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New NSERC Chair at McGill Will Design
for Extreme Environments
Montréal, Québec, October 31, 2003 – The Government of Canada today announced funding of the new NSERC Chair in Design for Extreme Environments at McGill University. The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) is providing $1 million over five years, with McGill University contributing $598,000, and MD Robotics a further $50,000.
“Designing for extreme environments needs robust, sustainable answers to challenging problems,” explained new chairholder and robotics specialist Professor Jorge Angeles. “Canada's wealth of harsh environments is an ideal testing ground for developing our students' strengths in creative engineering.”
“The federal government supports and promotes design engineering because it generates the innovations that we need for Canada to be competitive,” said Stéphane Dion, President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Member of Parliament for Saint-Laurent/Cartierville, who made today’s announcement on behalf of Allan Rock, Minister of Industry and Minister responsible for NSERC.
“Investment in enabling fields, such as design engineering, is crucial to our goal of making Canada an international leader in R&D and a success in the global market place,” said Allan Rock.
“Design engineering is a creative, intellectual activity using knowledge as a key input,” said NSERC president Tom Brzustowski. “Nowhere is the output of this process more severely tested than in an extreme environment where it is very difficult to make repairs if the product fails to perform.”
NSERC created the Chairs in Design Engineering program five years ago in response to a call from industry and universities for more professionals in this critical area. The main priority of the program is to improve research and training in design engineering at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. It focuses on innovation in learning, and on equipping students with the right skills, knowledge and personal attributes required by the profession and industry.
NSERC is a key federal agency investing in people, discovery, and innovation. The Council supports both basic university research through discovery grants and project research through partnerships among universities, governments and the private sector, as well as the advanced training of highly qualified people.
For further information, contact:
Francis Lionnet
Communications
NSERC
Tel.: (613) 992-9001
Fax: (613) 943-0742
E-mail: fzl@nserc.ca
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