Friday, November 28, 2014 – Charlottetown, PEI – Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency
The Honourable Gail Shea, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, on behalf of the Honourable Rob Moore, Minister of State (Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency), today announced that the Government of Canada, through ACOA, is committing nearly $6 million to help the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI) establish a new Centre for Engineering Design and Industry Partnerships (CEDIP) that will collaborate with Atlantic Canadian small- and medium-sized businesses (SMEs) to help them to innovate and bring products to the marketplace.
The CEDIP will emphasize industry collaboration and will focus on solving engineering challenges faced by SMEs across Atlantic Canada, with the long-term goals of creating specialized equipment, expertise and technical resources to improve their competitiveness and productivity. Increasing capacity and expertise related to engineering design has been identified as a key to increasing the productivity and competitiveness of Atlantic Canadian SMEs and will ultimately contribute to a stronger regional economy.
Quick Facts:
- The Government of Canada is supporting this project with a $5,980,000 contribution through ACOA’s Business Development Program to support the fit-up of lab space for applied industry research, purchasing specialized equipment, and other costs.
- The CEDIP will feature Research Centres of Excellence in Sustainable Energy, Robotics, Food Manufacturing, and Micro Processing, Sensor and Sortation.
- Key sectors that will benefit from this new resource include aerospace, manufacturing, biosciences, agriculture, information technology, forestry, fisheries, and service industries.
- The CEDIP will maintain ongoing outreach to Atlantic Canadian SMEs and will liaison with research partners to ensure it remains connected to business needs and engineering design trends.
Quotes:
“The new Centre for Engineering Design and Industry Partnerships at UPEI fits perfectly with our Government’s focus on innovation, productivity and competitiveness. Atlantic Canadian small and medium-sized enterprises have identified a need to have this kind of design capacity and expertise in the region, and the Centre for Engineering Design and Industry Partnerships will benefit them directly, while it strengthens our research and design capacity to build a more innovative future right here in Atlantic Canada.”
- The Honourable Gail Shea, Minister of Fisheries and Oceans, on behalf of the Honourable Rob Moore, Minister of State (Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency).
“The University of Prince Edward Island is undertaking a transformative approach to putting innovation into action by establishing the Centre for Engineering Design and Industry Partnerships at our new School of Sustainable Design Engineering. We are creating a professional engineering R&D workspace on the UPEI campus where students and faculty will work alongside industry clients to design solutions that better society and contribute to global challenges. UPEI is grateful to the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and the Government of Prince Edward Island for helping build our culture of research excellence.”
- Dr. Alaa Abd-El-Aziz, President and Vice-Chancellor, University of Prince Edward Island
Associated Links:
University of Prince Edward Island
Contacts:
Kelsie Corey
Director of Communications
Office of the Honourable Rob Moore
Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency
613-941-7241
Christopher Brooks
A/Director, Communications
ACOA PEI and Tourism
902-789-5184
Backgrounder:
University of Prince Edward Island Centre for Engineering Design and Industry Partnership
The Centre for Engineering Design and Industry Partnerships (CEDIP) will maintain a strong emphasis on industry collaboration and commercialization of research solutions, and will focus on solving engineering challenges faced by small- and medium-sized businesses across Atlantic Canada. The CEDIP will actively engage in outreach to businesses and research partners, including other academic institutions across Canada and around the world, with the goal of maintaining a connection to current engineering design trends and challenges. The CEDIP’s operations will be overseen by an industry advisory board consisting of members with engineering and industrial expertise, and a project review committee will report on progress to stakeholders.
Four Industry Centres of Excellence will be established, each related to a specific area of engineering design and paired with one or more global and local industry partners who will bring their expertise, guidance, and knowledge of laboratory set-up to help local SMEs in their particular field of design solve engineering challenges. Atlantic Canadian SME clients will be offered a low-risk, low-cost option to explore the use of innovation in their companies, and intellectual properties will be protected during the process. Solutions developed in the Centres may be further developed by private industry alone or in partnership with Federal and Provincial Government funding programs.
The Four Industry Centres of Excellence are:
Sustainable Energy Centre of Excellence: will house energy-related equipment for improving overall efficiencies in the capture and transformation of energy. Renewable energy (part of sustainable energy) is a strategic priority of the Province of PEI and one of Atlantic Canada’s key economic sectors. The Sustainable Energy Centre of Excellence will allow local, national, and international companies to explore renewable energy technology development and improvements through a world-class lab facility and will be an important link to the diversification and expansion of the region.
Robotics Centre for Excellence: will provide dedicated space to focus on the employment of various types of robots to improve the efficiency, repeatability and quality of manufacturing. Within today's manufacturing world it is necessary to automate to reduce waste and the risk and expense of poor quality production. A robotic system, with its capacity for repeatability, is highly productive in a repetitive-motion environment.
Food Manufacturing Centre of Excellence: will focus on improving overall efficiency and reducing natural resource consumption within manufacturing processes. The growing global demand for food, along with the increasing costs of energy, are driving the need for improving product quality while reducing energy consumption, fresh water use and the waste of raw products.
Micro Processing Sensor and Sortation Centre of Excellence: will involve testing and advancing methods to collect and communicate information. It will also involve expanding the application of existing sensors along with fostering development of new sensor and processing equipment. The advancement of micro processing and sensor technology is critical to meet industry’s need to collect and capture information automatically, optimize processes, and provide valuable information in real time. This is a field of growth where technology is changing at a very fast pace.
