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It was the year of the Old Economy as this year’s Alberta Budget distributed the spoils of surges oil and gas revenues into education, health care and debt and tax reduction but failed to introduce any new S&T initiatives to bolster the impressive achievements of recent years.

When the Canadian Microelectronics Corp (CMC) officially launches its national System-on-Chip Research Network (SRN) in Ottawa on June 7, the organization and its partners will only be pausing briefly to celebrate their accomplishment.

The federal government’s science based departments and agencies (SBDAs) have locked onto the pending Innovation White Paper as their best chance for strengthening their roles in Canadian S&T after years of neglect and budget cuts.

After nearly a year of operation, the Ontario Science and Innovation Council (OSIC) has established an ambitious slate of projects that the provincial government hopes will ultimately provide valuable mid-term advice on how it’s dealing with the emerging knowledge-based economy.

A freshly minted expert panel of the Royal Society of Canada (RSC) will engage in a whirlwind week of site visits and consultation for the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) to review the impacts of its investments in research infrastructure.

“Stayed tuned.” That’s the advice from the new executive director of Technology Partnerships Canada (TPC) as the program prepares to undergo a major transformation as part of the federal government’s pending ramp-up of its innovation agenda.

Science and technology (S&T) has slipped off the list of national priorities in the United States despite the spectacular success of the nation’s innovation system over the past 50 years, says Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) president Dr Charles Vest.

Science and technology (S&T) is quietly staging a comeback at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade (DFAIT) and is being positioned to take on a more prominent departmental role in anticipation of government action on the international S&T file.

The National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) is shaping up as a key player in the renewed federal emphasis on international S&T. With its strategic plan recently updated to explicitly include an international component, the organization has launched and is continuing with several modest initiatives it is positioning for future expansion.

The value of private sector sales made over the Internet in Canada rose 73.4% in 2000 but still represent only a tiny fraction of the entire economy, according to a recent Statistic Canada survey on electronic commerce and technology.