Canada scores another ‘D' for innovation

Canada has scored another ‘D' in the latest innovation report card from the Conference Board of Canada, ranking 13th among 16 peer countries. The revamped report card gave Canada a ‘B' in six out of 21 categories: scientific articles, new firm density, top-cited papers, government on-line services index, ease of entrepreneurship and public R&D spending. Other than two ‘Cs', the rest of the categories were ranked ‘D'. This year's report card included 11 new performance indicators: patents index, ICT investment, new firm density, venture capital, public R&D spending, business R&D spending, top-cited papers index, patenting firms less than five years old, ease of entrepreneurship index, connectivity and government online services index. The report concluded that "Canada does not take the steps that other countries take to ensure research can be successfully commercialized and used as a source of advantage for innovative companies seeking global market share. Canadian companies are thus rarely at the leading edge of new technology." The report can be found at www.conferenceboard.ca/hcp/details/innovation.aspx....