Innovative Projects Realized

Explore thousands of successful projects resulting from collaboration between organizations and post-secondary talent.

13270 Completed Projects

1072
AB
2795
BC
430
MB
106
NF
348
SK
4184
ON
2671
QC
43
PE
209
NB
474
NS

Projects by Category

10%
Computer science
9%
Engineering
1%
Engineering - biomedical
4%
Engineering - chemical / biological

Wild bee pollinator habitat restoration through dietary breadth, nutrition and microbiome characterization across Canada

Wild bees are vital to our parks, gardens, greenspaces and ecosystem services, but we know surprisingly little about their habitat requirements and dietary breadth. In this proposal, we will characterize wild bee nutrition including their health and microbiomes across Canada. The postdoc will learn skills in bioinformatics, science writing and science communication. The W. Garfield Weston Foundation will benefit from furthering their mission to facilitate transformative research on the microbiome that will improve the health of Canadians. With these data, we will determine preferred floral resources and hubs of healthy bacteria to promote habitat restoration and wild bee conservation. We will focus on urban centres to have maximal benefit for the >80% of Canadians living in cities. Taken together these data will provide invaluable open-access resources for bee nutrition, sustainability and long term city planning and conservation efforts.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Sandra Rehan

Student:

Katherine Chau

Partner:

Weston Family Microbiome Initiative

Discipline:

Biology

Sector:

Other services (except public administration)

University:

York University

Program:

Accelerate

Development of Enhanced RF-ICP thermal torch for waste to energy and radioactive waste material treatment

The fields of plastic waste management and radioactive waste treatment are essential for sustainable society that utilizes plastic waste for energy production and radiation safety. Land filing and incineration of plastic waste has large environmental impacts due to GHG emissions. The mentioned challenges could be eliminated using a more reliable and controllable thermal source such as inductively coupled thermal plasma (ICP) torches that enhance the chemical reactivity and operating parameters using radio-frequency thermal plasma jets. In this project an advanced 1100 W RF-ICP will be simulated, designed and constructed to generate RF thermal plasma jet which is integrated in Pro-flange stainless steel reactors at a pilot plant scale to enhance the chemical reactivity and produce clean gasoline and diesel fuels suitable for usage in ignition engines. This integration shall improve the quality of end-products, eliminate tar and wax content, provide better temperature control in chemical reactors, as well as enhance the chemical reactivity and thermal cracking reaction parameters. It is expected that thermal plasma torch temperature will reach to almost 8000 degree Celsius using Argon gas.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Hossam Gaber

Student:

Vahid Damideh

Partner:

Pro-Flange Ltd

Discipline:

Engineering

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

Ontario Tech University

Program:

Accelerate

Natural Health Products to Manage Cancers of Dogs

More than half of Canadian households have companion animals such as dog or cat. However, cancer has become the leading cause of death in dogs. Currently, available treatments have limitations and compromise the quality of life of dogs. Adored Beast Apothecary wishes to develop unique natural health products to prevent and treat cancers of dogs. The objective of the proposed research project is to develop optimized processes to generate safe and efficacious anti-cancer natural products using a sustainably grown phytoplankton strain. The specific objectives of the project are to identify the natural compounds present in the new product, assess whether the products have antioxidant activity to prevent cancer as well as to treat cancer. The intern (a postdoctoral fellow) will examine both cancer preventive and treatment properties of the new natural health products using cultured mammalian cells. The expected result will become useful for the Adored Beast Apothecary to file a patent application, plan for experiments using animals, and progress with business development plan and commercialization.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Vasantha Rupasinghe

Student:

Sajeev Wagle

Partner:

Adored Beast Apothecary

Discipline:

Food science

Sector:

Agriculture

University:

Dalhousie University

Program:

Accelerate

Validation and application of porous polymeric sorbents in sample preparation and analysis

This project aims to validate and explore the application of tailored polymeric materials developed in the department of chemistry at Memorial University of Newfoundland (MUN) for chemical analysis. The main application of such material is in the sample preparation and reducing the workload in laboratories. The materials will be used to treat the various samples such as water (i.e., drinking, river, and sea water) food, and biological samples. Such treatment alters the samples in a way that analysis will be conducted in a more sensitive, accurate, precise, convenient, affordable, and faster methodologies. Throughout this project, the developed technology will be translated into viable commercial products (consumables and services).

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Faculty Supervisor:

Karl Jobst

Student:

Aliasghar Golbabanezhadazizi

Partner:

ExTech MIP Inc.

Discipline:

Other

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

Memorial University of Newfoundland

Program:

Parallel computing of particle-laden flows with applications to energy processes

We develop advanced computational models of particle-laden flows and flows through porous media at the scale of the particle/pore to better understand the momentum, heat and mass transfer that govern these flows. We use the models through performing parallel computing on large supercomputers and generate a large quantity of detailed data in the core of the flows. We then analyze these data and coarse-grain them in the form of average transfer coefficients that can be later utilized in macroscopic models. The emphasis of the project is on the effect of the particle shape and porous media microstructure. Specific applications targeted in the project are oil extraction and catalytic cracking, but the developed computational models and acquired knowledge find applications in a much wider range of processes and natural flows.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Anthony Wachs

Student:

Aashish Goyal

Partner:

Discipline:

Engineering - chemical / biological

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

University of British Columbia

Program:

Accelerate

Building Intergenerational Solidarity Around the History of HIV

As the perceived threat from HIV has declined over the decades, many AIDS service organizations have closed. Solidarity around HIV has lessened within queer communities. However, HIV rates and HIV stigma remain high. There is a need to rebuild solidarity in the HIV response. As part of the “HIV in My Day” project, this research analyzes over one hundred oral history interviews conducted in British Columbia with long-term survivors of HIV/AIDS and their caregivers. Engaging past narratives of HIV alongside modern experiences given new medical developments in HIV treatment and prevention, can help queer communities build solidarity around shared experiences. This research uses political solidarity, especially empathetic solidarity, and related moral concepts, like trust, in order to structure this oral history into research that can be used to guide future community-based research, HIV policy, and AIDS activism. This work will foster intergenerational dialogue in order to advance the modern HIV response.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Nathan Lachowsky

Student:

Michael Montess

Partner:

Community-Based Research Centre

Discipline:

Epidemiology / Public health and policy

Sector:

University:

University of Victoria

Program:

Accelerate

BC Pulp and Paper Bioproducts Alliance: Development and demonstration of forest residues to renewable natural gas technologies

This proposed project will support our ongoing efforts in scanning and screening existing technologies and de-bottlenecking key technology barriers in converting low-cost biomass residues to renewable natural gas in British Columbia pulp, paper and lumber mills. Specifically, we will focus on developing a bauxite residue (f.k.a., red mud) based catalyst for the removal of tar from gasification syngas to yield clean syngas for methanation to biomethane, and evaluating and improving the commercial methanation catalyst. Over the past 5 years, we have accumulated extensive experience in biomass gasification and catalytic conversion of syngas to liquid biofuels including higher alcohols and biodiesel. For the clean-up of syngas, we have developed a unique low-cost iron-based catalyst derived from bauxite residue, a waste from bauxite processing, which shows promising performance based on the tests in a bench scale fixed bed reactor using naphthalene as the simulated tar. In the proposed project we will team up with FPInnovations to develop an integrated biomass gasification and methanation process for the production of renewable natural gas using abundantly available forest residues in BC.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Xiaotao Tony Bi;Kevin Smith;Naoko Ellis

Student:

Tingting Li;Haoqi Wang

Partner:

Discipline:

Engineering - chemical / biological

Sector:

Manufacturing

University:

University of British Columbia

Program:

Accelerate

Identifying leading safety culture improvement practices to drive innovation to assist in the prevention of workplace injuries

When safety critical organizations develop safety culture improvement strategies they are rarely shared widely outside the organization as there is limited benefit in sharing with others. In contrast to healthcare there is not a tradition of publishing safety improvements in journals or professional magazines. When innovations are shared externally, the description is often sanitized and does not contain then challenges encountered and missteps. In addition, consultancy companies provide a large proportion of the widely shared safety innovations, as they wish to promote their services. Since many safety critical companies struggle with similar challenges in promoting a positive safety culture, it is likely that they are independently developing solutions to the same problems. Phase 1 of this research will address this gap by conducting a series of case studies on safety culture improvement initiatives. These case studies will provide insight into how safety critical companies are trying to improve safety culture. This information will assist organizations in identifying strategies to improve.
Safety leadership is key driver of safety culture, as leaders set the tone for safety. While organizations commit significant resources to safety leadership training, there is less evidence of its effectiveness.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Mark Fleming

Student:

Gregory Anderson

Partner:

Emera

Discipline:

Psychology

Sector:

Energy

University:

Saint Mary's University

Program:

Accelerate

Telehealth group interventions for addictions in a community mental health setting during the COVID-19 pandemic

Health services delivered over the internet, often referred to as telehealth services, are becoming an increasingly important way of providing healthcare. This has been highlighted by the COVID-19 pandemic and the necessary shift to online service delivery for many organizations that followed. Although there is some evidence that telehealth delivered mental health services are as effective as in person services, this evidence is limited to certain mental health issues, populations, and types of interventions. Very little is known about (1) the delivery of group interventions through telehealth and (2) using telehealth in the context of addictions. This project will help to fill this gap by partnering with a community organization, Rideauwood Addiction and Family Services, to examine the delivery of group interventions for people addictions and their families during the COVID-19 pandemic. We will do this by conducting interviews with group facilitators and group members in order to gain an in depth understanding of their experience. Rideauwood Addictions and Family Services will benefit by learning about the benefits and challenges that arose and by better understanding the needs and experiences of their clients and staff members.

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Faculty Supervisor:

John Sylvestre;Tim Aubry

Student:

Kimberly Turner

Partner:

Rideauwood

Discipline:

Psychology

Sector:

Health care and social assistance

University:

University of Ottawa

Program:

Accelerate

Mapping DeFi projects of Ethereum blockchain

Decentralized finance (DeFi) is a nascent field that recently gained a lot of media attention. DeFi refers to financial service applications that are operated on blockchain technologies such as Ethereum. Such financial service applications include lending and borrowing, leveraged trading, asset management, insurance, and many new products and services that come out every day. These applications are currently active, and more than $10 billion has been circulating in the DeFi ecosystem. Thus the market for DeFi is real. The interoperability of smart contracts also made it possible to build “money lego,” where the user could chain together DeFi smart contract operations and perform advanced actions such as no-collateral flash loans. This study aims to survey the existing DeFi applications, establish a taxonomy of DeFi applications, and build a foundation for a follow-up study on DeFi. Due to the interdisciplinary nature of DeFi, the research output will help scholars from other academic disciplines to navigate the arcane DeFi application ecosystem.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Zehua Wang

Student:

Dingan Chen

Partner:

AquaNow

Discipline:

Other

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

University of British Columbia

Program:

Accelerate

Improved Phenotyping of Macrophages Using Cell Line Models, Gene Expression Signatures, and Protein Secretion Data

Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is a 3rd leading cause of death, which decreases lung function due to irreversible airway obstruction. Lung immune cells, such as macrophages, play an important role in the disease progression. However, researchers don’t fully understand their diversity and functions. Models of macrophages are useful to better understand patient macrophages. We will first obtain 3 types of model macrophages and compare their characteristics (such as gene expression and secreted proteins) with recently published COPD alveolar macrophage data from literature. Results from these experiments will determine whether these robust models could be used to better understand COPD alveolar macrophage phenotypes and functions.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Don Sin

Student:

Jing Wen

Partner:

Providence Health Care

Discipline:

Biology

Sector:

University:

University of British Columbia

Program:

Accelerate

Seabed mapping for improved modelling of ocean circulation and glacier-ocean interactions in the Canadian Arctic

The loss of ice from glaciers in the Canadian Arctic is an important contributor to global sea level rise. Where glaciers are in contact with warm ocean water submarine melting and calving of icebergs can play an important role in driving this ice loss. However, the ability to model the circulation of warm ocean water, which is found at depth in the Canadian Arctic, is severely limited by a lack of data on the depth and topography of the ocean floor. This project aims to use newly acquired survey data collected in collaboration with the Centre de géomatique du Quebec to create an updated topographic map of the ocean floor of the eastern Canadian High Arctic. The new map will be used to model ocean circulation and improve our understanding the role of the ocean in driving the observed retreat of glaciers in the Canadian High Arctic.

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Faculty Supervisor:

Paul Myers

Student:

Andrew Kent Hamilton

Partner:

Centre de géomatique du Québec Inc

Discipline:

Geography / Geology / Earth science

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

University of Alberta

Program:

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