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Nortel Networks Corp’s integration of its formidable optical components business lines into a single corporate unit is the culmination of a long term push into the field which has helped transform the Canadian-based conglomerate into a major global telecommunications force.

Changes to governance of research ethics management recommended

Canada’s two-year-old Tri-Council Policy Statement on ethics is about to undergo significant changes in its governance if recommendations made in a recent report are adopted.

May 30-31 in Toronto: Customer Value and Profitable Engineering. Sponsored by the Centre for Automotive Materials and Manufacturing at Queen’s Univ. Introduction to the methods for better understanding factors influencing competitiveness.

Last week’s Ontario Budget designated the province’s business sector as the prime beneficiary of a booming economy and ballooning fiscal surplus, with a significant component directed towards high-technology firms and health and university-based research.

A major new report on the role of the federal government in performing science and technology (S&T) is breathing new life into the push for increased funding for in-house research capacity. The Council of Science and Technology Advisors (CSTA) has weighed in with an eye opening assessment on the state of federal S&T, calling for urgent action on a number of fronts to avoid what it views as a rapid deterioration in the government’s ability to fulfill its S&T mandate to support the health, safety and economic well-being of Canadians.

BioChem Pharma Inc has launched a seven-year, $600-million project for the development of recombinant vaccines as part of its re-focused business plan that saw the shedding of its diagnostic division last year (R$, June 16/99).

High-flying Research in Motion (RIM) has snared a major investment from Technology Partnerships Canada (TPC) for the second time in less than two years to accelerate the pace of R&D on platform technologies supporting the next generation of its hand-held wireless communications products.

Cash-strapped British Columbia has been handed a Budget that seems to indicate that the beleaguered NDP government is beginning to acknowledge the importance of technology and innovation to the province’s future prosperity.

Persistent problems in closing off on the aging files of certain firms claiming federal R&D tax credits has handed the Auditor General of Canada (AG) ammunition to blast the Canada Customs and Revenue Agency (RevCan) over its handling of the scientific research & experimental development (SR&ED) program.

The timing is a little off, but the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is now a reality having passed through both the House of Commons and the Senate before receiving Royal Assent on April 14.