From mining critical minerals, making batteries, recycling batteries, and even software, the electric vehicle (EV) supply chain is a wide-open sandbox. The only question is, where will Canada build its castle?

The Electric Vehicle Innovation Ontario (EVIO) program is trying to find out. The program launched in December with $2.5 million in federal funding from FedDev Ontario to embed 37 graduate researchers from Ontario universities into 20 of the province’s EV and mobility companies over nearly three years.

The thrust, as scientific director and University of Toronto professor Arvind Gupta explained to BetaKit in an interview on Monday, is to match the right academic mind to an EV company’s research and development project.

“If I was in a company and I was trying to solve some part of the problem, and I had to hunt around in 97 universities to find the right person, that’s a really tough proposition,” Gupta said. “But if we can make that match happen faster, get people in there faster, get the technology developed faster, it just increases your odds of success.”