Ward Karhiio Highlight: InnoTech
Science and research have been part of my whole adult life:
I was trained as a biologist in my undergraduate studies (even focusing a thesis project on invasive lake plankton species!);
I interned every summer from high school all the way until graduating from university at a major research institution from a microbiology lab at Yale University to a medicinal chemistry lab at the National Institutes of Health;
After graduating, I taught middle school science as a teacher and proudly initiated STEM programs for my students on the Navajo Nation;
My master’s thesis further sharpened my research inquiry skills in the social sciences.
This is why as part of October’s Learning Month, which follows on the heels of Life Sciences Week and Start-Up Week, I want to highlight a major research and development (R&D) facility right here in Ward Karhiio. Earlier in the spring, I had the chance to visit InnoTech located in the Edmonton Research Park (ERP), which is a priority as part of the Community-Economy-Climate platform that I ran on.
InnoTech bridges the gap between early stage research and real world industry and business applications with:
523,000 square feet of lab and office space at the ERP facility
272 jobs at the ERP facility
5 innovation sectors: Environment, Energy, Bio-Industrial, Applied Chemistry and Advanced Materials
What makes InnoTech so unique?
During my tour of InnoTech, two things really stood out to me:
Investment in research facilities: Together with the ERP location, InnoTech has over 1 million sq. ft. of research and lab space and 600 acres of farmland across Western Canada in 6 facilities. These state of the art facilities represent over $120M in capital equipment. Investments in the infrastructure needed for building ideas and solutions help to de-risk new projects and speed up the R&D process.
World-class researchers: I visited multiple labs, and met with different teams to see what they were working on. The researchers at InnoTech have a wide range of scientific expertise. The InnoTech space is not only critical to support researchers with large-scale R&D, but also encourages cross-sectoral relationships, knowledge sharing, and interdisciplinary collaboration between different industries and sectors.
(Image by InnoTech)
InnoTech operates in numerous sectors, from carbon capture, to plant sciences, to advanced manufacturing.
During my tour, I met researchers from a few different InnoTech sectors:
Hydrogen is a key economic priority for the region. There is a lot of research happening around Hydrogen as a clean fuel in Edmonton. The Hydrogen Quality Centre plays an important role in testing hydrogen fuel to make sure it meets industry standards and specifications. This process of ‘certification’ is a growing need for hydrogen worldwide, and the HQC is making testing more accurate and broadly available.
With a massive grant from the federal government, InnoTech is building a production and testing facility for ‘Bitumen Beyond Combustion’ - using bitumen from the oil sands to produce carbon fibres and asphalt cement, which can then be used for a variety of non-fuel alternative products (like construction or car manufacturing). This is exactly the kind of economic diversification that I envisioned when I ran back in 2021.
Why is Investment in Innovation so important?
There is much to learn at just this one facility. In fact, there are so many other R&D stories within the ERP and Ward Karhiio and elsewhere in the city. I am proud that we are home to organizations like InnoTech who are driving the innovation ecosystem, supporting local researchers and entrepreneurs, and finding solutions to complex problems to benefit us all. They are also introducing real-world STEM applications to students through school tours.
Public investments in innovation also create new jobs, promote entrepreneurship, and increase our competitive advantage in global markets. For each $1 in public investments by InnoTech, it stimulates $4.3 in investment from private and industry partners.
While it’s disappointing to sometimes see misinformation infiltrate into mainstream discussions, or more decisions being informed by conspiracy theories rather than science and evidence, it underscores why it is so critical to invest energy and resources, from all levels of government, into research and innovation. This is how we will continue to move society and humanity forward as we grapple with increasingly complex global challenges.
