R&D Review by Federal Government

There’s been a lot of talk in the past year about how Canada isn’t bringing R&D products to market as well as other countries. In February, it was announced that Canada got a ‘D’ for innovation, where we were listed as 14th among 19 other countries for commercialization of innovation. Then, there was another study done by the Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity that stated we perform less R&D than other developed countries. Now, the federal government is doing a review on R&D done in Canada, looking in to see why Canada is so far behind other developed countries when it comes to innovation, private-sector investment in R&D, and the commercialization of innovative products that are being developed in Canada.

StatsCan has forecast that the federal government will spend over $7 billion in R&D funding this year alone. Last year, over $3 billion went directly towards the SR&ED program. They also provide funding for post-graduate R&D and other private and non-profit research. Canada’s SRED program is one of the best in the world, as far as R&D funding goes. People are starting to wonder – if this much money is being put into research and development funding, then why aren’t we seeing results?

The review of R&D in Canada will be conducted by a panel of experts, and will be reporting back to the federal government in a year’s time. In that time, this panel will be looking at changes that can be made to the research-funding system without actually increasing or decreasing the amount that the government spends. (Source) The main goal of the review is to discover how we can improve the commercialization of R&D.

In the meantime, the Coalition for Action on Innovation in Canada has made a number of their own recommendations to the federal government to help with Canada’s innovation situation, including expanding eligible expenses for the SR&ED program. (Source) Whether the federal government implements any of these recommendations is yet to be seen, but we will definitely be keeping an eye on these events and keep you updated as news becomes available.