Bureau de la recherche et de l'innovation - La Cité

La Cité College is the largest French-language college of applied arts and technology in Ontario. With close to 6,000 students, 140 programs of study and many business services, they always keep in mind the objective of reaching out to small producers and businesses to offer them support in the development of their products. 

Nathalie Méthot, Director of the Office of Research and Innovation, is a biochemist who has worked at the college for 22 years, including 14 years as a professor in the Bachelor of Biotechnology program. In 2008 and 2009, she became involved in applied research capacity building where she aimed to reach out to entrepreneurs in the field and help them advance their technologies. In 2014 she left her faculty position to become a full-time manager. Since then, she has been leading La Cité’s applied research initiatives. Having 4 objective research areas, the challenge of obtaining funding is always present to ensure growth and better meet the needs of businesses. She is most proud of her 3 children, and to be able to say that her 2 daughters studied at La Cité in Graphic Design and Culinary Management. 

Le Bureau de la recherche et de l’innovation (BRI) is mandated to help and support small, medium and micro businesses with fewer staff, resources, time and funding, but who has the desire to innovate with new ideas or by refining existing products/services.

Their food processing field consists of chefs who innovate new products or enhance and improve existing products. As an example, La Cité partnered with Gibbs Honey to develop honey and herbal beverages. Gibbs was looking for support with the nutritional value and microbiology aspect. 

They were also working on a project with Les Fruits du Poirier to create an aperitif cocktail made with camerise juice. The challenge was given to their students to create this cocktail and it now belongs to Les Fruits du Poirier. 

They often have partial funding for these projects with a contribution needed from the company. You can see more examples here. https://www.collegelacite.ca/bri/nos-realisations  

It doesn’t matter if you communicate in French or English, they work in both languages. If you have an innovative idea and are looking for support, be sure to consider a project as mentioned in the Notable News section above, and send us a message at services@agro-on.ca! You can also contact the Office of Research and Innovation directly by email at bri@lacitec.on.ca or by phone at 613-742-2483 ext. 2775.