There is a common perception that much of the research produced by academia dies in academia without ever having any practical real-world application. This dynamic is now changing.
Ontario has immeasurable multidisciplinary talent coming from its universities and, in recent years, the mining industry has looked to tap academia to help develop scientific breakthroughs that can be leveraged to achieve its commercial goals.
Conversely, universities find industry partnerships valuable because they help advance their capacity to conduct high quality research, which can be an influential factor in attracting high level academic talent and top tier students.
As the mining industry shifts to meet market demands for lower carbon footprint operations and greater efficiency in exploration, the needs of the mining companies are increasingly converging with the world of academia. In this context, Ontario is fortunate to have institutions such as University of Toronto’s Lassonde Institute of Mining, Laurentian University’s Mineral Exploration Research Center (MERC), Northern College’s Haileybury School of Mines, Cambrian College’s Centre for Smart Mining, Queen’s University’s Robert Buchan Department of Mining, and Collège Boréal.
While the Lassonde Institute has a long tradition of exploration and hard rock mining expertise with a strategic focus on the development of advanced models and technologies, it is now adding research themes in the ESG space, under its new Global Resources Stewardship Initiative (GRSI). This reflects the need for cross-disciplinary research to tackle challenges as well as the need for partnership models that enable different ways of doing research that are more effective and timely for industry.
“We have a great opportunity to leverage the resources University of Toronto offers in order to develop ideas around multifaceted, multidisciplinary and collaborative research ecosystems,” Lassonde Institute director Lesley Warren stated.
To understand the impact university labs can deliver, one can look at Warren’s research that centers on integrating emerging molecular biological techniques and applying them to mining contexts. Too often, geochemical models fail to predict outcomes in mining contexts, which explains why the industry is so often reactive. It lacks early warning tools that could enable companies to adaptively manage and prevent environmental impacts. By applying molecular tools developed by microbiologists and applied far more widely in other contexts such as the oceans, soils and the human gut, Warren’s lab was able to start interrogating what microbes occurring in mining wastewater and reclamation environments were doing.
The findings show that there are unchartered opportunities once we start to identify these bugs and what they are able to do, given the conditions under which they act. Warren explained: “We can immediately see that we open up several levers by which mines can develop smarter designs that do not rely exclusively on the static application of chemicals, which require infrastructure and energy, to treat symptoms. We are now looking at innovating around root cause–design, and adaptive management.”
This style of translational finding is enormously beneficial to mining companies, because it is fundamentally rooted in rigorous science, yet it is not something mining companies would be ready to implement in their day-to-day work.
A similar rationale drives the work that Laurentian University’s MERC and Metal Earth Project are taking on. The focus is on understanding the processes that result in differential metal endowment. As an example, it investigates why some parts of the earths crust are so metal-rich and other areas with similar geology are metal-poor. Now in year seven, the project has evolved from a focus on field-based survey-intensive projects into one that is prioritizing compilation and data analytics.
“By understanding what controls metal endowment, we can inform mining companies with respect to reducing risk for greenfield exploration,” said Ross Sherlock, director of MERC and Metal Earth, and chair in exploration targeting at Laurentian University. “Our work is also useful for many stakeholders, such as communities and governments, who are making land use planning decisions by highlighting areas with the best mineral potential.”
The vision is for MERC to be the go-to research institution for companies looking for help and guidance in their exploration programs in Precambrian terrains. In Timmins, Metal Earth partnered with several mining companies, including Newmont, Canada Nickel, International Explorers and Prospectors Inc., and Pan American Silver.
These industry partners helped fund the institution to complete much higher-resolution surveys over their properties of interest, and Metal Earth is now integrating those data sets, as well as other publicly available data sets, to create a 3D model of the crustal architecture of the Timmins gold camp. “It is a win-win partnership. Ultimately, all this information becomes public data,” Sherlock proclaimed.
Julián Ortiz, head of the Robert M. Buchan Department of Mining at Queen’s University, which ranks in the top 10 in the world as a mining program, and is currently engaged in research projects with several mining and consulting companies, has focused his work on predictive geometallurgy and geostatistics. According to Ortiz: “Predictive geometallurgy and geostatistics will help us create something like a twin of the material streams and processes involved in different stages of a mining project so that we understand how uncertainty and variability propagates downstream.”
Ortiz added that this type of fundamental and basic research is often funded by government agencies and federal funds, and creates a base of ideas and seed projects that have potential to scale up to applications, tests, pilots, and can eventually be commercialized.
While Ontario’s universities are now making important progress in partnering with industry to advance research initiatives, it is important to remember that their fundamental purpose is still to train the next generation of students for careers in mining. This need cannot be understated, because across the board there is a scarcity of qualified mining workers.
