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The Council of Science and Technology Advisors (CSTA) has weighed in on the contentious issue of the federal government’s S&T workforce and calls for speedy reform on several fronts or risk “failure to fulfill its fundamental mandates and its role in the national innovation system”.

The long upward climb of total R&D spending in Canada appears to have stalled, posing a serious challenge to Ottawa as it attempts to gear up the nation to become one of the world’s top five R&D jurisdictions.

Statistics Canada and the science and technology community are losing one of their most accomplished proponents with the retirement of Bert Plaus. Plaus is ending a 28-year career in which he made a major contribution to the relatively new field of S&T indicators and influenced the way in which those indicators are measured internationally.

An unexplained drop in foreign support for higher education research has marred an otherwise upbeat projection of funding for Canada’s universities, technology colleges and other post-secondary institutions.

“Technology Clusters: By Accident or Design”

February 19, 2003 at the National Arts Centre, Ottawa

Join us on February 19 for a full day of debate and discussion on technology clusters, featuring many of Canada’s leaders on this important issue.

The federal government has announced a unique, $60-million investment in a massive R&D project for broadband applications that holds the potential for establishing a major new cluster in the Ottawa region.

National Innovation Summit

Better access to risk capital, a stronger emphasis on commercialization, a permanent program for the indirect costs of university research and much altered R&D tax credits emerged as central recommendations stemming from the marathon brain storming session at the National Innovation Summit.

Backers exploring potential for collaboration

Three ideas aimed at shrinking the commercialization gap for biotechnology and biopharmaceutical products appear to be on converging trajectories as the life sciences and biotechnology industries seek to secure major new investments and regulatory changes for their struggling sectors.

The government’s primary vehicle for national science and technology advice has been raised from the dead. More than a year after its last official meeting, the Advisory Council on Science and Technology (ACST) met with Industry minister Alan Rock the day before the National Innovation Summit in Toronto.

A framework agreement hammered out between the federal government and Canada’s universities commits institutions of higher learning to double the amount they currently spend on research and triple their commercialization performance by 2010.