NSCC’s applied research fills a vital niche

Nova Scotia Community College is perfectly positioned to be a key player in the province’s rejuvenated shipbuilding industry, according to Dr. Wayne St-Amour, NSCC’s director of applied research. In fact, the internationally recognized post-secondary school, with its network of campuses and specialty programming, has been involved in all things nautical for a long time. 

“We have a strong capacity in shipbuilding support,” says St-Amour. “Through our Nautical Institute, our programs range from training commercial marine and fish harvesting industries to shipbuilding, marine architecture, and engineering, as well as marine geomatics and navigation. We see ourselves as a strong partner for Irving Shipbuilding to help them solve potential challenges as they build the next generation of Canadian naval ships.”

In fact, helping companies overcome challenges has been a core competency of NSCC Applied Research for more than a decade. The department was launched in the late 1990s to foster geomatics research at NSCC’s Centre of Geographical Sciences in Lawrencetown. Since then it has steadily expanded to include a host of applied research activities at many of its 13 NSCC campuses “With an emphasis on practical outcomes from our research, we essentially become a company’s R&D department to help them solve a problem,” says St-Amour.

The development process starts when either NSCC’s research office has expertise that they see as a fit with a company or when a company approaches NSCC Applied Research with a specific R&D problem. NSCC discusses the issue with the company, then identifies a faculty member with the expertise to solve it. The faculty member will then either tackle the problem during a faculty leave or launch a student project based around finding a solution. “Our faculty members are good at problem solving,” says St-Amour. “Most come from private industry, so they’re familiar with the challenges that industry is facing.”

St-Amour says NSCC Applied Research fills a vital niche in Nova Scotia for businesses that don’t always have the time and money to devote to R&D. “Most companies are focused on delivery,” he says. “They’re concentrating on what they need to do to get a particular product to the marketplace, and they sometimes don’t have the capacity to look at developing the next generation of products or solve a chronic problem they may be faced with. That’s where we come in.”