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Last month’s Quebec provincial Budget continues to inject new spending into science and technology with a hefty increase to the budget of the Ministry of Research, Science and Technology (MRST), credits to assist in the transformation of provincial granting councils and $10 million to cover matching funds for awards made to Génome Québec in the first Genome Canada competition.

Genome Canada (GC) has announced funding of $155 million for a second round of 34 large-scale projects that it hopes will accelerate Canada’s objective of moving further up the ranks of nations performing genome and genome-related research.

Canada’s fuel cells companies are in discussions with the federal government to secure support for a major commercialization program and push for the development of a national strategy as part of Ottawa’s roll out of its innovation strategy.

The National Research Council’s Innovation Centre in Vancouver is in rapid expansion and reorganization mode following last month’s decision to provide $20 million over five years and raise its status to that of a full national fuel cells institute (R$, March 18/02).

The federal government has wrapped months of negotiations and released funding for a key research component of Canada’s efforts to comply with the Kyoto agreement on greenhouse gas (GHG) and carbon emissions.

Quebec is moving aggressively on two fronts to attract a larger share of foreign venture capital (VC), but first it must to dispel lingering misperceptions about the province as preferred location for investment.

The Quebec government has introduced a $100-million loan fund to encourage provincially based biotechnology firms to secure non-Quebec sources of financing. The fund was part of a biotechnology stimulation package included in Quebec’s March 26 mini Budget, which many view as little more than a public relations exercise to take credit for the economic upswing now taking hold in North America.

Vision document lays out future to 2006

Fresh from its success in last year’s federal Budget, the National Research Council (NRC) is set to release an ambitious five-year plan that further positions the R&D powerhouse as a key component of the government’s emerging innovation strategy.

Health care, education and slumping oil and gas revenues have put increased spending for innovation in Alberta on hold, with a March 19 Budget that contains no new initiatives or funding increases for existing programs.

The Canada Centre for Remote Sensing (CCRS) is inviting companies from the geomatics and geoscience sectors to work side-by-side with government scientists to bring new products to market faster. Nine companies have already begun working at the CCRS’s new Innovation Acceleration Centre (IAC), in Ottawa.