With the help of $6.6 million from the federal government, in addition to $6.8 million of its own money, George Brown College recently announced that it will be creating a dedicated Green Buildings Centre on its Casa Loma campus. They are renovating existing facilities and building new ones to house the centre, which has a target completion date of March 2014. The project is expected to create 35 new jobs.
Robert Luke, assistant vice president of research and innovation for George Brown, says that creating this new centre will be a bit like "changing the wheel on a moving car." Since George Brown already does some work in this area, they will maintain their current activities while managing the expansion simultaneously.
Luke came to the college about five years go to establish a research office, he says, after "the federal government recognized that we needed to pull the lever for industry in the education space.... That imbalance is very dangerous to our long-term competetivness." That's why George Brown has been working to integrate industry partners in their activities, providing many hands-on formal and informal opportunities for students to learn from them while also pursuing their studies.
Industry partners, meanwhile, have the opportunity to pursue applied research. That practice will continue at this new centre, which will focus on environmentally friendly "advanced construction systems, green energy and computer-enabled, efficient buildings."
Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Robert Luke, Assistant Vice President of Research and Innovation, George Brown College