It wasn’t that long ago when Canada was considered an R&D laggard on the world stage. Willing to enter international collaborations and bilateral partnerships, Canada wasn’t nearly as enthusiastic when it came to paying its fair share.

To any informed observer, Canada’s innovation strategy is a work in progress at best. Many will argue that we don’t have one and advocate for a new strategy to replace the increasingly outdated 2007 version.

There’s a growing consensus that Canada’s innovation policies inordinately favour small and growing firms at the expense of larger businesses which often have to compete internally to win R&D mandates.

Imagine yourself as an aspiring, successful mid-career researcher from Canada or abroad who has recently been awarded a generous research chair. Attracted to a particular institution by the prospect of a healthy research support environment, you’re soon confronted with a distinctly different reality.

Can government scientists fulfill their mandates with 2,000 less people? Are the cuts being administered across federal science-based departments and agencies the right ones? These questions and more are being asked throughout the broader S&T community as details trickle out on the impact of the Harper government’s austerity measures aimed at eliminating the federal deficit by FY15-16.

The guiding hand of Dr Alain Beaudet is becoming evident as the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) unveils the first initiative under its Strategy for Patient-Oriented Research (SPOR). Despite a scarcity of funds, the CIHR president has managed to double the amount of money available for the CIHR/Rx&D Collaborative Research Program as part of a consolidation of targeted programs and initiatives in support of clinical research (see page 3).

Why are Canada’s resource and financial services sectors routinely excluded from innovation policy? That’s a question that is confronted in a provocative new discussion paper that seeks to remedy the problem.

For the throngs of delegates who attended last week’s AAAS conference in Vancouver, the absence of federal politicians and bureaucrats was palpable but perhaps understandable. Despite the excellent research on display from Canada there’s a growing sense that this country is in danger of becoming an innovation laggard.

How many of the recommendations by the Expert Panel Report on Federal Support for Business R&D will the Harper government include in the next Budget? Given Canada’s low productivity and competitiveness rankings and the rapid embrace of innovation by emerging nations, the status quo isn’t an option.

In the run up to next month’s federal Budget, the annual reading of the tea leaves is once again in full swing. Cuts of 5-10% are about to be inflicted on federal departments and agencies, but the government has made it clear that they won’t be uniformly applied.