Message from the President (outgoing)
Note: As of September 1, 2009, Basma Shalby is the new UNENE President. Look to this space for her message in the days ahead.
From its inception in late 2002, with the active support and contributions of partner industries and universities, UNENE has accomplished a lot, thanks to the efforts of many people from industry, universities and NSERC. But mostly, UNENE owes its existence and success to outgoing President, Mohan Mathur. It was his vision, enthusiasm and effort that made it happen. Thank you, Mohan. Upon his retirement, effective April 1, 2006, I have been installed as Executive Director which combines Mohan's past role as President and my previous roles as Secretary / Treasurer and Program Director. In July 2008, UNENE was very fortunate to have Ben Rouben come on board as Secretary / Treasurer and Victor Snell take on the role of Program Director.
All six of the original NSERC-UNENE Senior Industrial Research Chairs IRC- professorships) are now in place, as is a seventh at RMC. As the new professors are getting settled in, they have already recruited many Post Doctoral Fellows/Research Associates, Ph.D. students and Masters students (M. Sc./M.E. Sc./M.A.Sc) who are pursuing nuclear studies and research. The IRC Program has already attracted slightly in excess of $5M from NSERC, matching an equivalent investment made by UNENE on behalf of the nuclear industry. With each new senior faculty appointment, except one, there is a provision to add an Associate Chair, two of these has already joined and the search for the remaining is on right now.
The Master of Engineering (M. Eng.) Program in nuclear engineering, being initially jointly offered by McMaster, Waterloo and Western and plans for Queen's, Toronto and UOIT joining in shortly, has been approved and accredited by Ontario Council of Graduate Studies (OCGS). Currently more than 45 students are active in this course-based M.Eng. Program and over 20 have graduated. This program is ideally suited for current and newly recruited employees. At present most of the registered students are from OPG. Your assistance is sought to get applicants from other nuclear industries to sustain the program.
We are well into funding 11 Collaborative Research and Development (CRD) projects of direct interest to nuclear industry for a total of $1M that will receive an equivalent investment from the Government of Canada through NSERC. Three applications, each with a UNENE commitment of $90,000, over three years from start, are being submitted for matching grants from NSERC. Through the CRD projects we are tapping into professorial expertise residing outside the ten UNENE member universities and adding more graduate students specializing in various aspects of nuclear engineering.
Let us hope that the year forward is a good one for the growth of nuclear industry in Canada. We are playing our part in preparing highly qualified personnel for the industry.
Bill Garland, Ph.D., P.Eng.
President
University Network of Excellence in Nuclear Engineering (UNENE)
and
Professor Emeritus of Nuclear Engineering
Department of Engineering Physics, McMaster University
