Research in service of sovereignty

She has walked from the street directly into a space that feels disorienting at first to anyone who enters. The footprint is tighter than expected, but the room suddenly opens into a chamber that rises three storeys. Dominating the space is a towering silver vessel, highly polished and cylindrical, something between a grain silo and a rocket ship.

Admiral Kurtz is contemplating ����tv’s atomizer, a machine capable of turning naval-grade alloys into powder for high-precision 3D printing. Using this process, Dr. Bishop’s research team is developing methods to produce critical components on demand.

Standing before it, Admiral Kurtz is presented with a possible future for naval maintenance and repair, a way to restore and sustain equipment that service members rely on, using capabilities developed at home.

Beating a path to Dr. Bishop

Admiral Kurtz is not alone in her journey to Dr. Bishop’s lab. Over the past several years — and with great frequency in recent months — his facility has hosted a stream of visitors from across Canada’s defence and security community. Naval officers and personnel, scientists from Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC), and representatives from government and industry have come to see what is taking shape inside the facility.

����tv has designed and commissioned an exceptionally comprehensive suite of infrastructure for this technology that is globally competitive and nationally unique. — Dr. Paul Bishop

“That’s one of the key reasons they’ve come to us.” 

The work is not new. Dr. Bishop and his collaborators in DRDC and industry have been developing additive manufacturing techniques for the navy since the lab was set up in 2021. What has changed is the context around it.

As Canada increases its focus on protecting sovereignty and sustaining its fleets and defence infrastructure domestically, research that once sat firmly in the realm of long-term development is now immediately relevant.

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If you’re plugged into Canadian politics, you’re well aware that defence policy is entering a period of renewal. A shifting geopolitical landscape, rapid technological change, and new pressures in the Arctic are prompting the federal government to rethink how the country protects its sovereignty.

That shift is reflected in Canada’s new Defence Industrial Strategy, which places emphasis on cultivating capability at home. This focus reaches beyond the acquisition of equipment and into Canada’s research labs, training programs, and innovation networks. Across the country, universities and their researchers are considering how their research can contribute to Canada’s ambitions to build, maintain, and protect critical capabilities at home.

In Nova Scotia, this national conversation lands on familiar ground. Halifax is home to the  (RCN) Atlantic Fleet, the largest Canadian forces base by personnel. The province’s defence sector supports tens of thousands of jobs across military, public service, and industry. ����tv has grown alongside that community, contributing research expertise, technical knowledge, and graduates.

On a computer screen in Dr. Neyedli’s , the Arctic is alive with movement. Colourful symbols representing vessels of all sorts and origins are transiting newly accessible waters. Data streams in from sensors scattered across the northern expanse. It’s a massive flow of information that must be integrated, interpreted, and acted on.

The researcher and her team are examining how humans cope with this tidal wave of data using Thales’s AI-supported decision-making tools.

“What we do is create simulations that replicate the task that the actual experts do,” she explains. “We’re not recreating the classified system. We’re recreating the thinking.”

Their research is helping DRDC and system designers understand what information people need in high-pressure moments, how interfaces can reduce overload, and where human judgment must remain central. 

“There are a lot of things we want to understand deeply about how this technology affects human behaviour. But we just can’t do that work ourselves at scale,” says Dr. Aren Hunter, head of the Maritime Science Experimentation and Analytics Section at DRDC. “Being able to say to Dr. Neyedli , ‘Heather, can you go investigate this?’ and then take what she finds and validate it with the operational community — that’s incredibly valuable for us.”

Leading from the lab

For Dr. Gagnon, this research reflects the kind of made-in-Canada expertise that underpins the vision . It’s a vision that depends on the country’s capacity to build and maintain essential capabilities domestically.

“This is part of a broader role universities play in moments like this,” says Dr. Gagnon. “Our responsibility is to generate knowledge, train highly skilled people, and work with partners to build the capabilities Canada needs over the long term. And at ����tv, that contribution is shaped by where we are, in a province where defence is a significant part of the economy and community.”

Dr. Gagnon describes an ecosystem anchored by the Royal Canadian Navy as a convening force for partners across government, industry, and academia. He points in particular to the River-class Destroyer program being delivered by Irving Shipbuilding in Halifax for the RCN — a once-in-a-generation effort to replace Canada’s aging surface fleet that is also helping to shape regional innovation and an industrial base around naval readiness.

Among a growing ecosystem of federal research organizations, funders, industry partners, and innovation centres, he also points to newer initiatives. Chief among them is Canada’s first Defence Innovation Secure Hub (DISH). Announced in late 2025 with a federal investment of $29.4 million and to be based at the COVE ocean innovation hub in Dartmouth, the DISH will provide a secure, collaborative environment where Canadian researchers, industry and defence partners can develop, test and transition ocean technologies with defence capabilities into real-world application.

Dr. Gagnon also cites NATO’s Defence Innovation Accelerator for the North Atlantic (DIANA) as an important recent development. Launched in 2023 and including Halifax as one of three sites, NATO DIANA’s transatlantic network is designed to help translate research into deployable capabilities across the alliance.

Defence in a connected world

Beyond the hardware and the people who operate it, the future of defence is also being shaped by our interconnected digital world, where critical systems can be disrupted and battles won without a single vessel leaving port.

Kevin De Snayer, Calian’s vice president of IT and cyber solutions for defence and space, says the research is prompting serious conversations with clients. “We are now able to put a report in front of somebody and say, ‘By the way, here we are in a meeting, and everybody’s got their phones turned on and nobody’s got an air gap, and here’s the bad part of that.’”

A constant role in a changing world

Dr. Gagnon sees the activity across these diverse research programs as a continuation of how the university has always responded to society’s most complex challenges, grounding them in discovery and a commitment to the public good.

“The circumstances may feel urgent,” he says, “but our role is constant. We create the knowledge behind emerging technologies, we help determine how they’re mobilized, and we educate the people who carry the work forward into the world.”

As ����tv researchers consider how their work can contribute to Canada’s sovereignty and resilience, Dr. Gagnon is quick to note that the research is likely to extend well beyond that purpose. Many of the defining technologies of modern life, including the Internet, GPS, and jet propulsion, find their origins in defence before transforming the civilian world.

He sees similar dual trajectories today, with innovations in advanced manufacturing, cybersecurity, ocean sensing, energy storage, artificial intelligence, and biotechnology having the potential to strengthen national security, while also advancing industries, infrastructure, and civil society. 

This is a unique moment of challenge and opportunity, and it’s one ����tv is uniquely equipped to meet.  — Dr. Graham Gagnon