Enhancing Canada's Innovation Ecosystem: CCI's Recommendations on Federal Research Support Modernization

The Council of Canadian Innovators has responded to the federal government’s consultation on modernizing research support. The Government of Canada’s proposal to create a new capstone research support agency comes at a critical time for the Canadian innovation economy. As productivity slows down, Canadians want to see a focus on building prosperity.

CCI believes the proposed capstone research support agency is an important development for Canada's innovation landscape. Federal research support is vital for Canada’s scaling technology companies. Getting this opportunity right will significantly enhance our ability to attract top talent, drive cutting-edge research, and solidify our position as a global leader in innovation, science, and technology.              

The Council of Canadian Innovators makes the following recommendations:

• Equip Canada’s research community to achieve tangible outcomes for Canadians by mandating the capstone agency to identify, establish and execute on concrete, focused challenge-based missions to deploy Canadian research excellence for public good.

• Ensure that publicly-funded Canadian research is put to effective use and promote industry-academic linkages by mandating the capstone agency to identify and recommend commercialization and knowledge mobilization best practices, including IP management.

• Give policymakers and the innovation ecosystem the tools and information they need to make good decisions by involving industry and giving the Advisory Council on Science and Innovation a broad mandate to collect data, evaluate and report on the innovation ecosystem.

Click here to read the full document.

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‍Media Contact:

Laurent Carbonneau
Director of Policy and Research
lcarbonneau@canadianinnovators.org

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About the Council of Canadian Innovators

The Council of Canadian Innovators is a national member-based organization reshaping how governments across Canada think about innovation policy, and supporting homegrown scale-ups to drive prosperity. Established in 2015, CCI represents and works with over 150 of Canada’s fastest-growing technology companies. Our members are the CEOs, founders, and top senior executives behind some of Canada’s most successful ‘scale-up’ companies. All our members are job and wealth creators, investors, philanthropists, and experts in their fields of health tech, cleantech, fintech, cybersecurity, AI and digital transformation. Companies in our portfolio are market leaders in their verticals, commercialize their technologies in over 190countries, and generate between $10M-$750M in annual recurring revenue. We advocate on their behalf for government strategies that increase their access to skilled talent, strategic capital, and new customers, as well as expanded freedom to operate for their global pursuits of scale.