Cognitive Research Grows in Canada

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Research is a key driver of how the world is shaped. It provides insight into society’s most important challenges and issues. It drives innovation, creates jobs, and contributes to the economy and the treatment and prevention of diseases. It also enhances our culture and diversity.

Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario is one of Canada’s leading research-intensive institutions, with noted focus and success across multiple disciplines, including cancer research, environmental sciences, engineering, surveillance studies, and physics. Queen’s is home to Nobel Laureate Dr. Arthur McDonald, the co-winner of the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics. To elevate – and accelerate – the outcomes of our research, we often collaborate with industry leaders to strengthen both our research programs and theirs.

That’s why when Queen’s was looking for an organization to partner with in the establishment of a new “Cognitive Analytics Development Hub” at our Centre for Advanced Computing (CAC), it made sense to turn to IBM, the largest industrial research organization in the world.

As an academic development centre leveraging Watson technology, the CAC at Queen’s and IBM are teaming to establish an ecosystem that supports academic partnerships with industry to explore cognitive analytics. The CAC supports the use of advanced computing for the academic and medical research community, including medicine, applied parallel computing, and biosciences. The Hub will develop proofs of concept for Watson solutions, while at the same time promoting analytics skill development and knowledge translation.

IBM and Queen’s have a long and mutually beneficial history of working together on innovative projects. IBM is a leader in innovation in Canada, investing over $500M annually in its own R&D efforts. IBM also recognizes the tremendous value that it gains through its academic collaborations, which is what makes them such a great partner. Both sides clearly understand the benefits to be harvested.

Further, this collaboration presents an opportunity to leverage the partnerships developed within SOSCIP, a research and development platform that pairs academic and industry members to fuel innovation in Canada. SOSCIP includes all of Ontario’s research-intensive institutions, the Ontario Centres of Excellence, and IBM Canada as the lead industrial partner.

Academic collaboration with industry not only accelerates the creation of new innovative solutions and technologies, it also helps drive the economy by transferring knowledge gained at our universities to industry, increasing skills, and creating new jobs and business opportunities. As Canada becomes a true knowledge economy and executes on our innovation agenda, partnerships such as this will prove essential for everyone involved.