Second CECR competition yields six new centres - five remain unannounced

The federal government has announced funding for six more Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECRs) but so far have unveiled the identity of only one — Calgary-based Centre of Excellence for Integrated Resource Management CEIRM will receive $11.6 million over five years from an envelope of $62.3 million available for the CECR's second competition.

Like the recent Business-Led NCE competition, the federal government has chosen to stagger announcements on the new centres although final decisions have been made. The centres were selected from a slate of 15 full proposals submitted to the NCE Private Sector Advisory Board, which in turn made recommendations to the NCE steering committee.

A second CECR competition was held shortly after the results of the first were announced last year due to complaints that none were selected from the information and communications technology (ICT) sector (R$, February 25 & March 27/08). CEIRM fits the ICT description as it will deal with geomatics commercialization — the development of resources management tools to observe, monitor, forecast and manage the province's land and natural resources. The partners behind the centres are the Univ of Calgary, Univ of Alberta, Univ of Lethbridge, the Alberta Information and Communications Technology Institute, the provincial government and industry.

The centre's director is Dr Naser El-Sheimy, a professor and the head of geomatics engineering at the Univ of Calgary. While CEIRM will conduct traditional R&D, it will also focus on education and training, pre-commercialization of R&D and partnering with industry.

The three universities participating in CEIRM were also the beneficiaries of one of the first CECRs . The Canada School of Energy and Environment was one of seven centres awarded $15 million without competition and announced in the 2007 Budget (R$, March 26/07). Now referred to as Industry Canada Centres, they are administered by Industry Canada and not the NCE secretariat.

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