Alberta Inventors and Inventions - Calgary Centre for Innovative Technology

In an era when multi-tasking has become the norm, the Calgary Centre for Innovative Technology (CCIT) is taking that idea and applying it to key challenges. The CCIT is a multi-disciplinary research centre located on the University of Calgary campus, but its scope and support extends far beyond the academic realm.

The CCIT’s broad-based funding support includes contributions from the Alberta Government's Intellectual Infrastructure Partnership Program and the Canada Foundation for Innovation, as well as industrial partners such as BP Amoco, Husky Oil, EnCana, Schlumberger Canada, Shell Canada, and Vertex.

The centre has developed laboratories in key engineering disciplines; Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, Civil Engineering, Computer and Electrical Engineering, Geomatics Engineering, Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering, and Biomedical Engineering. These labs are not restricted to engineers; researchers from diverse fields such as kinesiology, medicine, industrial design and environmental design collaborate on a variety of projects.

The CCIT is structured to perform both contract research (where it undertakes a project on behalf of a client) and grant research.

The CCIT has focused its research efforts on four key areas identified as having opportunities for engineering research to make significant advances: Health of the Aging Population, Resource Development, Deteriorating Infrastructure, and Next Generation Intelligent Technologies. Each of these key areas has subsidiary research categories; under the infrastructure banner, for example, there are projects focused on water treatment processes, durable construction materials development, and large scale stress testing of construction components. Researchers in the CCIT’s natural resources development area are focusing on heavy oil extraction, enhanced oil recovery from conventional reserves, and improving gravity drainage in oil reservoirs.