Article Type: Generic

Sustainability remains key issue

The initial success of the Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR) program could be jeopardized unless the government provides more time for the centres to achieve sustainability, concludes a new report industry leaders overseeing its activities.

Four years after its conception, a new commercialization engine is being launched by CMC Microsystems aimed at creating start-ups and providing services for companies seeking competitive advantage through the increased application and use of microsystems.

By Debbie Lawes

The 12-year-old Canadian Institute for Photonics Innovation (CIPI) will be re-born April 1 as a new industry-led organization, marking the end of its two terms as a Networks of Centres of Excellence.

In a sign of the worsening fiscal environment, the Ontario government has cancelled the next two rounds of its flagship Ontario Research Funds – Research Excellence (ORF-RE) program competition and transferred the money to two recently created regional development funds.

The union representing federal scientists and technicians is calling for a blue ribbon panel to examine government R&D and a reinstatement of the Office of the national Science Advisor to ensure that the national innovation system has “three solid and mutually supporting pillars for science in Canada”.

By Debbie Lawes

Xerox Canada Limited is pitching the Ontario government on a new commercialization model that would see large multinational corporations open their doors to early stage companies, SMEs and universities needing access to specialized research, testing and scale up facilities.

Stronger academic involvement envisioned

The federal government has renewed the Genomics Research and Development Initiative (GRDI) for the fifth time since its launch in 1999 with $59.7 million over three years.

Industry Canada has asked the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) to assemble an Expert Panel on the State of Industrial Research and Development in Canada to examine existing and emerging areas of Canadian R&D strength and how they compare on a global basis.

Sponsored research income at Canadian universities continued its long growth curve, posting a modest 3.6% increase in 2010 to $6.46 billion for the nation’s top 50 institutions. But planned cutbacks at the federal and provincial levels to rein in runaway deficits may curtail the longest expansion of university research in Canadian history.

Prime minister Stephen Harper’s re-announcement of funding for joint R&D projects between Canada and China is being viewed as a key gesture of support for bilateral S&T and an expectation that the level of funding for such international engagement could increase as early as the next federal Budget.