Group items tagged

What we found was a funding system that is unnecessarily complicated and confusing to navigate

significant gaps that hinder the ability of our businesses to grow

The encouragement of home-grown innovation a part of government procurement is commonsense

the NRC can play a unique role, linking its large-scale, long-term research activity with the academic and business communities

challenges in getting start-up funding and late stage risk capital financing

the gap is filled by foreign investors, which means that too many commercial benefits and intellectual property end up leaving the country

government-wide clarity when it comes to innovation

We heard that the government should be more focussed on helping innovative firms to grow and, particularly, on serving the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs)

greater cooperation with provincial programs

innovation support is too narrowly focussed on R&D – more support is needed for other activities along the continuum from ideas to commercially useful innovation

more productive and internationally competitive economy

whole-of-government program delivery vehicle – the Industrial Research and Innovation Council (IRIC)

SR&ED program should be simplified

includes non-labour costs, such as materials and capital equipment, the calculation of which can be highly complex

the base for the tax credit should be labour-related costs, and the tax credit rate should be adjusted upward

fund direct support measures for SMEs

promoting the growth of firms

facilitating access by such firms to an increased supply of risk capital at both the start-up and later stages of their growth.

building public–private research collaborations

National Research Council (NRC) should become independent collaborative research organizations

become affiliates of universities

create opportunity and demand for leading-edge goods

encouragement of innovation in the Canadian economy should become a stated objective of procurement policies and programs.

the government needs to establish business innovation as a whole-of-government priority

put innovation at the centre of the government's economic strategy

Innovation Advisory Committee (IAC) – a body with a whole-of-government focus that would oversee the realization of our proposed action plan, as well as serve as a permanent mechanism to promote the refinement and improvement of the government's business innovation programs going forward.

focus resources where market forces are unlikely to operate effectively or efficiently and, in that context, address the full range of business innovation activities, including research, development, commercialization and collaboration with other key actors in the innovation ecosystem

the closer the activity being supported is to market, and therefore the more likely it is that the recipient firm will capture most of the benefit for itself.

specific sectors

of strategic importance

concentrated in particular regions

succeed in the arena of global competition