Author: Mark Henderson

Infusing evidence-based policy-making into the federal bureaucracy is the focus of a new pilot program that will see up to 12 PhD-level researchers embedded with departmental and agency policy makers for a one-year fellowship.

CSPC 2015

The Liberal Party’s pledge to create a chief science officer (CSO) and incorporate scientific evidence into its decision-making has opened up intense speculation over the kind of science policy regime the new government will implement.

Analysis

The election of a new Liberal government is unleashing a tsunami of positive reaction across Canada’s S&T community as it reacts to pledges to address climate change, restore integrity to Parliament and pump new funding into clean tech and the Industrial Research Assistance Program.

A dramatic decline in R&D spending by Blackberry Ltd in 2014 was all it took to push outlays from Canada’s Top 100 Corporate R&D spenders downward for the first time since 2010. R&D expenditures by the Waterloo ON-based provider of communications products and services plummeted $537 million or 40.

The Ontario Research and Innovation Optical Network (ORION) has released the summary of a confidential report highlighting its socio-economic impact on the province’s research, education and innovation (RE&I) communities.

First decline in 14 years

By Debbie Lawes

Stagnant tri-council funding and tight provincial budgets are having an impact on Canada’s university sector, which saw its research income drop for the first time in 14 years, according to new data released by Research Infosource Inc.

Ontario has fully implemented its province-wide network of post-secondary based incubators and accelerators and initial data suggest they are beginning to have their intended impact. Managed by the Ontario Centres of Excellence, there are 10 Campus Linked Accelerators (CLAs) and 20 On-Campus Entrepreneurs Activities (OCEA) centres situated at 42 institutions with the express purpose of incenting and supporting entrepreneurial activity.

Removal of silos urgently required

Toronto’s powerful financial sector lacks an effective ecosystem to fully benefit from the explosion in information technologies transforming the services financial institutions offer and how startup companies are capitalized.

A new export panel report on Canada’s options for implementing a low-emission energy system concludes that climate change-inducing emissions can be cut between 60% and 90% using commercially available technologies and without jeopardizing the country’s competitiveness and long-term economic growth.