Grant: Partnership Workshops Grants - Colleges

The heavy equipment manufacturing industry faces a lack of test facilities and considerable pressure from regulatory bodies for emissions control and fuel efficiencies. Regulatory agencies are now committing to a focus on improving fuel efficiency, while maintaining emissions levels. The key factors driving the heavy equipment industry are the development of new energy-efficient vehicle technologies and materials; this is resulting in the need for enhanced research and testing capabilities in alternative fuels, emissions testing and cold weather environment testing.With the above challenges, the emergence of new testing and research resources (such as MotiveLab and VTEC), and the importance of the sector to Western Canada's economy, the basis for bringing together research-focused academic organizations with key industry players is thus established. While industry/academic collaborations exist, there is a gap in understanding about how all the players can most effectively work together to achieve mutual research and innovation objectives, and exactly what research-related resources are needed to best meet these objectives, as well as how these resources can most effectively be leveraged. From RRC's perspective, the Workshop would be instrumental in defining usage and developing partnerships for MotiveLab, as well as further refining its NSERC CCI IE VTEC submission to ensure that its relevancy to industry needs is maximized, and that industry understands what RRC could be bringing to the table to support their needs, while concurrently enabling RRC to better leverage their support in the establishment of the Centre.