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Providing technical and incubation support to a growing community
Since the early 2000s, Edmonton's nanotechnology cluster has been a leading Canadian community making innovations in a rapidly developing and highly complex industry. Following a $130 million investment in 2007 by the Government of Alberta, the cluster has expanded considerably.
Since then, nanoAlberta, a Government of Alberta organization that works with industry to bring nanotechnology products to market, and the Alberta Centre for Advanced Micro/Nano Products, have joined ranks with NRC National Institute for Nanotechnology (NINT) to provide commercialization and business development support to the cluster’s more than two dozen commercial organizations.
NINT jointly with the University of Alberta, supplies the cluster with state-of-the-art facilities for research in physics, chemistry, engineering, biology, informatics, pharmacy and medicine. NINT’s Innovation Centre provides 29,000 square feet of rental laboratory and office space for up to 16 SMEs and start-ups.
Commercialization and technology transfer
In 2008, the Government of Alberta established the nanoWorks program to spur entrepreneurial success in the Edmonton cluster. The program invests in R&D projects that include a private sector partner. NINT has become involved in three of the first four nanoWorks projects.
Cluster players have developed a regional incubator and technology transfer alliance that co-ordinates and leverages the resources of the University of Alberta, Edmonton Economic Development Corporation and NRC. The alliance gives industry, including SMEs, access to considerable knowledge and assistance in the areas of commercialization, technology transfer, intellectual property management and start-up mentoring.
Western Economic Diversification, TEC Edmonton (a business accelerator), and the Alberta Ingenuity Fund (a government-funded operation) also offer commercialization expertise and assistance to the Edmonton cluster.
Partnerships and collaborations
The Edmonton cluster is supported substantially in its partnership efforts by NINT, which receives funding from the federal and provincial governments and their granting agencies. Collectively, the University of Alberta, NRC and others have 70 collaborative research teams working in nanotechnology, including 500 researchers, post-doctoral fellows, technical officers and graduate students.
Partnerships among industry, government and academic members of the Edmonton cluster include research projects to upgrade technology for oil sands, prion research, research into hepatitis vaccines, instrumentation development, the formation of next-generation computer memory devices, ultra-sensitive sensors, better catalysts, and nano-materials characterization tools.
International networks and linkages
The Edmonton cluster, through a number of players, including NINT, has developed firm research linkages with the MESA+ Institute for Nanotechnology in The Netherlands, one of the largest nanotechnology research institutes in the world; Rice University in Texas; and COMS 2009, the 14th annual conference on commercializing micro and nanotechnology.
The University of Alberta and NRC also actively recruit top talent in nanotechnology from around the world. At present, researchers from more than 30 countries work at NINT. This has helped to build a substantial brain trust in Canada for this rapidly emerging technology area.
Learn more about Edmonton's nanotechnology cluster
Fact sheet available in HTML or PDF version.
Related Information
National Institute for Nanotechnology (NINT)
