Nserc results 1415799086

NSERC Investments

Newfoundland and Labrador

$8.8 million

192

NSERC-funded Professors

NSERC Investments in Newfoundland and Labrador (2013-2014)

18

$1.1 billion

Industrial Partners

Government of Canada Investments through NSERC (2013-2014)

$600,000

Industrial Contributions

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) is a federal agency that helps make Canada a country of discoverers and innovators for all Canadians. NSERC maximizes the value of the Government of Canada's investments in research by promoting research-based innovation, university-industry partnerships and the training of people with the scientific knowledge and business skill set to create wealth and jobs from new discoveries in science and engineering.

88

NSERC Awards to Students and Fellows

NSERC Investments in Newfoundland and Labrador, by Federal S&T Priority Area

$6.9 million 1 | Information and Communications Technologies

11%

2 | Natural Resources and Energy

44%

3 | Manufacturing

10%

4 | Environmental Sciences and Technologies

21%

5 | Health and Related Life Sciences and Technologies

14%

9

NSERC-supported Research Chairs

For more information, visit www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca

Newfoundland and Labrador

Impacts and Investments

Making Offshore Oil Drilling Safer and Stronger Research into offshore oil and gas operations helps make offshore drilling safer, protects workers' lives and keeps the environment healthier Canada’s significant offshore oil and gas resources are a source of jobs, growth and energy vital to the economy. The oil and gas Industry in Newfoundland and Labrador directly employs about 3,000 people. Indirect employment from oil and gas activity is estimated at over 17,000 jobs. The Offshore Technology Research Training Program is an applied research effort headquartered at Memorial University of Newfoundland that focuses directly on problems and challenges facing the industry. A variety of partners—from resource companies to professional associations—are helping to provide a highly trained workforce to maintain Canada’s competitive advantage. The initiative, led by mechanical engineer Dr. Wei Qiu, will receive support over six years through NSERC’s Collaborative Research and Training Experience Program (CREATE). This support will give graduate students in engineering the opportunity to take specialized courses and focus research in four thematic areas: floating structures, mooring lines and risers, corrosion material engineering and subsea systems.

For the period 2010-16: NSERC contribution, $1.65 million.

Research is Providing Insight into how Children’s Memories Work Differently from Adults’ Study of amnesia in children leaves many questions still to be answered Dr. Carole Peterson at Memorial University of Newfoundland is conducting a series of studies to answer some of these questions, such as why our earliest memories from childhood disappear, and what helps us maintain childhood memories. She is also examining the relationship between stress and memory: adults who experience stressful events often have difficulty in recalling them accurately, but children do not. Dr. Peterson is uncovering the differences between adults’ and children’s memories in such situations.

Dr. Peterson’s research will improve our understanding of human memory in general.

More specifically, her findings will affect court cases in which children are eyewitnesses and will help authorities to determine how much coaching by parents may affect the credibility of children’s testimony.

For the period 2012-17: NSERC contribution, $155,000.

"Canada’s oceans are hugely important for our economy and environmental health, but their vastness and complexity create a critical need for a research partnership between academia and government. The NSERC Strategic Network partnership has created a unique opportunity to gather a geographically scattered community of ocean researchers under one umbrella, making us the envy of our colleagues abroad. Not only is this a wonderful opportunity for researchers today, but it will also make the oceans of tomorrow the ultimate beneficiary."

Dr. Paul Snelgrove Canada Research Chair in Boreal and Cold Ocean Systems Memorial University of Newfoundland

Newfoundland and Labrador

Lighting that is Easier on the Eyes and the Environment Research partnership creates improved LEDs with less pollution Compared with older lighting technologies, the light-emitting diodes (LEDs) that are in growing use today last longer and use less energy. But their colour quality is poor, and the mining and processing of the rare earth metals used to produce them are expensive and cause significant pollution. Dr. Kristin Poduska of Memorial University of Newfoundland is working with University of Toronto spin-off company Lumentra Inc. to develop LED lighting that can provide outstanding colour quality more economically, without rare earth materials. To do so, she is applying recent advances in nanotechnology to develop luminescent coatings for LED lighting technologies.

Thanks to Dr. Poduska’s research, consumers will enjoy a more environmentally friendly product that provides better light, Lumentra will stake out a leading position in the billion-dollar-a-year solid-state lighting industry, and lighting companies around the world will benefit from this innovative Canadian technology.

For the period 2010-17: NSERC contribution, $226,000; industry partners and others, $95,000.

Maintaining Biodiversity in Cold Oceans As a signatory to the international Convention on Biological Diversity, Canada is committed to developing an inventory of its biodiversity and preserving these resources Within the marine environment, our understanding of the processes that regulate and maintain biodiversity is very limited, and even less is known about cold ocean ecosystems. Memorial University of Newfoundland oceanographer and Canada Research Chair Dr. Paul Snelgrove addresses this shortcoming by focussing on early life history stages of species and the processes that influence success, failure and the resultant pattern of biodiversity. His NSERC-funded research is centred primarily in coastal Newfoundland, in a variety of habitats that include a diverse mix of temperate and Arctic species. Dr. Snelgrove also leads the NSERC-funded Canadian Healthy Oceans Network—a Canada-wide initiative of more than 50 researchers engaged in the broad themes of marine species diversity, ecosystem function and population connectivity.

For the period 2007-17: NSERC contribution, $6.2 million.

Top Institutions Ranked

by NSERC Investments 1. Memorial University of Newfoundland $7.6 million 2. College of the North Atlantic $934,100

Newfoundland and Labrador

Innovative Exploration Strategies to Increase Mining Yields Researcher helps industry find and recover minerals In the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the mining industry accounts for 9 per cent of GDP. In 2011, this industry spent $157 million on exploring mineral deposits, shipped over $4.6 billion worth of minerals out of the province, and provided some 9,000 jobs. To help this industry find new mineral deposits and mine them more effectively, Dr. Gary Thompson at the College of the North Atlantic is working with industry partner Vale Ltd., one of the world’s leading mining companies. The innovative methods that the partners are developing will enable mining companies to find and characterize ore deposits and recover mineral resources from them more effectively.

For the period 2011-16: NSERC contribution, $750,000; industry partners and others, $764,000.

Industrial Partners in Newfoundland and Labrador (2013-2014) Altius Resources Inc. Aqua Bounty Canada Inc. Corner Brook Pulp and Paper Limited Fish, Food and Allied Workers Union Grey Island Energy Newfoundland and Labrador Environmental Industry Association Oceanic Consulting Corporation Oceans Ltd. OceansAdvance Inc. Provincial Aerospace Limited Rambler Metals & Mining Canada PLC Rodrigues Winery Test Photonics Canada Ltd.

Map Making in the Web 2.0 Era Social media tools are making it possible for anyone to engage in map making, while new research is creating a system for communicating the quality of this information Dr. Rodolphe Devillers, a geography professor at Memorial University of Newfoundland, is researching the impact of geographic information contributed by volunteers and the growth of free geographic data sets. In the past, government and industry produced all of the geospatial information available because only they had the resources to gather the vast amounts of information. Today, social media tools make it possible for anyone to do it. Devillers’ research will explore ways of judging these free data sets and developing a rating system to communicate the quality of the data to users.

For the period 2011-15: NSERC contribution, $290,000.

Vale Canada Ltd. Verafin Inc.

For more information, visit www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca