Polytechnics Canada Applauds New Federal Funding for Research Equipment

OTTAWA, July 26 /CNW Telbec/ - Polytechnics Canada applauds today's announcement by Minister Gary Goodyear and the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) that $32.5 million will be made available to colleges, institutes and polytechnics for research equipment and infrastructure.

"This new funding will allow our members to better serve our industry clients by ensuring that we have dedicated equipment and facilities to support their innovation needs," said Nobina Robinson, CEO of Polytechnics Canada, representing nine leading colleges and institutes of technology.

Added Polytechnics Canada Chair and Humber College President John Davies: "This welcome new money will help our member colleges and polytechnics, our researchers, including our students, to perform applied research with state-of-the-art equipment in purpose-built infrastructure to create commercial solutions for industry."

Polytechnics Canada has for years urged CFI to restore equipment and research infrastructure funding for those colleges with proven track records of assisting small- and mid-sized enterprises with their research and commercialization needs.

CFI cancelled an earlier program for funding college research equipment and infrastructure over 10 years ago. As a result, polytechnic and college research activity for the past decade has received only limited project funding from the research granting councils with no dedicated resources for equipment and facilities, unlike the university sector.

Polytechnics Canada will work closely with CFI to ensure that the new program criteria are closely aligned with the applied research needs of industry.

Polytechnics Canada is an alliance of nine leading research-intensive, publicly-funded colleges and institutes of technology in key economic regions of Canada where the emphasis is on applied education and applied research. The current nine member colleges are: Algonquin College, Humber, Conestoga, Sheridan, George Brown and Seneca in Ontario; SAIT Polytechnic and Olds College in Alberta; and BCIT in British Columbia.

For further information: Nobina Robinson, Chief Executive Officer, Polytechnics Canada, Tel: [phone], Email: [email protected]