New Horizons
There is a new body on the Canadian mining scene.
The Canadian Mining Innovation Council (CMIC) is a consortium of industry, academic and government leaders whose purpose is to strengthen the competitiveness of the Canadian mining industry by increasing mining research, innovation and commercialization across Canada.
The council, which is led by Natural Resources Canada, has three aims. It will increase co-ordination, collaboration and focus in research and development activities. It will also improve funding, while decreasing the time required to fund research and development initiatives, and it will enhance the impact on competitiveness, health, safety and the environment.
One of CMIC’s first tasks was to understand the innovation and commercialization capabilities of Canada’s mining supply companies. Mining supply firms are expected to carry out much of the commercialization of new technologies, products and services developed in Canada for mining, but virtually nothing is known of their commercialization capacity.
To that end, the Canadian Association of Mining Equipment and Services for Export (CAMESE) conducted a survey this summer of its more than 230 corporate members across Canada. These firms supply the entire mining industry spectrum — mineral exploration, mine development, mining, mineral processing, environmental monitoring, smelting and refining.
Results of the survey reveal that the firms employ about 11,600 people. Among them are 1,500 innovators, who “work in Canada on the development of new products and technologies for the mining industry, from pure research to production engineering.”
Another 1,000 people are commercializers, working on market research, or marketing and selling of products and technologies to be introduced in the future or that have been introduced within the past two years.
Some 68% of respondents had received patents or had registered other types of intellectual property protection.
At its September meeting, Canada’s mines ministers asked CMIC to develop a pan-Canadian mining research and innovation strategy for presentation at the 2008 Mines Ministers’ Conference. The strategy will be based on a series of regional workshops designed to define and prioritize industry needs and assess research capabilities.
— The preceding was published by the Toronto-based Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada. For more information, visit www.pdac.ca
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