NRCan unveils design of CANMET MTL lab in Hamilton

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) has unveiled the design and broken ground on its new CANMET Materials Technology Laboratory (MTL) in Hamilton, more than three years after announcing that the lab would be moving from Ottawa (R$, July 22/05). The decision to relocate the lab was based on potential synergies realized by combining the Hamilton region's manufacturing base and MTL's research expertise in structural metals and alloys, materials design, pilot-scale processing and performance evaluation. The 2007 federal Budget allocated $6 million to assist in the lab's transfer although the overall costs associated with the move are expected to top $40 million. The government has subsequently targeted two more labs for transfer to the university sector — the NRCan Geosciences Laboratories and the Cereal Research and Innovation Laboratory at Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada. They were selected from a slate of five labs identified by an expert panel struck to generate a list of early candidates for transfer (R$, June 20/08)….