ÉTS is focused on engineering across a variety of industries. How has the university developed and what are the key focus areas in terms of its student offering?

Aerospace is the number one area at ÉTS. Of 170 professors, we have close to 56 professors across different departments working in aerospace, so almost one third of our workforce. AÉROÉTS is a community within ÉTS rather than a distinct department and spans the various departments, such as mechanical engineering, electrical engineering and computer science. Within aerospace, ÉTS’ main strength is manufacturing and material – we have a large critical mass of professors in this area. The second core strength is avionics, which includes controls, drones and navigation. Nevertheless, we also have extensive expertise across other areas including emissions, design optimization, simulation, fluid dynamics, and so on. We cover all research areas.

We are the only university in Canada that only hires professors with industrial experience. Cumulatively, our 56 professors involved in aerospace have about 350 years’ practical industry experience. ÉTS is number one in Canada in terms of graduating engineers, graduating between 750 and 800 engineers per year. All of our students come from a technical college, so they are very hands-on. ÉTS has approximately 10,000 students, including 8,000 at undergraduate level and 2,000 at graduate level, and of those, 3,000 are yearly co-op students. In aerospace, we have more than 500 co-op students per year, which amounts to more than the rest of the aerospace co-op students at Canadian universities combined.

ÉTS has very strong industry links, placing more than 3,000 interns at companies every year and conducting 70% of research activities in collaboration with industry. Could you elaborate on this relationship?

The Canadian average for the percentage of research conducted by engineering faculties in collaboration with industry is 25%, so our activities sit at almost triple the average. The relationship is extremely strong, and we have partnerships with between 50 and 60 of the 250 aerospace companies in Québec, in addition to international companies.

How strong is Québec’s talent pool?

We have no shortage of talent, although it was an issue some 15 to 20 years ago. The collaboration between industry and universities is now extremely strong. Over the last 15 years, the industry has greatly matured, particularly in terms of collaboration. The result is near self-sufficiency when it comes to talent. Equally, there is a lot of movement and rotation between companies, even in management positions. Canada will need 10,000 aerospace engineers over the next 10 years, so the demand for talent will continue to be strong.

In 2015, you noted that fuel consumption has been a great area of focus for ÉTS over the last 30 years. As travel and by extension emissions increase, how is this area developing?

The key topic of the moment is the environment. Projections for new aircraft over the next 10 years sit at 2,000 per year. With additional aircraft and flights comes an increasing challenge around the environment, emissions and noise pollution. Preference for blended wing body (BWB) aircrafts is increasing. Electric and hybrid propulsion is another popular area of research and development.

All these factors play into the concept of Industry 4.0, which includes additive manufacturing, robotics and artificial intelligence. Going forward, there will be a great deal of process innovation and an increase in ’smart enterprises’ and other breakthrough technology.

Are there any particularly notable projects in which ÉTS is involved?

We are working on a very big project with Siemens, which is a total enterprise Industry 4.0 integrated R&D program and involves other universities working together as a consortium. We have a 25-year partnership with McGill and often collaborate with other universities on large-scale contracts such as this one.

There is also the Center for Aerospace Professional Education (CAPE), a partnership with McGill, which is the only professional education body for aerospace in Canada, and the second in North America alongside Kansas University. We also have the Montreal Aerospace Institute (MAI), a combination of six Québec universities.

What are the objectives for ÉTS going forward with regard to aerospace?

The Siemens contract will be a big area of focus for us because it involves so many players and so many parties within ÉTS, including both professors and students. There are also many opportunities within Industry 4.0, or “Aerospace 4.0”. A key challenge is to demystify these concepts, for which we are offering short courses and presentations at ÉTS. Industry 4.0 encompasses entire processes and we will therefore need to develop these capabilities within the workforce. As well as supporting our students, we will continue to work with companies of all shapes and sizes.