Supporting the Economic Recovery of SMEs in PEI's Biotechnology, Food Processing and Clean Tech Sectors

通过合作研究和开发(R&D)支持爱德华王子岛生物技术、食品加工和清洁技术部门的中小型企业(SME)复苏对该岛经济极为重要。这些行业也未能幸免于新冠肺炎的影响，在人员配备、供应链等方面面临挑战，并从追求创新转向维持运营。这项计划确定了荷兰学院(HC)的关键战略专长领域，这些领域将支持与行业合作伙伴的中短期创新研发项目，从而为这些合作公司和组织带来立竿见影的结果和好处，促进从这一停滞不前的增长期中脱颖而出。具体地说，已经确定了12个由行业驱动的新项目，并全面确定了这些项目的范围，重点是为这些行业合作伙伴创造短期回报，例如从食物垃圾产品中产生新的价值，推进技术以改善环境产出和缩短上市时间，以及改进工艺以节省成本和转移产能。在这一倡议的未来两年中，将发展新的关系，并加强现有的关系。这些双向合作将为公司人员再培训、获得研发专业知识、开发新的知识产权和创造新的价值和收入带来新的机会。这一计划还为HC的教职员工、技术人员和学生创造了参与现实世界项目的令人兴奋的机会，为教职员工提供了宝贵的职业发展，并为学生创造了就业和专业培训机会。此外，还确定了提高荷兰学院电子数据交换能力的具体成果，确保多样性和包容性是召集研究小组以改进项目时的首要任务。

Summary of ProposalSupporting the recovery of small- and medium-sized enterprise (SMEs) in Prince Edward Island's biotechnology, food processing and clean tech sectors through collaborative research and development (R&D) is of tremendous importance to the Island economy. These industries were not immune to the effects of Covid-19 and faced challenges with staffing, supply chains and shifted from pursuing innovation, to staying afloat. This initiative identifies key areas of strategic expertise at Holland College (HC) that will support short- and medium-term innovative R&D projects with industry partners resulting in immediate outcomes and benefits to those partnering companies and organizations, facilitating an emergence from this stagnant growth period. Specifically, 12 new industry driven projects have been identified and fully scoped, with a focus on creating short term paybacks for those industry partners such as generating new value from food waste products, advancing technologies to improve environmental outputs and decrease time to market, and improving processes to save costs and shift production capacity. New relationships will be developed, and existing relationships fortified over the next two years of this initiative. These bi-directional collaborations will result in new opportunities for company personnel reskilling and training, access to R&D expertise, developing new intellectual property and creating new value and revenues. This initiative also creates exciting opportunities for staff, faculty, technicians, and students at HC to participate in real-world projects, providing valuable professional development to faculty and staff and creating employment and specialized training opportunities for students. In addition, specific outcomes have been defined to increase the EDI capacity at Holland College, ensuring diversity and inclusion is top of mind when assembling research teams for the betterment of the projects.