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Nearly three quarters of Canadians believe that more money should be spent to strengthen the nation’s science and research capacity, with most making a positive connection between science capacity and our standard of living and quality of life.

The revamped Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE) program is preparing to leverage a new centralized structure to strengthen its role in commercializing knowledge and inventions as the province gets ready to unveil an ambitious new commercialization strategy.

Winnipeg’s long-term objective of building an internationally recognized cluster for infectious diseases research, training and innovation has received a significant boost with a seed investment in the International Centre for Infectious Diseases (ICID).

Push versus pull

Technology pull trumps technology push — but both are essential for successful commercialization. That message from National Science Advisor Dr Arthur Carty came as close as any during last week’s RE$EARCH MONEY conference to crystalizing debate on what is required to increase the return on investments that governments have made in Canada’s science and technology base.

Low-priority R&D programs for government, universities and industry could be cut or scaled back as part of the federal government’s current expenditure review, which will see $12 billion in federal spending reallocated from low to higher priority items over the next five years.

Research intensity at Canada’s universities took another major jump in FY03, increasing 9.7% to $124,300 in sponsored research income per full-time faculty. The latest surge means that research intensity has increased 46.

The federal and Ontario governments are each contributing $100 million to trigger an investment by Ford Motor Co of more than $1 billion at one of its Oakville facilities. The government will help to establish an R&D centre, develop a novel flexible manufacturing system and support skills training.

The Ontario government is committing $1.8 billion over the next four years to support research and commercialization. The funding will be delivered primarily through three major programs that have been revamped and refocused over the past six months.

R&D spending by Canada’s pharmaceutical industry declined in 2003 after 14 consecutive years of increases and dipped below the critical 10% R&D-to-sales ratio. The 2003 ratio for all patentees is 8.

By Debbie Lawes

Canada’s research granting councils could be facing a cut to their base budgets starting in 2005 as part of Ottawa’s attempt to cut $1 billion each year from federal government spending.