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Policy & Regulation
Canada and life sciences sector face an emergency that requires prioritizing resilience, innovation and self-reliance   
By Mark Lowey
Canada confronts a national health security emergency, and the country’s life sciences sector faces an unprecedented crisis, says a new report by the Public Policy Forum. The report urges Canada to prioritize resilience, innovation and self-reliance, including fast-tracking Health Emergency Readiness Canada.
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Whither Canada’s future workforce in the tech-driven global knowledge economy?   
By Mark Lowey
Canadian businesses are under-investing in training their employees while industry and academia are still operating in silos when it comes to training the future workforce, experts said at Research Money's annual conference in Ottawa. There needs to be more incentives for companies to de-risk training, more training in professional skills, and more experimentation in training, they said.
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The most important message entrepreneurs have for government: Buy our companies’ products and services   
By Mark Lowey
The biggest way governments could help Canadian entrepreneurs is to buy their companies’ products and services, entrepreneurs and founders said at Research Money’s annual conference in Ottawa. A little bit of swagger would go a long way, too.
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Canada needs to fix broken structures to create an innovation-driven economy   
By Mark Lowey
Canada’s structures for incentivizing and creating an innovation-driven economy are so broken, if the country were operating as a business it would be considered a bad investment, two veterans of the innovation landscape said at Alberta Innovates' Inventures conference in Calgary.
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Roadblocks in technology transfer and government procurement must be dismantled for Canadian startups to succeed   
By Mark Lowey
Canadian startups regularly encounter roadblocks with university technology transfer and government procurement processes that are hurting the companies’ ability to grow and stay in Canada, say startup founders and CEOs.
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Science & Technology
AI and big data could revolutionize health care but only if there’s trust in AI models and privacy is protected   
By Mark Lowey
Artificial intelligence combined with big data promises to revolutionize medicine, but realizing that promise will require AI models that doctors and patients trust, along with “secure enclaves” where data and privacy are protected, says a health care expert at Microsoft.
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Building new data centres in Canada will come with tradeoffs in benefits and negative impacts   
By Mark Lowey
Building new data centres in Canada can help safeguard data sovereignty and enable Canadian AI development, but the facilities consume huge amounts of power and water and emit greenhouse gases. Those are some of the tradeoffs that Canadians should consider in deciding how many data centres should be built, where they should be located where and how their impacts should be managed, experts say.
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Innovation & Investment
Canada’s research and innovation ecosystem needs to embrace failure and experiment with new ways of funding   
By Mark Lowey
Canada's research ecosystem is too risk-averse, shunning failure and hindering innovation, said experts at Research Money's annual conference in Ottawa. To compete globally, Canada must embrace new research funding models that foster wealth creation, provide societal benefits and encourage cross-sector collaboration.
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Canada’s innovation ecosystem lacks key elements for success implemented in other countries   
By Mark Lowey
Canada lacks an overarching strategy, long-term planning, policy continuity and other key ingredients for success in its innovation ecosystem compared with countries like the United Kingdom, Switzerland and the European Union. That was the main takeaway from an international panel at Research Money’s annual conference in Ottawa.
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The Short Report
The Short Report July 2, 2025   
By Research Money
Three-quarters of Canadians support “fast-tracking” major projects but not at the expense of bypassing environmental reviews; extreme rise in policy uncertainty is taking a toll on business and consumer confidence; Ottawa lacks whole-of-government insight and tools to determine “best value” in procurement; Western Canada is well positioned to become a powerhouse in critical minerals-battery production value chain; and more.
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The Short Report: June 25, 2025   
By Research Money
Privacy Commissioner lacks the power to fine offending companies; Canada needs a national strategy to commercialize the space sector; Ottawa is lagging on a national climate adaptation strategy, sustainable development and integrated ocean management; unravelling the mystery of Canada’s voluntary carbon market; benefits to Canada’s economy from universal health care are becoming more important; and more.
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Voices
AI is not a sector – it is a systems transformation requiring an innovation policy shift
By Andrew Maxwell
Current federal strategies on artificial intelligence – including the mandate for the minister of AI – fall short by not recognizing AI as a systems-level transformation requiring a shift in innovation policy to embed AI into public sector operations, writes Andrew Maxwell at York University.
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Who benefits from technological innovations?
By Peter Josty
Throughout most of history the benefits of and the wealth generated by new technologies have been captured by a small elite who had coercive power, and reversing this trend would require a major effort, writes Peter Josty, executive director of the Centre for Innovation Studies.
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