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March 12 in OttawaRE$EARCH MONEY Conference
“Challenges of Canadian Firms Going Global”

Canada’s domestic market is too small to support the significant growth of more than a few companies in any given sector.

Genome Canada’s failure to secure funding for new competitions and international collaborations has cast the Conservative government’s S&T policies in the worst possible light and offered up a dangerous lightning rod for criticism of its innovation strategy.

Budget 2009 — Arctic research

The federal Budget has responded to a call for the maintenance and repair of Canada’s Arctic research facilities. But it is silent on programs planned under the government’s Canadian Arctic Research Initiative and recommended in a recent report from the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA).

By Perry Hoffman

The Conservative Party’s Budget has recognized the importance of boosting the knowledge economy by investing considerable funds into select information and communications technologies (ICT) sectors — such as broadband and electronic health records.

Digital media companies will soon be able to kick the tires of new technologies and collaborate with researchers when the two hubs of a Corridor for Advancing Canadian Digital Media (CACDM) open later this year.

March 12 in OttawaRE$EARCH MONEY Conference

“Challenges of Canadian Firms Going Global”

Canada’s domestic market is too small to support the significant growth of more than a few companies in any given sector.

The appointment of Dr Henri Rothschild as president and CEO of Precarn Inc sets in motion a strategic review that will determine the fate of one of Canada’s most enduring commercialization programs. Currently focused on robotics and intelligent systems, its future direction and potential source of financial support will be determined over the coming weeks with greater clarity once the federal Budget is delivered on January 27.

Measuring tangible benefits

Research organizations worldwide have long struggled to demonstrate — in empirical ways — how public funding of research results in tangible benefits. Now Canada is poised to take a leadership role in dealing with this issue with the development of a sophisticated tool that measures the return on investment for health research, and potentially other sectors such as energy and even the social sciences.

Three other networks TBA at a later date

Environmentally targeted aerospace R&D is the focus of the first network to be announced under the new Business-Led Networks of Centres of Excellence (BL-NCE) program support collaborative R&D to reduce aircraft noise and emissions.

The federal government has announced funding for six more Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECRs) but so far have unveiled the identity of only one — Calgary-based Centre of Excellence for Integrated Resource Management CEIRM will receive $11.