Cambrian College receives $2.1m research grant: a collaboration with business partners for the next five years.

• Author: McKinley, Karen
• Position: NEWS

The future is looking more secure for several innovation projects at Cambrian College in Sudbury with a large grant coming their way.

Cambrian Innovates, the applied research division at the college, and three mining industry partners will benefit from a $2.1-million grant aimed at supporting a five-year Mine Environmental Stewardship Initiative.

The grant is coming from the federal government's National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) College and Community Innovation (CCI) program.

The funds were secured through an Innovation Enhancement grant that will support a five-year Mine Environmental Stewardship Initiative.

The grant will be applied to research projects that will be carried out to identify or test practical solutions to issues confronted by industry partners and key clients.

Each project will engage a team of research leads, industrial partners, faculty members, student researchers and expertise from Cambrian's established research partners.

It also includes partners at Laurentian University's Vale Living with Lakes Centre and its focus on research on environmental remediation, protection, and conservation.

"It's a great partnership between the college and the businesses and industry partners," said Mike Commito, Cambrian's applied research developer.

The grant is known as an innovation enhancement grant. The application, he explained, had to be centred on a theme or investigative approach that separated them from other colleges' applications. Cambrian's was the Mine Environment Stewardship Initiative.

It focused specifically on challenges confronted by mining, including remediation. They had to also name preliminary partners who they would be working with.

Now they will be going back to their partners that are dealing with these specific problems, as well as increase the scope of their partners as the grant gains momentum.

One he did speak to is the ongoing cold-adapted microbes project currently being conducted by the Vale Living with Lakes Centre and includes Dr. Nadia Mykytczuk, a Northern Heritage Fund Heritage Fund Corporation Industrial Research Chair in biomining, bioremediation and science communication.

The project, he said, is looking into using biological means to either lessen the impact or recover metals from tailings ponds and waste rock.

For that specific research, he explained Mykytczuk would be working with the team at Cambrian College to help her design an implementation plan. After...