The NSERC alliance grants have been very useful for us in building relationships with new professors and in being able to support early innovation work. I think to get it beyond the next stage, NSERC is a bit less useful for us, just because we can't capitalize on some of that. The university partners we work with aren't necessarily interested in setting up their own businesses and pushing forward technology, so that's been our role, typically.
Usually we get the funding from our clients to do that, or from the U.S. government. One great example of a university consortium we've been involved in is the groundwater university consortium that's based out of the University of Guelph. They have brought together a number of universities across not only Canada but also the U.S. A number of our clients, which include a number of multinational firms, are also sponsoring this.
The group meets twice a year, and industry partners are in the same room as university partners. Part of the day is put aside for brainstorming about the research directions so that university partners have an opportunity to provide direction to the university. It also provides us with an opportunity to be in the room with our clients and listen to their solutions, and then work with our university partners to help them develop technologies.