Thales Canada was awarded a five-year, $20-million contract last week to lead innovative science and technology projects for safety and national security.

The company will conduct the work on behalf of Defence Research and Development Canada with 18 tech partners, including C3 Human Factors Consulting, CAE, Champoux Williams Consultants and OODA Technologies, from its new Thales Research and Technology Canada Centre in Quebec City.

“Thales Canada was selected as the industry leader because we have the ability to harness knowledge and expertise in a number of scientific and technical domains,” explained Mark Halinaty, newly appointed president and CEO. “We are committed to developing new expertise and technologies and we understand the complexity of the challenges pertaining to science and technology.”

The company said it practices an “open innovation” approach to R&D and will share innovations with several technology partners, allowing them to benefit from the intellectual property developed throughout the life of the contract. Thales anticipates the development of new concepts, technologies, capabilities and systems for military intelligence to use in support of future Canadian Armed Forces missions.