$52.75 million investment to accelerate next-generation research
Alan Shepard (left), Kathleen Weil, Hélène David, Marc Garneau and David Lametti | Photos by Marion Elissalde
The Government of Canada and the Government of Quebec are joining forces with Concordia to invest $52.75 million into a research and innovation hub at the university.
"This is a high-water mark moment for Concordia’s next-generation approach to education," says Alan Shepard, Concordia’s president.
"The ultimate commodity in the 21st century is knowledge. The new funding is transformational and will help us meet emerging needs and partner with industry."
Many of the research activities that will be housed within Concordia’s new applied science space are transdisciplinary and will be directed towards incubating new approaches to sustainable products and processes.
"Our researchers are producing outstanding, internationally renowned work," says Graham Carr, Concordia’s provost.
"This new funding ensures they will have the most appropriate environment to support their research, develop partnerships and train students for the jobs of tomorrow."
The research and innovation hub will house activities with commercial potential for Concordia’s current and future industrial partners and entrepreneurs, and include infrastructure to support the scaling up of projects created on the lab bench.
Chemists, engineers, health scientists and biologists will work in an environment that encourages transdisciplinary thinking and will lead to new and efficient prototypes, materials and processes with applications in biomedicine, sustainable manufacturing and beyond.
The new hub’s team of researchers will include incoming faculty and graduate students from Concordia’s new Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering. The hub will also house the Centre for NanoScience Research and the Centre for Microscopy and Cellular Imaging.
After the announcement, government representatives toured the Solar Decathlon site on the Loyola Campus.
An integrated space devoted to Concordia’s District 3 Centre for Innovation and Entrepreneurship will provide dry and wet co-working laboratories to support entrepreneurs developing products based on scientific discoveries and ideas.
"This project reflects Concordia’s drive to provide top researchers with innovative and collaborative laboratory environments, and to provide access to the infrastructure they need to take their projects to the next level," says Justin Powlowski, interim vice president of Research and Graduate Studies.
"Through this project, it will be much easier for our researchers and their partners to use expertise from the lab to develop creative and sustainable applications and take them out into the world."
This project is made possible thanks to the Government of Canada’s Post-Secondary Institutions Strategic Investment Fund (SIF) and from the Government of Quebec’s Plan québécois des infrastructures 2016-2026 (PQI).
