Factors that have moulded Canada's industry - its modest domestic defence market, the preponderance of small companies and their geographic distribution - have also shaped the country's national aerospace laboratory, and its key role in bridging the gap between university and industry research.
Based in Ottawa and Montreal, the National Research Council of Canada Institute of Aerospace Research (NRC Aerospace) has the mandate to support the country's industry and its military. It does so with a mix of government and industry funding, applying some of the revenues generated to its own internal research.
"Canada cannot support separate agencies delivering research and technology to the civil and military sides," says director general Jerzy Komorowski. Nor does it pay for all research. NRC supplies 45% of funding, 10% is from other government departments and the rest from working with industry in Canada and elsewhere. Its activity is focused on technology readiness levels (TRL) between 3 and 7, he says.
NRC Aerospace's strategy has four aims: to be industry's partner of choice for research by focusing on the development of relevant technologies to identify and address weaknesses in industry caused by the dearth of upper-tier suppliers to support government priorities, such as gas-turbine research for the energy sector and to grow its own capabilities through internal research.
The latter is important, Komorowski says, as the institute must invest in longer-term research and grow its capabilities to stay attractive to industry. "We are focused on the needs of industry, but the demands of outside partners are short term. If we are to move technologies from lower TRLs we must invest our own funds," he says.
"We would quickly exhaust our IP [intellectual-property] larder if we were totally responsive to clients," says Komorowski. "We recognised this a few years ago when we ramped up work for clients until they generated 75% of our budget. That was not a healthy or sustainable level. Today it is 55-60%, which is healthy." Institute staff compete for internal research funds.
Efforts to address industry weaknesses focus on developing the abilities of smaller firms. "The downloading of systems integration, R&T [research and technology] efforts and risk sharing to suppliers is a challenge," Komorowski says. "We have few OEMs and Tier 2 companies, so Canadian OEMs find Tier 2s elsewhere - and Tier 2s typically deal more locally than globally."
NRC Aerospace tries to "help lower-tier suppliers learn the new way to play the game", he says. "We bring SMEs in to collaborate on developing technologies, which we put in the hands of the SMEs so that they can become suppliers to a Bell or a Bombardier."
Source: Flight International
