Dr Hany Moustapha

Aerospace Industry Collaboration & Challenges

By Dr Hany Moustapha

The Canadian aerospace industry — ranked fourth in the world — has certainly matured over the last decade in its collaboration with universities and research centres. The Society of British Aerospace Companies recently conducted a benchmarking exercise and an upcoming report praises our collaboration activities. As an example, it cited the Consortium de recherche et d’innovation en aérospatiale au Québec (CRIAQ) as “the model to watch”. The following is an example of success stories, challenges facing our industry and some recommendations.

Collaboration Forums — Since 1997, these annual events, under the auspices of Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) and the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada (AIAC), are held to improve the visibility of aerospace technology needs and university capabilities. Awards are given to selected university professors and students for outstanding contribution. Since 2002, an annual Student Aerospace Forum, sponsored by CRIAQ, is held to provide a networking forum between industry and students.

CRIAQ, a Quebec Consortium — In 2002, CRIAQ was established, with the financial support of Valorisation-Recherche Québec (VRQ) and Le Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la nature et les technologies (FQRNT). Its purpose is to promote and perform collaborative pre-competitive industry-driven research projects at universities. CRIAQ members are all the major aerospace companies, six Quebec universities, National Research Council (NRC), Canadian Space Agency and some smaller firms. Its mission includes technology transfer, training of highly qualified personnel (HQP) and national/international collaboration. CRIAQ currently counts 13 projects covering six major topics: low cost manufacturing and composites, acoustics and icing, modelling and simulation, multidisciplinary design and system integration, avionics and micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS).

Undergraduate Institutes — P&WC spearheaded the creation of three university undergraduate aerospace institutes, providing financial support and infrastructure assistance. The first was established in 2000 at Concordia University, followed by École de Technologie Supérieure (ETS) and Ryerson University in late 2003. The objective of these institutes is to enhance and complement undergraduate education through collaborative, industry-driven design and research projects. They provide a true industry multi-disciplinary environment, including interactive computer facilities, industry hardware, aerospace library, etc. The number of projects/students climbed from 30 in 2001 to reach 115 this year, with 10 collaborating companies.

Training & Education Partnership — Our industry continuously faces a major skills challenge and has recognized the need for focused training and educational partnerships. For example, P&WC created in 2000 a world-class in-house technical training program open to universities, customers and suppliers. The program consists of more than 100 courses and seminars of varying difficulty and duration, which are continuously improved in order to reflect recent trends in the industry. This program is gradually being expanded, under CRIAQ, to evolve into the CRIAQ Aerospace Lecture Series. In addition, a CRIAQ Apprenticeship Program will be created to mentor and rotate top undergraduate students between CRIAQ industry partners. P&WC will soon inaugurate a Collaborative Learning and Innovation Centre.

IP & Commercialization — Lack of strategy and common policy related to intellectual property (IP) and commercialization in some governments, universities and granting agencies is hindering the capacity and incentive of our aerospace industry to increase collaborative research. IP should be sector- and project-dependent, as the “One Size Fits All” approach is not working in a number of cases. For aerospace, collaborative projects with universities are mainly focused on small isolated incremental technologies, which then need to be integrated by industry to deploy (commercialize) it into a final product. Canadian professors are expert performers when it comes to conducting isolated technologies. They do not have, nor do they need, the costly infrastructure required to integrate and commercialize. Universities’ products are highly skilled students and technologies to help industry commercialize their products, at least for aerospace. Future commercialization metrics should take into account how many products the collaborative industry introduces into the market, and the economic benefits to Canada from growth, job creation, training of HQP, exports, etc. For example, P&WC has introduced more than 40 new engine models into the market over the last eight years. This is an industry record and is due to its sustained high R&D investment (20% of sales), rigorous management of R&D projects, HQP (originally a good product of universities), as well as the impact of over 150 technology projects conducted each year with 15 Canadian universities and NRC.

A National Consortium — The automotive industry managed finally to get its targeted Network of Centres of Excellence - AUTO21. P&WC and Bombardier have been among the top 10 Canadian R&D spenders with a total expenditure of over $650M per year. A Canadian aerospace NCE is long overdue. The Quebec CRIAQ model needs to be expanded to the national level. In addition to further developing the aerospace technology cluster in the Montreal region, it will engage industries outside Quebec and capitalize on the aerospace expertise in universities and research centres across Canada.

Canadian Technology Demonstrators — A national Integrated Technology Demonstrators (ITD) program, similar to programs in the US and Europe, is strongly recommended. These demonstrators receive huge government funding through various US and European programs such as VAATE, NASA, and Framework, making it extremely difficult for Canadian industries to compete globally. A Canadian ITD program would ensure the linkage of the market and product pull of industry with the technology push of universities and government laboratories. It will also engage universities, research centres and suppliers with companies, linking the R with the D, and increasing Canadian value-added.

International Collaboration — With globalization and the fact that 80% of Canadian aerospace products are exported, more incentives and funding are needed to allow Canadian aerospace companies to participate in US and European technology programs.

Dr Hany Moustapha is a senior fellow and manager of P&WC Technology & Collaboration Programs. He is also VP of CRIAQ and chairman of the Concordia, ETS and Ryerson Undergraduate Aerospace Institutes boards.