Centre for the Application of Resources Information Systems (LU-CARIS) was the creation of the late Professor Hendrik (Hans) Westbroek back in 1983. Hans (who taught photogrammetry at Lakehead from the early 70's until his passing in early 90's) envisioned at an early state that sound GIS and remote sensing education requires a different approach than traditional university programs. To deal with the high costs of hardware and software and the absolute requirement of being in direct contact with government and industrial resource inventory challenges Hans modeled LU-CARIS on the Dutch ITC - a modest cost-recovery group for training and technology transfer with sound academic criteria coupled with "real-world" short-term problem solving.

Hans (an ITC graduate) saw the role of LU-CARIS as a "spring-board" for young people and his vision has indeed worked. Numerous Natural Resources Management and GIS/remote sensing professionals working throughout North America - from Newfoundland to British Columbia - from the Northwest Territories to Louisiana - got their start either as students or staff of LU-CARIS. Every year LU-CARIS provides the necessary tools and expertise for numerous students in obligatory courses, electives, undergraduate and graduate theses as well as courses for off-campus resource professionals. LU-CARIS was heavily involved with the rapid expanse in the mid-80's of GIS databases within the natural resources industry and Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. Since then, LU-CARIS has gradually moved towards GIS modeling and remote sensing with a focus on industrial solutions and better integration with the Natural Resources Management programs at Lakehead.

The current focus is to foster increased collaboration with off-campus natural resources professionals and groups through informal partnerships and support of undergraduate and graduate theses students. The intent is to provide technology transfer in return for exposure to students to industrial GIS/remote sensing challenges, support for maintenance / equipment costs as well as logistical support and co-supervision for student research.

Distributed learning (distance ed) with geomatics requires special solutions and LU-CARIS is actively engaged to create suitable approaches. Distributed learning will be a key component to reaching out beyond the two LU campuses and LU-CARIS is ready to meet the challenge.

For more information, please contact Dr. Ulf Runesson, Director LU-CARIS: 807-343-8784