My sources say – and I hope they’re correct – that reports of the pending death of the National Research Council’s Institute of Information Technology facility in Fredericton are greatly exaggerated.

Last week, Warren McKenzie, chairman of the advisory board for the IIT, said publicly he expects the institute, which has a facility in Fredericton, will be closed by next spring and its talent will be absorbed into other government programs. The fear is that the R&D component will be transferred out of New Brunswick, meaning the province would lose a crucial segment of research in an industry in which it is making huge strides.

However, Krystyna Dodds, Media Relations Officer at NRC in Ottawa, says such speculation is “inaccurate” though changes are coming to the NRC and the structure of the council could change.

“The National Research Council will continue to maintain an effective presence in New Brunswick and contribute to its long-term sustainable prosperity,” she said in an email. “The National Research Council’s new strategic direction and business approach will create exciting opportunities for stakeholders and innovative companies in New Brunswick.”

What I’m hearing from a couple of sources is that there could be job losses – as there are in many Federal departments and agencies these days -- but the NRC will continue to perform R&D in information technology at its Fredericton facility.

The sad fact is that Atlantic Canada devotes far too little money and effort to private sector R&D. New Brunswick, for example, devotes 0.4 percent of its GDP to R&D, one-fifth of the Canadian level. The NRC is a critical player in R&D in all four Atlantic Provinces. The IT Institute in Fredericton has worked on a range of projects, such as 3D Imaging and Modelling Metrology, and an Intelligent System for the Classification of Multiple Tumor Types.

 “We`re a small province and we have low levels of R&D relative to the rest of Canada and globally, so a closure would have a disproportionately large impact,” said Larry Sampson, Executive Director of the New Brunswick Information Technology Council. “NRC-IIT has been a significant player in growing the sector.”