The National Research Council of Canada (NRC) and DLR have joined forces in the field of research and development. German-Canadian relations were strengthened during a delegation visit to the DLR site in Oberpfaffenhofen on 4 December 2019.
Visit to the DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics. In picture (from left): Hansjörg Dittus (DLR, Executive Board Member for Space Research and Technology), Geneviève Tanguay (NRC, Vice-President Emerging Technologies), Iain Stewart (NRC, President), Stéphane Dion (Canada's Ambassador to Germany), Pascale Ehrenfreund (DLR, Chair of the Executive Board).
National Research Council Canada visits DLR Oberpfaffenhofen.
Focus: Aeronautics, space, environment, energy
Since 2018, the German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) and the National Research Council Canada (NRC) have been conducting research and development activities together through Atlantik-Brücke e.V.. Future scientific topics such as spaceflight, digital technologies, energy and the environment play a major role in this partnership.
Iain Stewart, President of the NRC, visited DLR’s site in Oberpfaffenhofen on 4 December with a delegation to help further strengthen German-Canadian relations. The NRC is Canada's Crown Agency for scientific and industrial research. The guests were welcomed by Pascale Ehrenfreund, Chair of the DLR Executive Board, and Hansjörg Dittus, DLR Executive Board Member for Space Research and Technology. Pascale Ehrenfreund congratulated the NRC on the ceremonial opening of the NRC Office at the Canadian Consulate in Munich on 4 December 2019 and presented a brief overview of the most recently established DLR institutes. The NRC showed particular interest in cooperation in the fields of quantum technology for secure communications, optical communications systems and the exchange of best practices in diversity management. The results of the joint DLR-NRC workshop ‘Robotics and the Factory of the Future’ (February 2019) were discussed and further cooperation in the field was agreed upon.
At the end of the visit, Rudolph Triebel, Head of the Perception and Cognition Department at the DLR Institute of Robotics and Mechatronics (RM), showed the delegation around the Robotics and Mechatronics Center. The Department of Perception and Cognition is concerned with better enabling robot systems to perceive their surroundings using two of the senses most accessible to robots – touch and sight.
About the cooperation between NRC and DLR
The National Research Council Canada is a governmental consulting and research institution that supports both industrial and scientific research in Canada. It comprises 20 institutes and employs 3780 people. In 2018, DLR and NRC signed a Memorandum of Understanding to strengthen their relations as part of a German-Canadian conference organised by Atlantik-Brücke e.V.. Atlantik-Brücke, founded in 1952, is a non-profit, non-partisan association that aims to foster collaboration between Germany, Europe and North America at all levels. It is committed to multilateralism, open societies and free trade. Its approximately 500 members are decision-makers in the fields of industry, government, science and the media on both sides of the Atlantic.