In an interview with Marathon Gold president and CEO Matthew Manson, he stated that the biggest issue for him is labor: “The mining industry went into covid with a chronic labor and skill shortage, and the pandemic compounded the issue.”
Figures published by the Mining Industry Human Resources Council (MiHR) confirm the pressing need to replenish and grow the mining industry’s talent pool with expectations of a shortfall of 80,000 to 120,000 workers by 2030.
While graduates of Northern College’s Haileybury School of Mines (HSM) have been filing into the mining industry for over 110 years now, the school continues to introduce new programs to meet the evolving needs of the mining industry. According to the school, mining program enrollment is seeing continued growth, and exit outcomes are laudable. To address the desire of many students to “earn and learn,” HSM developed a division dedicated to upskilling in-house employees. Two of the most commonly demanded programs are surface diamond driller and surface miner common core, where over the course of eight weeks, students learn how to effectively utilize mining equipment underground.
The results speak highly of the quality and necessity of the program, because the employment rate out of these programs has been between 90% and 100% for the last five years. Audrey Penner, president and CEO of Northern College pointed out: “Our students are either staying in their job or coming in and taking the course on their own and they are employed immediately afterwards because the skills they acquire are in high demand.”
The success of these programs can be attributed in part to a focus on experiential learning and applied research that continues to shift as the heavy-duty equipment industry is adopting today requires deeper knowledge of subjects like electrical and computer engineering. In order to bring together students and industry, Northern College opened an innovation hub in 2022 where companies can do prototyping and experimenting, while students learn and contribute to problem solving any issues that may come up.
“This often leads directly to employment as students get the experience of applying what they learned in a new and innovative way. A semester of applied research is often equivalent to a year’s worth of experience from what I have observed,” Penner noted.
University Partnerships Enable Green Transition
Similar to Northern College, Collège Boréal and Cambrian College have taken an approach where, through industry partnerships, students can gain the requisite preparation to immediately contribute their skilled labor. Collège Boréal has partnered with Epiroc to address the emerging needs for maintenance of battery electric vehicles, and also partnered with Glencore for several years to work on re-greening solutions. Daniel Leduc, Dean of Skilled Trades and Applied Technology at Collège Boréal, commented that Mechanical Millwright Technician and Heavy Equipment Technician are two of the most requested programs. “The focus is on skilled trades because that is what the industry demands,” Leduc said.
Cambrian College’s Centre for Smart Mining is a specialized research hub within Cambrian R&D with the goal of helping to de-risk new technology adoption in the mining sector through upskilling programs. These ensure that companies have the in-service staff to deal with new technology coming in, and they are poised to lead in the EV field by helping companies understand the impact that adopting these technologies will have on mine infrastructure. Cambrian’s battery electric vehicle and performance testing labs are a first of kind in Canada, and Steve Gravel, who manages the Cambrian’s Centre for
Smart Mining noted: “Our vision is for researchers to work with Battery Electric Vehicles (BEV) manufacturers and end-users that want to adopt the technology to give them better data and a realistic picture of the performance of BEVs in actual operating conditions.”
Tailored Search
Recruitment and executive search firms, such as Lincoln Strategic and C.J. Stafford & Associates, are well aware of the industry’s struggle to find talent, which is why they have spent years establishing networks of mining professionals with a diverse range of skills. This enables them to match what are often very specific job role requirements with qualified talent. The unique advantage a firm like Lincoln Strategic provides is its domain expertise. Client director, Erik Buckland, commented that historically the firm has resisted diversifying because mining requires an “intimate understanding of our client’s world.”
According to Buckland, we are experiencing a collision of an overheated mining market with a talent pool that has become shallower by the year. This is driven by a combination of training and demographic factors, and a resistance or inability of companies to both incubate talent internally and to professionalize their recruitment functions and initiatives. “While there is an increasing talent shortage, I think companies give this too much credit for why they cannot recruit the right people,” he stated.
Chris Stafford, president of C.J. Stafford, is concerned that the talent shortage is a real threat to the success of mining companies. Compounding the problem is the fact that immigration policies hinder the industry’s efforts to bring in talent from overseas. “I believe we should be lobbying much more strongly to get immigration laws changed to allow qualified mining talent with job offers easy access to Canada,” he contends.
“There has always been a shortage of mining talent and we receive a continuous flow of applications from skilled, experienced mining professionals whom we cannot assist under current immigration law.”
Stafford also feels the industry is ill prepared to staff mines that increasingly rely on advanced technology, and therefore requires workers with more technology oriented skills. “If the industry has difficulty attracting traditional mining skills, I imagine it will be substantially more difficult to attract those with highly technical backgrounds with IT or AI experience,” he said.
(This article first appeared in Global Business Reports)