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Budget 2013

The federal Budget has given Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) a new lease on life, replenishing its depleted SD Tech Fund with $325 million over eight years. The new money allows SDTC to launch a new competition for the fund, which has allocated $592 million since its launch in 2001.

Natural Resources Canada (NRCan) will provide $21.45 million over four years in follow-on funding to three research facilities to produce technetium-99m (Tc-99m), the most widely used isotope for medical imaging responsible for 80% of nuclear medicine diagnostic procedures.

Margaret McCuaig-Johnston is proof positive that there’s life after the public service. The veteran senior civil servant has segued from a 37-career in the federal and Ontario to governments to academia where she will be putting her vast S&T expertise and knowledge of China to good use.

Alberta’s support for research and innovation will take a modest hit as a result of the government actions in the provincial Budget. The budget of the Ministry of Enterprise and Advanced Education (MEAE) will drop by 4.

IRAP pushes up NRC budget

The National Research Council (NRC) will receive a significant boost in grants and contributions from the federal government in FY13-14 but the increase masks cuts to several of its key program areas.

The Ontario government has awarded $100 million over five years to the Ontario Brain Institute (OBI) with the proviso that it generates $80 million annually from other sources by FY17-18. The funding follows an initial seed grant of $15-million over three years that capped an effective advocacy campaign by several prominent philanthropists and industrialists to make the province one of the world’s top centers for neuroscience research and commercialization (R$, November 29/10).

12th Annual RE$EARCH MONEY conference

Budget 2013: Checking the Pulse of Canada’s Innovation Policies

April 9-10, 2013
National Arts Centre,, Ottawa

Join RE$EARCH MONEY for in-depth discussion and analysis of the
2013 federal Budget and the current status of Canada’s innovation policies.

A new set of policy documents for corporate R&D tax credits helps to clarify the key details of the government’s administration of the scientific research and experimental development (SR&ED) tax incentive program, says one of Canada’s foremost experts on the program.

The federal government will pursue a public-private model for the management of Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd (AECL) as it proceeds with a restructuring of the crown corporation and Canada’s largest major science facility.

The recently elected Quebec government has partially acquiesced to mounting opposition to $63 million in cuts to its research portfolio with a reallocation of $26.5 million directed towards R&D for climate change and health.