History

Welcome to the Saskatchewan Research Council!

The Saskatchewan Research Council has been in business for more than 60 years. Through those years SRC has seen many changes, but the driving force to help improve life in Saskatchewan has never changed. Below is a brief account of SRC's evolution.

	The Honourable T.C.Douglas, Premier Announcement of SRC Act 1947

THE BEGINNINGS . . .

SRC was established in 1947 by the Province of Saskatchewan. At that time, people were very aware of the role that science and technology played in winning the Second World War. The concept that science and technology could be an instrument to build a better life for Saskatchewan people was very attractive. A Board of Directors was named to include leaders in the public service and the academic communities.

The Council carried out its work through grants-in-aid to specific applied research activities at the University of Saskatchewan. SRC's first Director of Research was Dr. T.T. Thorvaldson, head of the chemistry department at the University.

	Dr. T.T. Thorvaldson, 1947

THE 1950'S . . .

By the mid 1950's, it was apparent that the arrangement with the University was not able to effectively address certain types of long term work due to time constraints and conflicting demands on facilities. It was therefore decided to build a new building for SRC and to recruit a staff. Dr. T.E. Warren, director of the Fuels Research Laboratory in Ottawa, was appointed to oversee this work.

At first, SRC had only three employees, Dr. Warren, his secretary and Mr. I.S. Evans. Mr. Evans was employed in a joint program involving the Saskatchewan and National Research Councils providing free and confidential technical information to small- and medium-sized Saskatchewan industry.

As economic growth quickened during the 1950's, so did demand for SRC's services. Key areas for long-term research had been previously identified including:

• water resources;
• fuels;
• transportation;
• metallic and industrial minerals;
• industrial methods improvement;
• the environment.

	Tom Pepper, 1972 to 1983

THE 1970'S . . .

In 1972, Dr. Warren retired and was replaced as SRC President by Dr. T.P. Pepper, first head of SRC's Physics Division and previously president of Isotope Products, a company he established in Ontario. SRC adopted a more client-centered approach to its work. Rather than structuring along academic discipline lines (chemistry, geology, physics) groups were restructured into sectoral units (heavy oil, energy conservation). As government priorities shifted, SRC grew progressively less dependent on provincial grants as a source of revenues. In 1973 SRC earned more money from contractual sources than was granted to it by the Legislature.

THE 1980'S . . .

In 1983, after Dr. Pepper's retirement, Mr. J.P. Hutch, a former Deputy Minister of Industry and private sector engineering executive, became SRC's President. This was an era of strengthening SRC's gains and reaching out globally.

A major SRC presence in Regina is the Heavy Oil Lab which SRC took over from Saskatchewan Energy and Mines. Under SRC, the Heavy Oil Lab gained the acceptance by industry that it could not achieve as part of a regulatory department. Perhaps as significant as the lab's technical achievements in areas like enhanced oil recovery and drilling technology is its success in fostering collaboration among oil companies in supporting research and development on problems of common interest.

	SRC Original Management Team (left to right) Bob Smith, Bill Husband, Tom Warren CEO, Ernie Wiggins, Ibhar Evans, Tom Pepper

SRC began stepping out beyond Saskatchewan's borders on an increased basis. The Association of Provincial Research Organizations, which previously existed as an information forum, began bidding on contracts called by the Federal Government and on offshore activities sponsored by such organizations as the World Bank. Memoranda of Understanding were developed with Saskatchewan's universities and technical institutes and science institutes abroad, such as the Singapore Standards Institute. Most of SRC's work abroad was in direct support of Saskatchewan-based firms.

Since its creation, SRC has written more than 2,600 reports in open literature. More than another 2,700 confidential reports were produced for clients paid for work requiring privacy for commercial reasons. Countless thousands of inquiries were answered informally by telephone, letter or personal contact.

Projects have varied greatly in scope, cost and time duration. Some of the "big" projects include:

	Original SRC Location

• definition of strategies for residential energy conservation that have found their way into the National Building Code;
  
• mapping the groundwater resources of the province south of the Precambrian Shield;
  
• evaluating Saskatchewan's lignite resource in terms of location and coal quality;
  
• developing processes for the milling of uranium at pilot plant scale;
  
• investigating technology for transporting slurries of coal, various ores, and oil sands by pipeline;
  
• providing specialized chemical and geochemical analysis services to business and industry;
  
• developing improved techniques for crop spraying to reduce farm input costs and simultaneously reduce pesticide burden on the environment;
  
• introduction of CAD/CAM technology to the province in cooperation with a group of industrial users;
  
• demonstrating new and improved welding technology to metal fabricators;
  
• supporting the quality of Canada's beef cattle industry through the operation of a bovine blood lab.
  

	Freeze desalination Project 1975 - natural freeze desalination to provide potable water

"Little Projects" have also had significant impacts in smaller user communities. A few of these include:

• development of a clamshell dredge for clearing hand-bored wells;
  
• evaluation of hovercraft for exploration activities;
  
• designing and monitoring an ice sheet parking lot for the Winter Games;
  
• development of a specialized knife for sap from rubber trees in the Far East;
  
• construction of haemodynamics for Royal University Hospital;
  
• developing Saskatchewan's first capabilities to make moulds for the plastics industry;
  
• design of a "Gopher Sucker" to remove gophers from burrows & interfering with projects.

These big and little projects are just a small sampling of work SRC has done. Please review the pages of our website for more information. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact SRC at info@src.sk.ca