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Industry investors, training key to fast-tracking maturation of VC sector: New BDC programs

The Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC) is betting that greater corporate involvement in venture capital will bring the know-how, contacts and money needed to move Canada’s VC sector from short pants to full adulthood. Faced with less than satisfactory improvement in Canada’s 30-year-old investment sector, BDC has launched two new programs designed to accelerate the maturation of Canada’s venture capital industry..

Response to $950 million superclusters competition exceeds expectations

Let the speculation begin. The first round in the process to select a handful of well-funded superclusters has been completed with more than 50 letters of intent (LOI) delivered to the Innovation Superclusters Initiative (ISI), managed by the federal department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED).

TRIUMF building a new home for nuclear medicine in Vancouver to become leader in niche market of medical isotope production

TRIUMF is in the midst of a multi-year effort to establish an Institute for Advanced Medical Isotopes (IAMI), which would feature major infrastructure for creating and handling these radioactive products, as well as laboratories for testing them in scientific and clinical settings. While similar work takes place in a variety of university and hospital settings across the country, this facility is intended to concentrate all aspects of such work — from the creation of raw materials to clinical trial work of potential therapies — in a single location…

Structural Genomics Consortium expanding clinical and patient reach with new Phase IV funding

Canadian funding for the Toronto-based Structural Genomics Consortium (SGC) has been renewed, injecting $33 million into the ground breaking open innovation organization that determines the three-dimensional structure of proteins related to human diseases. The fourth phase of the public-private SGC will see an expansion its collaborative network to include disease and patient foundations while partnering with clinicians and research hospitals to validate new targets for drug discovery by testing its chemical probes on patients.

Canadian R&D spending stagnating as business performance continues to decline

A key underpinning of Canadian innovation is continuing to slide with the latest data on gross expenditures on R&D (GERD) showing a 1.7% decline in 2015. Statistics Canada reports that GERD dropped $600 million to $33.9 billion from $34.5 billion in 2014 and its latest survey shows that weak performance was unlikely to change in 2016.

MPs see resource industry’s problems as potential boon for clean tech

Clean technology and traditional resource industries like oil and gas may seem like strange bedfellows but federal politicians hope closer ties between the sectors will enable Canada to meet two of its biggest challenges: reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and creating jobs. Debbie Lawes reports

NRC to strengthen collaborations with academia and government as part of evolving mandate

Change is coming to the National Research Council (NRC) with plans to modify the ways in which it generates new knowledge and expertise for business. The 100-year-old agency is recalibrating to enhance its role in the national innovation agenda by placing greater emphasis on exploratory research in emerging fields, stepping up collaboration with higher education institutions and enhancing integration within the federal innovation ecosystem.

Pressure grows to increase support for fundamental research, tie funding levels to demand

Canada’s support for fundamental research has fallen by a third between 2005 and 2015, but many in the Canadian research community are concerned the federal government doesn’t appear to be in any hurry to take action. The deterioration in federal support — occurring over a period closely corresponding to the decade in which the government of Stephen Harper was in power — witnessed a major swing in funding from fundamental to applied research, with 40% of researchers reporting a similar shift in their focus.