Author: Mark Henderson

Canada’s must move quickly to restore its once-vaunted leadership role in photonics R&D and commerce, says a new report from the Canadian Photonics Industry Consortium (CPIC). The report recommends a national photonics strategy and a reorientation of existing funding mechanisms to give industry a greater voice in aligning research with emerging market trends in key sectors where photonics plays a major role.

Organizations advocating for increasing science, technology and innovation (STI) support are offering up a generous helping of advice and recommendations to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance.

IBM Canada is deepening its commitment to Ontario with a multi-faceted project that leverages its investments in the Southern Ontario Smart Computing Innovation Platform (SOSCIP) and ties together 14 academic institutions and at least five incubators across the province.

Compute Canada and the Canadian Association of Research Laboratories (CARL) are partnering to build a scalable national platform to meet the growing need for data storage and management. The new platform has been successfully piloted and aims to close growing gaps in research data management when attempting to bridge systems and address scalability.

Responds to long-standing need

A $100-million venture capital fund targeting series ‘A’ financing is the highlight of a new BC Tech Strategy that could see at least $500 million injected into the province’s rapidly growing high-tech sector.

Canada must act more aggressively in utilizing its key advantages for boosting industry R&D by promoting and attracting foreign direct investment (FDI), says a new policy paper by Mitacs, which supports post-secondary training.

As advanced research computing permeates the majority of scientific disciplines, the ability of Canada’s researchers to compete with the best is being hampered by its ranking among the world’s top supercomputing nations.

Sustainability a key criterion

A stronger focus on commercialization helped to distinguish two new networks joining the Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR) program in a tough competition that saw two winners out of field of nine full proposals.

Exploring alternative sources

An historic funding agreement between CMC Microsystems and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) is coming to an end after 30 years. The granting council turned down CMC’s latest request for $57 million over five-years to support its National Design Network (NDN), instead providing progressively declining funds over the next three years.

New investigators a key focus

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research has submitted a Budget proposal to reverse the decline in federal support that has reduced success rates for researchers and enflamed its research community as it adjusts to a new process for adjudicating and selecting grant recipients.