At the Socio-economic Conference held in February 1991, the Quebec Government confirmed its intention to support the financing of an aluminium liaison and transfer centre in the Saguenay–Lac-Saint-Jean region, as proposed by the University of Quebec at Chicoutimi(UQAC). The promoter of the mandate, UQAC, was assigned the task of specifying the concept, that is to say creating a non-profit, self-governing corporation, regulated by a board of directors consisting of appointed industry, university, and government representatives, aiming to foster university-industry cooperation in various aspects of the field.

Considerable work has already been done to bring together large companies, SMEs, post-secondary institutions, and the different levels of government. The tremendous efforts put forth have resulted in the creation of a work group uniting experts and researchers from UQAC, Cégep de Jonquière, Alcan, the Association de l'industrie de l'aluminium du Québec (AIAQ), and the Société des technologies de l'aluminium (STAS) Ltée. With the common goal of generating a development tool for the aluminium industry, without compromising their individual missions, these partners have teamed together to specify the concept behind the Aluminium Research and Development Centre of Quebec(CQRDA).

In June 1993, the Centre was granted the status of liaison and transfer centre by the Quebec Government, as well as pump-priming to help finance the organisational stages. The relevancy of the development concept for the industry in Quebec and the work accomplished by the founding partners were thus recognised.