UBC Mechanical Engineering professor Yusuf Altintas and industry partner Pratt & Whitney Canada (P&WC) have won a Synergy Award for Innovation from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) in recognition of their long-standing and successful university-industry partnership, which has resulted in numerous innovations and breakthroughs over the years to benefit Canada’s manufacturing industry.
In 1986, P&WC approached former employee Altintas to help provide more cost certainty in the machining of parts. The UBC Engineering professor worked with the company to develop mathematical models that simulate parts machining, which removes much of the financial risk of physical trials. By 1992, exceeding all expectations, Altintas’ research had achieved up to 85 per cent cost savings on some machining processes. Today, Altintas’ laboratory is among the best-equipped in North America, producing a steady stream of highly qualified graduates and innovative ideas for P&WC and other industries. Read more about this partnership.
The award comes with a $200,000 research grant and the opportunity for the industry partner to hire an NSERC Industrial R&D Fellow for two years, with NSERC supporting the industrial portion of the fellow’s salary.
Altintas and P&WC were honoured at a ceremony hosted by His Excellency the Right Honourable David Johnston, Governor General of Canada, at Rideau Hall in Ottawa on Wednesday, February 27, 2013.
“Each advance in our learning has a ripple effect on our society and culture, which makes it all the more important to consider the big picture even while focusing on the details of discovery,” said Governor General Johnston during the ceremony. Read the complete speech.
The Synergy Awards for Innovation were launched by NSERC in 1995 to recognize partnerships between universities and industry in natural sciences and engineering research and development. Since their inception, the Awards have honoured the most outstanding achievements of university-industry collaboration in the natural sciences and engineering.