BEYOND THE NORMAL BOUNDS OF A UNIVERSITY RESEARCH CENTRE

The engagement of the auto sector within IAMI is immense; in all, the total industry investment will be $15.5M. This scale of investment will enable IAMI to establish a strong, focused capacity that builds substantially on the established strength in materials and manufacturing at McMaster and Waterloo, to a new level that goes well beyond that which is normally possible at Ontario universities.

 State-of-the-art research will be undertaken in metal forming, polymer processing, casting, joining, machining, advanced materials development, and crashworthiness. IAMI will also reach beyond the normal bounds of a world-class university research centre by introducing a new, formalized innovation and technology transfer thrust involving collaboration with entrepreneurship and innovation programs recently established at both universities.

IAMI amalgamates research activity from seven major research centres at McMaster and Waterloo. What distinguishes IAMI is:

 

• a multi-disciplinary materials and manufacturing approach that is comprehensive in examining metallic and non-metallic materials and composites, with the opportunity to develop hybrid (multi-material, multi-process) research solutions for the Ontario auto industry;
• an integrated approach to research in which each aspect needed to make a viable component can be addressed simultaneously;
• a broadly-based industrial partner network encompassing the entire auto supply chain; and
• a program-level commercialization thrust that will ensure rapid industrial take-up of research outcomes and direct economic return to the Province measured in the tens of billions of dollars.