Under the leadership of the SMART Park board of directors, the university continued to make progress on the establishment of a research park on its Fort Garry campus. With close to $500,000 in total from the provincial and federal governments, the detailed design work for the park has been completed and funding is in place for a management team that will promote the park.

SMART Park will provide a high quality, attractive environment to foster interaction between the university and industry, to support research and education programs in the priority areas of information technology and telecommunications, advanced materials and manufacturing, pharmaceutical and agricultural biotechnology and resource-based value-added products and processing.