Lawrence Charlebois

The National Research Council is the Government of Canada’s largest research and technology organization with 14 multidisciplinary research centres across Canada and international partnerships with countries like the UK, Japan and Germany. NRC experts work with academia, government, and SME and MNE partners along the entire technology readiness scale, from fundamental research, to technology development and scale-up, to prototyping and field testing. The NRC also supports research and development through grant and contribution funding to collaborators in academia and industry under government mandated programs. The NRC’s Energy, Mining and Environment Research Centre collaborates with organizations across the sector on Battery Materials, Performance and Safety, Energy Storage Systems, Materials Discovery Acceleration Platforms (MAPs); Mineral Processing Acceleration Platforms (PAPs); Material Characterization; Life Cycle Assessment and Techno-economic Assessment; and Clean Production Technologies. The NRC also works closely with other government departments, including Natural Resource Canada (NRCan), to deliver on the Canadian Critical Mineral Strategy. The NRC’s new Critical Battery Materials Initiative is looking to deploy accelerated robotic platforms and AI/ML approaches to rapidly search and develop new battery materials and critical mineral processes. This four-year initiative to be launched in Fall 2023 will provide grants and contributions to be allocated to qualifying collaborators through calls following program launch.