60 years of: smart science solutions.

Since 1947, the Saskatchewan Research Council has been going about its mission of helping the people of Saskatchewan strengthen the economy with quality jobs and a secure environment. As emphasized in their mission statement, they do this through research, development, and the transfer of innovative scientific and technological solutions, applications and services.

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This year the Saskatchewan Research Council (SRC) marks its 60th anniversary and it's appropriate that the gemstone attached to this particular milestone is a diamond. It's fitting because SRC's recent, massive expansion of its diamond laboratory serves as an applicable metaphor for the Treasury Board Crown. Spun off from the uranium laboratory of the geoanalytical business unit, the diamond laboratory has grown 40-fold in the last decade, largely as a result of the burgeoning diamond exploration activity in the province.

In the process, the SRC diamond lab has attracted worldwide acclaim as a 'laboratory of preference' for DeBeers. Although this has resulted in a growing client base from around the world, it bolsters SRC's availability, capacity and capability for Saskatchewan-based diamond exploration companies such as Shore Gold and Great Western Diamonds.

Similarly, each of the eight divisions of SRC, housing some 22 business units, have had their share of success stories. And while it's only natural that a government-funded organization that specializes in technology grows concurrently with the expansion of technological capabilities, SRC is not expanding for this simplistic reason. Rather, notes SRC CEO Laurier Schramm, SRC's growth, expansion and provision of services has been a result of a much more targeted approach.

"It (SRC's objective) was always about trying to use research and development to help the people of the province," Schramm notes. "From the earliest days the vision was that R and D was going to be needed to help the province develop an economy to help develop and use the province's natural resources. Also from the earliest times, there were words about the welfare of the province."

"One thing that hasn't changed is that we're here to serve the people," Schramm adds. "Yes, we're here to help the economy, but in a balanced way that looks out for the health, safety and security--therefore the environment--that we live in as well."

While the mandate hasn't changed over its 60 years, the way in which SRC achieves its objectives has changed significantly. For example, in its earliest days SRC was simply a granting agency, whereby a convened panel of scientific, educational and political leaders made granting decisions to fund research at the University of Saskatchewan. Without even a building or infrastructure of any sort, SRC didn't require any employees until 1953 when it hired its first employee, an administrative assistant. In 1955 SRC shifted its operation to provide a technical information service and in 1956 SRC added its first research director. Over the course of the next 15 years, SRC's role as a technical service provider expanded correspondingly as the need arose from Saskatchewan industry to process and overcome challenges.

"It turned out to be difficult to meet all of those needs simply through university work," explains Schramm. "University research is really good for uncovering new knowledge, learning and understanding new things. But it doesn't typically work on the time scale that matches industry's needs. They usually have a problem right in front of them now and they usually want an answer yesterday."

The value of the work being done at the university wasn't in question. It was more a question of being able to focus on more specific problems, develop whatever kind of solution was needed, then do it--and do it quickly. To try and respond to some of that demand, SRC started to acquire some of its own people to meet shorter-term, more applied needs of industry. Once that process began, it fueled a cycle that has been ongoing to this day.

"That was the most pivotal change, because SRC got pretty good at that," Schramm concedes of the organization's ability to meet industry needs. "In trying to respond to that, and then being successful at it, that just led to demands for more. As a company we've tried to respond to that."

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This new service-driven model required infrastructure, and in 1958, SRC opened its first building. The Tommy Douglas-led government of the time recognized SRC's potential to contribute to economic growth, which in turn led to more interest on the part of the government to fund such an organization. It was also noted that the province lacked the critical mass for commercial business to move in and provide comparable services. Therefore, the need was identified by the province to pursue areas of common good, and SRC delivered.

By the 1960s key areas of interest for SRC included agriculture and ground water, particularly in rural areas, while up-and-coming industries included potash and uranium. Other early areas of specialization were transportation, technical and laboratory services. Interestingly, each of these areas remains an integral part of SRC's services, which are now complemented by a wide array of services under the administration of 22 separate businesses falling under the SRC umbrella.

"I find this interesting because we're still working in all of these areas," admits Schramm. "The details have changed, the names have changed, but none of these (areas) have come and gone. They've just evolved over time."

Evolution is clearly evident with regards to mining, as some of the up-and-coming projects of the 1960s in fact developed into fully functional mine sites. And with the resources now depleted, SRC has been involved with the decommissioning of the sites, in the process bringing the organization's function full circle.

"We were involved in helping the Gunnar uranium mine site get going in 1958 and about the same time the Lorado mine, which were the two biggest uranium mines in the beginning of the Cold War era," says Schramm. "This is relevant to us today because now, just this year, we launched a huge project to clean up the Gunnar and other abandoned mine sites."

"We were there at the beginning when they were just being developed and now we finally got our opportunity to work on cleaning those abandoned sites up. We had a hand in trying to help back in that early time, and we're continuing to help today."

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Schramm is proud of the legacy SRC has established. He rightly points to the fact that SRC has been a leader within the province on many counts. One of the early leadership roles the Treasury Board Crown fulfilled was that of an equal opportunity employer, before such a term even existed.

"We see a lot of early pictures of women in non-traditional roles going all the way back to the 1950s," he says as he reviews a Power Point presentation he's creating to outline the company's storied history. "A lot of these old pictures show women in a variety of jobs, which wasn't happening everywhere else."

Yet another area highlighting SRC's leadership comes in the realm of groundwater studies, monitoring and data collection. Because of its importance to agriculture, which in the 1950s was the primary industry in Saskatchewan, SRC got an early jump on groundwater studies. As a result, the province of Saskatchewan now hosts the best groundwater monitoring network and historical database of any region in the country. Much of this data has been handed off to the Saskatchewan Watershed Authority, but SRC's role in creating the original data was paramount.

SRC's current role regarding Saskatchewan's groundwater sees them spending less time identifying and monitoring underground water reserves, but devoting more efforts into determining uses for the water to make it more useful. An example of this includes working with brackish (salty) water to find industrial uses that currently do not exist.

"Just in terms of water available, we have no water problems, because there is huge water available," stresses Schramm. "But getting at it and making it useful is not a simple process. So we have significant work that we can conduct in that area."

Similarly, another of the areas that SRC has significant historical data is regarding Saskatchewan's climate. The council has more than a century's worth of climate observations. Like their work with groundwater, the earliest climate data was primarily gathered for agricultural purposes. Today, however, SRC's focus in terms of climate has taken on more of a global approach, with climate change being foremost among their going concerns.

"By 1972 we already had 70 years of climate observations in the province," Schramm says. "Because another area that was recognized as being important early on was climate. Not so much in terms of climate change in the context we're talking about today with global warming, but just the ability to understand climate and how it might vary again to help agriculture evolve."

"Our climate observation database has got to be one of the best on the continent because it goes back to 1902," Schramm continues. "So climate isn't a new thing here, but we've got a strong climate group here. Nowadays they're heavily involved in the climate change issue."