For nearly three decades, Western Research Parks have served as a strong link between academics and commerce, and a key contributor to the movement of an idea or a discovery from concept to the marketplace.
Western University’s Research Parks (Discovery Park, Advanced Manufacturing Park and Sarnia-Lambton Research Park), have now been ranked 22nd in the world by Swedish research company UBI Index in its Global Top 25 University Business Incubators 2014. In its assessment of business incubators around the globe, UBI Index considers and measures three performance categories – contribution to the economic ecosystem, value to start-up clients and post-incubation performance of those start-ups.
Discovery Park
The Western Discovery Park is located adjacent to Western University and is home to over 200,000 square feet of office space, lab space and industrial grade space, including the Stiller Centre for Technology Commercialization, one of Canada’s most successful biotechnology incubators.
Discovery Park is also home to WORLDiscoveries, TechAlliance of Southwestern Ontario, Surface Science Western, LANXESS, CIMTEC (Centre for Imaging Technology Commercialization), Enable Imaging Technologies Inc., Windermere Manor Hotel & Conference Centre, and many more.
Looking to fuel collaboration, Discovery Park has been cited as a possible home for the headquarters of the Medical Innovation and Commercialization Network, a proposed partnership between the city, the University’s medical school, London Health Sciences Centre and St. Joseph’s Health Care and their foundations, as well as the Lawson Health Research Institute. The park would provide a single home where medical device ideas could be developed, tested and marketed through the network, drawing on the strengths of those in London’s medical community.
To learn more about the Discovery Park, click here.
Advanced Manufacturing Park
Created through a unique partnership between Western University, Fanshawe College and the City of London, The Advanced Manufacturing Park is a 130-acre technology park located in the heart of Canada’s largest manufacturing region, minutes from Highway 401.
The Advanced Manufacturing Park aims to empower collaboration between leading edge research, manufacturing, entrepreneur and investment partners to rapidly generate high technology, manufacturing innovations and advanced solutions to ensure a repetitive and continuous competitive advantage for regional industry and economic growth.
With ample room to grow and develop new technologies – particularly in the renewable energy and transportation sectors – this multi-functional, collaborative centre will provide small, medium and large enterprises with flexible access to a globally unique array of facilities.
Western’s Advanced Manufacturing Park is home to the Fraunhofer Project Centre for Composites Research, the WindEEE Research Institute and The Collider.
Recently opened, The Collider is a centre for commercialization of advanced manufacturing technology and will provide manufacturers with industrial research space, business services, contract research services and access to research staff and expertise, as well as production and testing equipment. It has the capacity to house 10-20 businesses at once and aims to accelerate the research and development process and help the region’s manufacturers get products to the global market.
In 2012, FedDev Ontario announced a non-repayable contribution of up to $13.7 million toward total project costs of $37 million for Western to create the Fraunhofer Project Centre @ Western (FPC) and the Collider. The FPC is an applied research facility and a collaborative project between Western and Germany’s Fraunhofer Institute for Chemical Technology, a world leader in the development and testing of advanced composite materials.
To learn more about the Advanced Manufacturing Park, click here.
Sarnia-Lambton Research Park
Established in 2003 as a joint initiative between the County of Lambton, the City of Sarnia and Western University, the Sarnia-Lambton Research Park is located adjacent to Lambton College in Sarnia and is home to the Bowman Centre for Technology Commercialization, Canada’s largest clean-tech incubator focused on large scale industrial biotechnology. Conference facilities at the Park play host to a number of local, regional and national events each year.
Tenants range from large multi-national companies, to non-profit organizations, to small start-up companies and commercialization projects including NOVA Chemicals Corporation, Entropex and Enbridge Pipelines Inc. to name a few.
To learn more about the Sarnia-Lambton Research Park, click here.
