Article Type: Generic

Not-for-profit funding remains strong

R&D spending is set to decline in Canada for the third year in a row. Statistics Canada estimates that total R&D expenditures in 2015 will decline $221 million or 0.

A new early-stage fund led by OMERS Ventures is raising cautious optimism that Canada’s venture capital ecosystem is slowly moving to a new level of maturity, with increasing levels of investment in the first half of 2015 and greater participation by typically risk-averse institutional investors.

Indian multinational Tech Mahindra (TM) has signed a memorandum of understanding with Ryerson Univ to develop software solutions for optimizing energy generation, consumption and delivery using intelligent microgrids.

The federal government has announced the complete suite of successful research programs funded under the initial competition of the $1.5-billion Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF), with Quebec institutions taking two of the five awards.

The commercialization arm of Vancouver-based Centre for Drug Research and Development (CDRD) is returning to the fold as the organization enters its second phase for derisking and commercializing promising health research discoveries.

The halcyon days of annual increases in federal support for R&D in the higher education sector have come to a halt. After a healthy jump in FY12-13, federal support declined 2.1% in FY13-14 to $3.1 billion.

Genome Canada has announced the winners of its latest Large-Scale Applied Research Project (LSARP) with 11 projects receiving $93 million including $30.8 million from Genome Canada. The Genomics and Feeding the Future competition targeted projects in agriculture, agri-food, fisheries and aquaculture.

The Univ of Toronto has received $114 million over seven years — the largest research award in its history — to undertake a massive, multifaceted research program on regenerative medicine. The award was made under the initial $350-million tranche of the $1.

The federal government has completed the lengthy roll-out of its Canada Accelerator and Incubator Program (CAIP) with the announcement of $9.7 million over five years to Waterloo ON-based Communitech and its partners.

Muted release raises questions

A high-level advisory panel to Health Canada is recommending the creation of a new agency and associated fund with a $1-billion annual budget to move healthcare innovations into practice.