A Quebec-based aerospace research network is making an aggressive pitch to transform itself into a national organization and position itself as a leading contender for a proposed Canadian Aerospace Technology Network (CATN). The Consortium for Research and Innovation in Aerospace in Quebec (CRIAQ) decided last month to assume a national mandate, exchanging Quebec in its name to Canada.

The move is augmented by a decision to expand its mandate to include aerospace R&D conducted in companies and government laboratories as well as universities. An August 26 meeting at Carleton Univ in Ottawa resulted in three Ontario-based universities agreeing to participate — Carleton, Ryerson Univ and the Univ of Toronto’s Institute for Aerospace Studies. Discussions are also underway with other institutions offering aerospace-related studies, including the Univ of Calgary and the Univ of British Columbia.

“CRIAQ is like an NCE (Networks of Centres of Excellence) but with an expanded mandate. It will do R&D wherever it sees fit including government labs and companies,” says Dr Hany Moustapha, a member of the TIC working group and senior fellow and director for technology and collaboration programs at Pratt & Whitney Canada. “It is modelled on the European framework program which supports projects that are 50% government funded and are pre-competitive, collaborative R&D.”

CRIAQ’s decision to go national coincides with a recommendation made to the Canadian Aerospace Partnership (CAP) to establish a CATN (see page 1). Moustapha is part of the CAP working group calling for its creation and he contends that CRIAQ is best suited to assume the role.

“CRIAQ could be the new technology network. We have a CEO (Andre Bazergui), a structure and we have resolved all IP (intellectual property) issues,” says Moustapha. “We’re now expanding nationally and if the technology network has a bigger mandate than CRIAQ, we can discuss it.”

THREE GROUPS IN RUNNING

The National Research Council’s Institute for Aerospace Research is also jockeying for the role, as is the Winnipeg-based Composites Innovation Centre.

Peter Boag, president and CEO of the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada (AIAC) says the CATN is urgently needed as a mechanism for increasing R&D investment and coordinating funding from various sources. But he says it’s too early to say which vehicle the CAP will choose when it makes its final recommendations.

“CRIAQ has been a very successful model in Quebec and it’s one we’ll have to look at,” he says. “But the NRC also wants to play in this area and then there’s Composites Innovation Centre, which is a big project, a partnership model and a platform for collaborative projects.”

Moustapha says CRIAQ’s move to national status will go ahead regardless of its success in becoming the CATN.

CRIAQ currently supports university-based projects with at least 25 industry funding with the remainder coming from from a variety of public sources. Launched in 2002, CRIAQ has received more than $25 million in funding from industry, participating universities and the provincial government .

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