-edge research on a national and international level."