CEMI declined as a national centre of excellence.

• Author: Ross, Ian
• Position: SPECIAL REPORT: MINING - Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation

Sudbury's Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation (CEMI) fell short in their competition to be selected one of 11 national centres of excellence in science and technology.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

CEMI was one of 110 national applicants eligible to tap into $165 million pool of federal funding to create Centres of Excellence in Commercialization and Research.

No big deal, says CEMI spokesperson Shannon Katary, it's a case of "move up and on," although they are still actively pursuing other federal funding through Fed-Nor.

"We'll move forward and try for what is available. They'll be other rounds."

Their proposal dubbed the Canadian Resources for Life Network never made it past the initial letter of intent phase of the competition.

Twenty-five groups advance to the second stage.

Last summer, CEMI executive director and CEO Peter Kaiser assessed his fledgling institute's chances as "one in three" to make it to the final proposal stage in October.

Among the research groups being shortlisted for the second round include applicants from Vancouver, Ottawa, Saskatoon, Toronto and Montreal specializing in communications, medical and life sciences research, drug development, applied physics, wind energy technology, animal genomics and green building innovation.

Despite Canada's mining industry expenditures being on an historic highs, none of the applicants moving onto the second round specialize in mining technologies.

Nevertheless at a Vancouver mines minister's conference in September, federal Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn called the performance of Canada's $40 billion mining sector "impressive" and called on governments and industry to work together and improve the industry's competitiveness and sustained growth.

The provincial mines ministers agreed to develop a pan-Canadian mining research and innovation strategy to present at next year's conference in Saskatoon.

Katary...