UBC Applied Science is pioneering Arctic Research and Development activities in Western Canada, leveraging its multidisciplinary expertise, Pacific gateway location and established Indigenous partnerships.
Successful operations in the Arctic rely on dependable equipment that can perform reliably in extreme environments and can be produced, repaired or maintained far from traditional supply chains. Researchers at UBC are developing advanced manufacturing technologies and materials that improve performance and enable rapid local responses.
At the centre of this work is Dr. Adam Clare, a Professor of Mechanical Engineering and Royal Academy of Engineering Research Chair. His expertise spans advanced manufacturing technologies for high-value high-integrity sectors such as aerospace, biomedical and nuclear, with a focus on closing the gap between prototype and production.
Dr. Clare also leads UBC’s Asymmetric Last Line (ALL), which received an $8.76 million grant from Pacific Economic Development Canada in February 2026 to advance dual-use technologies. When the lab’s new infrastructure is in place – from low-temperature testing facilities to marine robotics tanks and advanced microscopy – academic researchers and industry partners will be able to expand research on power systems, materials, marine technologies, sensors and more.
We spoke with Dr. Clare about how his research will help Canada strengthen its manufacturing resilience and reduce the lifetime costs of critical assets through faster and more efficient maintenance and repair.
Why is maintenance such a big focus for you?
Purchase costs of defence assets are high – but they represent only about 35 percent of the cost of the asset. Sixty‑five percent of the cost is maintenance.
One of the main motivations of my research is to reduce the time needed for maintenance, repair and overhaul processes by developing new technologies. For example, my second spin‑off company, Scintam Engineering, developed ways to more easily disassemble airplane engines so they could be repaired safely and quickly.
If you think about Canada’s upcoming submarine purchase, submarines are very costly to maintain because they operate a long way from their home port. If we can repair things while they are being deployed, we can significantly save on costs. Additive manufacturing lends itself very well to creating spares and repairing high‑value components that are worn or damaged.
How does the ALL program fit into this?
Asymmetric Last Line (ALL) describes a situation where it is cheap to attack but expensive to defend. We see this in Ukraine, where a Shahed drone might cost in the tens of thousands to build and deploy, whereas the missile needed to shoot it down is maybe $4 million. For Canada, this reality needs to shape how we prioritize dual‑purpose technologies, by favouring solutions that are effective and economically sustainable.
UBC received close to $9 million in funding from PacifiCan to establish ALL, a research accelerator for dual-use technologies.
This money will primarily be used to purchase hardware that can be used by local companies and researchers.
For example, we are purchasing some of manufacturing hardware to demonstrate how to move rapidly from prototype to early production; a tank to test marine robots; an Arctic-like cell to test engineering systems at super low temperatures; tools for microscopy and materials analysis for discovering and proving materials of the future. We are also purchasing GPUs for advanced computation. In essence, we are putting the building blocks in place for more than 50 investigators to have access to the facilities they need to do world-leading research.
Partnerships are central to this work, and we have letters of support from companies across industry sectors who understand the importance of this opportunity for advancing Canada’s sovereign capability and technologies.
