Companies, Universities Capture National Prizes for Innovation

Ottawa, October 14, 1999 -- The 1999 winners of the Synergy Awards for University-Industry R&D; Partnerships were announced today by Tom Brzustowski, President of NSERC, and Jim Nininger, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Conference Board of Canada. The two agencies sponsor the prizes, which include $10,000 research grants and sculptures.

The six winning research partnerships will be honoured October 22, in Calgary.

"The Synergy'99 Awards honour outstanding achievement in innovation and wealth creation and showcase the best in collaborative research and development in the natural sciences and engineering," said Dr. Nininger. "The benefits of this collaboration between universities and industries should be recognized and the most outstanding examples held up as models," added Brzustowski.

The partnerships were also praised by Dr. Gilbert Normand, Secretary of State (Science, Research and Development) for Canada. "These highly successful collaborations illustrate the importance of research and innovation to Canada's economic development and to the future of young Canadians," he said.

The winning partnerships are:

Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Inc. and the University of Alberta for a pioneering partnership that resulted in the development of a more natural forestry management model;

CREWES (The Consortium for Research in Elastic Wave Exploration Seismology) and the University of Calgary for a ten-year collaboration that has given Canada international leadership in underground imaging;

Syncrude Canada Ltd. and the University of Alberta for their exemplary collaboration in the development of oil sands processes and technology;

Universal Dynamics and the University of British Columbia for their successful partnership in the development of the Brain Wave^TM, an adaptive controller now in use in many process industries.

Falconbridge Limited and the University of Waterloo for their ten-year collaboration in the development of innovative approaches to treat and prevent acid mine drainage.

The Canadian Microelectronics Corporation for developing a unique model of partnership in promoting research into microchip technologies and the development of innovative new chips, and in training the next generation of microelectronics researchers.

The prize-winning partnerships were selected from more than 44 university-industry entries to this year's competition.

Each of the partnerships was required to demonstrate an effective use of university and industry resources, commercial benefits to industry and benefits to the university. The award includes a $10,000 research grant for the university partners.

The awards will be presented on Friday, October 22, at The Westin Calgary, as part of the Conference Board's 1999 Innovation Conference.

For more information, contact:

Arnet Sheppard, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, at (613) 995-5997 axs@nserc.ca,

Charlene Cummings, Media Relations, Corporate Communications, The Conference Board of Canada, at (613) 526-3280,

Sonya-Kim St-Julien, Press Secretary, Dr Gilbert Normand, at (613) 943-7032.