Collaboration on Maritime Technology Knowledge
OceansAdvance Inc. of St. John’s, Canada, and Universidade Federal do Rio Grande (FURG) of Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, signed a Memorandum of Understanding at the Rio Oil and Gas Expo on 19 September 2012 to collaborate on research and development, technical exchange, and technology transfer focused in the ocean and marine sector.
OceansAdvance represents the Newfoundland and Labrador ocean technology cluster, and FURG is a public university with a mandate to offer a broad suite of academic and research programs and to strengthen its affiliation with the ocean and marine industries and industrial development organisations.
The two parties will foster the development of direct contacts and cooperation between government organisations, institutions, universities and research centres, private sector firms and intergovernmental organisations. They have agreed to collaborate in areas such as sharing best practices on cluster development initiatives, sharing human resource development strategies, and stimulating joint research and technology development activities.
There is a mutual interest in polar activities—the Arctic and Antarctic—we both have a good sense of the role of the University as an economic development instrument. In Rio Grande do Sul, the university and the companies are banding together like a cluster to help their shipbuilding industry, very much like what OceansAdvance have done in relation to the oil and gas industry.