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CEMI gets approval to advance MICA to a full application

Aug 17, 2020


The Centre for Excellence in Mining Innovation’s (CEMI’s) submission to the Federal Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) Stream 5 has received approval to advance to a Full Application as of August 10, 2020.

The Full Application is in support of the national Mining Innovation Commercialization Accelerator (MICA) Network project. MICA is a National Network for innovators with solutions for the mining sector, designed to bridge the innovation-commercialization gaps that delay commercial success, domestically and globally. MICA will combine $40M of federal funding with $100M from the private sector to benefit the Canadian economy and the global mining sector by advancing made-in-Canada solutions and integrating cross-sector innovators nationally. It will also network innovators sharing technical expertise, business best practices, and export expertise.  

The SIF Stream 5 program falls under the Department of Innovation Science and Industry, led by Minister Bains, and CEMI is very grateful to the Minister and his officials in the SIF Program who have helped us over the last few months. Given the distributed nature of the mining sector across Canada, and the impact of the pandemic on global demand, we believe the need for a national Network dedicated to support the mining sector is both important and urgent. 

MICA’s technical focus will be in four main areas: 

  1. Increase mine productive capacity, at lower cost 
  2. Reduce energy consumption and GHG emissions 
  3. Mitigate environmental risk and long-term liabilities 
  4. Implement smart, autonomous mining systemsUsing the Canadian advantage of SME-based later-stage innovations that are near ready or ready to be commercialized MICA aims to create rapid growth in jobs in Canada, as well as have significant export potential. 
  5. The MICA Network has identified many innovative small-medium (SME) companies, mining service and supply sector companies as well as cross-sector innovators that can contribute their made-in-Canada solutions to improve mining operations in Canada and globally. In doing so, MICA will help to stimulate the Canadian economy, accelerating the recovery from the COVID-19 downturn through rapid job growth and expanding export sales, and enable the global mining sector to help address climate change. 



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