"Clusters now bring quite different expertise. We really are entering the fourth industrial revolution," said Professor Fortier.

"We are starting to see the biological, the digital and the physical being fused and it creates very different industrial opportunities, but you need to bring those disciplines together."

The two universities they represent are quite different in character with McGill, Quebec's oldest Anglophone university, being very strong in medical research, while the much younger University of Waterloo is strong in technology and well known for its model of "co-operative education", which places students with real-world employers during their degree as a matter of course.

The University of Waterloo also has strong links with business on the research side, sourcing 40 per cent of its research funding from private industry.

Both vice-chancellors said that, in many areas, their two universities don't compete but work together in research, bringing different skills to the table. For example, "in advanced manufacturing we are bringing our people together, and making ourselves a lot more competitive, not against each other but against China", Professor Hamdullahpur said.

Undergraduate research

They agreed also that it was important to involve undergraduates in research during their course.

"Right from day one, research and undergraduate teaching are embedded. We want them to benefit from it," Professor Hamdullahpur said.


He cited the example of undergraduate students at his university who found they could measure blood sugar (a key indicator for diabetics) in the retina. The undergraduates then teamed with other researchers in the university to design a contact lens that contained a micro lab to measure blood sugar

Then they worked with one of the university's engineering labs to build a micro antenna embedded in the lens to transmit the data to a mobile phone, which in turn controlled in insulin injecting device.

Professor Hamdullahpur said it was a far cry from his undergraduate days.

"When I went to university I had no clue what my teachers did in their lab," he said.