Researching Ontario's new forestry economy.

Lakehead University's head of research wants to build on the momentum of a $6 million provincial investment by building a world class forestry centre of excellence.

The Thunder Bay school is earmarking the provincial government money to create two new Canada Research Chairs specializing in the areas of bio-energy and bio-refining as a way to build up its commercial research and innovation capacity and build a value-added forest economy in northwestern Ontario.

The university's Vice-President of research, Dr. Rui Wang says the investment is "just the beginning" of a long list of coming developments toward building a research institute called NORD 21 (Northern Ontario Research and Development in the 21st Century), still in the embryo stage.

Lakehead has been steadily expanding its research activity and gained notoriety in several diverse and promising fields including biomedical, biotechnology, bioenergy and nanotechnology, but the university is intent to position itself as the hub of a new knowledge-based and sustainable economy in forestry.

To Wang, the research chair positions are about "capacity building" to recruit top scientists and attract new tenants.

"This is a new initiative to build up our existing strength."

Wang believes Lakehead can enjoy the same success in spinning off its intellectual capacity into a forestry business as it did with a biotech company, Genesis Genomics.

"The same model can be applied to forestry research."

Wang says filling the specific research chair positions and deciding on what type of experts to recruit are still in the planning stages with their partners in local industry, government and the community.

He says Lakehead wants to assemble a team to build new training programs, attract junior scientists, develop an innovation agenda and motivate industry partners to produce more novel forestry products.

"Lakehead has never planted a tree, but it provides intellectual creativity and output."

Natural Resource Minister David Ramsay has been pushing the idea of using the yield from Northern Ontario forests to produce parts for bio-constructed cars, something Wang says Lakehead is closely aligned with in its strategy.

A big part of that strategy is building a centre of excellence, a proposal which has been submitted to the government for funding.

"Our scientists will have an interdisciplinary research projects based on value-added forestry products and environmental studies.

"We are fully confident we can move forward and build up a world class research institute to service the community and northwestern Ontario."

One already successful area of research and innovation has been in the wood sciences program. Tree biochemist Mathew Leitch heads up a team of faculty and students that's revitalized Lakehead's wood science department by delving into more industry collaborations and commercially-oriented projects.

His department recently landed $560,000 ($140,000 annually for the next four years) to upgrade the lab's equipment and add forest sector market specialists to investigate developing new products using underutilized tree species.

Some provincial dollars will be used to make space for an on-campus industry advisor from Forintek, a national wood products research institute. Lakehead is also searching for a market intelligence specialist to conduct a global market analysis and identify potential places for manufacturers to sell product.

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"I've sent the advertisements to friends and colleagues in Australia and New Zealand," says Leitch. "We're going everywhere to find the best person.

"Everyone agrees this is really what we need up here to help the industry."

Leitch is anticipating more government money in the queue for his $1.2 million project to add more wood testing equipment and staff up his department. Leitch says their existing universal wood testing machine is limited in its capability. A larger, more stronger unit will enable them to do testing for structural products. Also on his wish list is equipment to test wear on flooring products and for basic tools like a CNC router machine for component industry manufacturing.

The department is also developing an entire program using portable technologies like band saw mills and twin blade edgers by working with Confederation College and Wood-Mizer Products, an Indianapolis-based manufacturer of sawmills, to introduce this technology to small businesses and northern First Nation communities for value-added production.

Leitch, who has secured more than $400,000 in funding for his lab since arriving from Australia three years, says this latest investment will go a long way.

"It's almost setting us up like a centre of excellence to fully service existing industry and new developed value-added industry.

"We sat down with Forintek and figured out exactly what we needed in our labs that will service the industry and help promote and build a secondary manufacturing sector so they don't have to go outside of Thunder Bay to get expertise."

Leitch says if the NORD 21 proposal becomes a reality, wood sciences would occupy significant space.

www.lakeheadu.ca

By IAN ROSS 

Northern Ontario Business