Private R&D needed for self-sufficiency: UNB head
Economy Partnerships with academic institutions 'hugely important,' says president
DAVID SHIPLEY
Telegraph-Journal
New Brunswick must bolster its private research and development efforts if it is to achieve self-sufficiency, says University of New Brunswick president John McLaughlin.
"If we are going to build an economy here based on innovation and creating wealth, this is a hugely important part of the agenda," said McLaughlin during a presentation in Dieppe.
The University of New Brunswick is the province's single largest research and development centre.
"We do over half of all the research in New Brunswick, and that's unique in Canada," said McLaughlin. "I don't just mean university research, I mean government lab, private sector, you name it, and put it all together, they don't do the research we do."
The UNB president said his remark about UNB's major role in research wasn't a boast.
"When I say UNB does half of the research in province, I didn't suggest that as a positive, it's a negative. We simply don't have a private sector research culture that can complement us."
McLaughlin, along with several other provincial university presidents and community college principals, as well as government and industry officials, gathered at the Dieppe Conference Centre for a forum on post-secondary education in southeastern New Brunswick.
The forum, organized by Enterprise Greater Moncton, focused on the challenges facing post-secondary institutions in the province as well as ways those institutions could partner with the private sector to meet the educational, workforce and research needs of the Greater Moncton region and all of New Brunswick.
McLaughlin said, while UNB has "been remarkably successful" in growing its research base, further growth won't be possible without help.
The first area it needs help with is in academic partnerships with other universities in New Brunswick, he said.
"We also have to strengthen the private sector research base in this province."
McLaughlin said UNB is "terribly keen" to partner with the private sector to boost research and development in the New Brunswick.
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Stumble It!
High-tech infrastructure to speed up UNB research
By RICHARD DUPLAIN
duplain.richard@dailygleaner.com
Published Friday February 29th, 2008
Appeared on page A6
New supercomputing infrastructure unveiled Thursday at the University of New Brunswick will help keep local researchers on the cutting edge of technology, officials say.
ACEnet, or the Atlantic Computational Excellence Network, is already in place at Memorial University of Newfoundland and St. Francis Xavier University in Nova Scotia.
"UNB is a founding partner of the ACEnet initiative, and we are delighted to formally announce the availability of this infrastructure," said UNB vice-president of research Greg Kealey.
The network is supported by the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency, New Brunswick Innovation Foundation, Business New Brunswick, the research and innovation initiatives of the provinces of Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Sun Microsystems Canada.
The infrastructure, worth about $26 million, will provide rapid research and voluminous storage capacities.
UNB dean of computer science Virendra Bhavsar said research output will be increased.
Nine universities have partnered to provide this high-performance computing resources. Cape Breton, Dalhousie, Memorial, St. Francis Xavier, Saint Mary's, Mount Allison and Acadia universities and the University of Prince Edward Island will provide access to researchers at speeds the home computer can only dream about.
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