Canadian Light Source pursuing aggressive strategy for boosting industrial use

The Canadian Light Source (CLS) synchrotron is actively seeking new sources of funding to ramp up its capacity to support industrial users and work toward its long-term goal of 25% of beam time utilized by the private sector. The ambitious industrial target is unique in the world and underlines the CLS's objective of developing a reputation for offering a diverse range of expertise required by businesses from differing sectors.

"We have lofty goals for industrial utilization and revenue generation," says CLS executive director Dr Bill Thomlinson. "Most industry contracts need assistance so we need a lot of people."

The first agency to provide funding focused on commercialization is Western Diversification Canada (WD), with $2 million to establish a First Users Program. The funding goes toward marketing and promotional costs and the CLS's industrial science groups.

"People come in with demonstration projects and we absorb the costs," says Dr Murray McLaughlin, director of business development. "For the first time beyond demonstration, there's a reduced hourly rate (for beam time). For the next project, companies pay the full amount in most cases."

The CLS has also made the short list for the new Centres of Excellence in Commercialization and Research (CECR) program, which would provide $15 million over five years to support commercialization.

"As we get more contracts, we will have to hire more people and buy more equipment and the CECR would provide $3 million a year on the commercialization/industrial side," says McLaughlin. "We would apply it to the beamlines to make sure they can support industrial users. There are no other programs that fit the CLS. The challenge for big science projects with large operational budgets is there's no specific program for this."

The CLS has seven operational beamlines and another seven which should be up and running by early 2009. An additional five beamlines have received funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and still require matching funding.

To date, the CLS has completed approximately 60 industrial contracts, with many in the environmental (mining) and materials research. Operating costs are currently running $18-19 million annually — a figure that's expected to exceed $30 million once all 19 scheduled beamlines come on stream. A beamline costs an average of $12-15 million to build.

industrial offsets

The CLS is also exploring the potential of exploiting the nearly $20 billion in military hardware recently ordered by the federal government. The government requires companies to spend 100% of their contract value in Canada. Industrial regional benefits (IRBs) allow firms to obtain a 5:1 credit when they use Canadian research facilities.

Negotiations are underway with aerospace and defence firms such as: General Dynamics, Falls Church, VA; Boeing Co, Chicago IL; Lockheed Martin, Bethesda MD; and Rockwell-Collins, Cedar Rapids IA. Rockwell-Collins recently spent $300,000 at the CLS to use its nanotech beamline for the development of cockpit instrumentation.

"We're in the early stages with all these companies but we're most advanced with Rockwell-Martin. It will take at least a year to get any programs in place. In the long run, (industrial) offsets could be very important for us. These companies could become involved in the construction costs of new beamlines and we could link them to CFI funding," says McLaughlin. "These companies have a good rationale for using research facilities like ours. They use synchrotrons and are involved in materials research. The offset may become the benefit of using the CLS over a US facility."

R$