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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.

First-of-a-kind report from OCADU

Ontario has considerable strength in mobile technology research, highly qualified personnel, infrastructure and a solid base of companies in several industry sectors — but it lacks sufficient mechanisms and access to capital to boost commercial development, says a new report on the province’s mobile sector produced by OCAD Univ (OCADU).

Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has announced several changes to the administration of the Scientific Research & Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax incentive program “to improve the predictability of the outcome of SR&ED claims”.

A college network that facilitates collaboration and the development of niche expertise among its members will become part of the Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) program effective April 1st. The Colleges Ontario Network for Industry Innovation (CONII) will be integrated within OCE’s programs and services, boosting the college offerings OCE will be able to offer and giving CONII’s 24 member colleges input into future program development and strategy.

A new research paper from Industry Canada suggests that smaller R&D-intensive (RDI) firms have more difficulty obtaining debt financing than other companies. Using Statistics Canada data from 2004 and 2007, report author Owen Jung contends that the financing challenge face by RDI firms with less than 500 employees and $50 million in annual revenues hampers their ability to increase productivity and penetrate global markets.

Recently, Research Money published an article that cited Statistics Canada figures for gross domestic expenditure on research and development (GERD) (R$, December 17/12). From the article, it appears that, as a country, our investments in research have declined.

A new organization to develop policy and disseminate knowledge on climate change is using modest resources raised from donations and other sources to establish an Ottawa-based office and organize a small number of meetings over the next two years.

Long-Term Space Plan still pending

The federal government has approved the final phase of funding for the long awaited Radarsat Constellation Mission (RCM) with the awarding of a $706-million, seven-year contract to MacDonald Dettwiler & Associates (MDA) to build, launch and initially operate a constellation of three smaller satellites in 2018.

Dr Steve MacLean is leaving the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) February 1st to take a leadership role in a new quantum physics venture being established by Mike Lazaridis, vice chair of the board for Research in Motion and founder of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics.

Latest salvo against government policies

The Royal Society of Canada (RSC) has added its voice to the growing controversy over the government’s muzzling of its scientists and alleged disregard for evidence-based decision making.