EVERY DROP COUNTS: Green Week Conference 2012 – Conserving water through innovation.
Water is essential for sustaining life, as well as our economy. With less than one percent of the world’s fresh water currently accessible for direct human use, water supplies are now a major global concern impacting not only our daily lives but also our business strategies. Throughout last week, thousands of individuals had gathered for […]
R&D incentive programs across the globe
In light of proposed changes to the SR&ED program announced in March’s federal budget, Canada retains a position as offering one of the most attractive R&D incentive programs globally. Let’s look at a few R&D tax credit programs across the globe to see how SR&ED stacks up. Currently, Canada’s SR&ED program offers a 35-percent refundable […]
The Automotive Innovation Fund
The Automotive Innovation Fund (AIF) was established in 2008 to support research and development projects to build more fuel-efficient vehicles. Managed by Industry Canada, the AIF reviews proposals of more than $75 million over 5 years, including vehicle and powertrain assembly, large-scale automotive Innovation, and other R&D initiatives. For example, in 2009, AIF awarded$54.8 million […]
Harper Government Strengthening Canada’s Science and Technology Advantage
During a speech today at the Creative Economy Summit, the Minister of State for Science and Technology, Gary Goodyear, announced that Canada will continue to make key investments in science and technology. “Through our government’s science and technology strategy, we are keeping our economy strong, creating high-quality jobs and ensuring Canada is a premier destination […]
Productivity is Innovation, Not Invention
On October 17, 2011, the federally appointed panel, chaired by Open Text chief strategy officer Tom Jenkins, released an assessment of the government’s $7-billion in annual investment in “business R&D”. The report recommended significant changes to the incentive programs and singled out the Scientific Research & Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax credit, the largest program, which […]
When does SR&ED start to happen?
A misconception often made with the SR&ED program is that a company can claim a full business project, instead of just the SR&ED activities that happen within the business project. The SR&ED program looks at activities where you have come across an obstacle, worked systematically to solve that obstacle, and somehow advanced your knowledge on […]
Toronto’s ICT Report
The City of Toronto recently released an ICT (Information and Communications Technology) Report, which takes a look at a number of items regarding investing in business in Toronto – including the state of Research and Development in Toronto. While the whole report is worth taking a look, the section on R&D is really what caught […]
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 […]
Higher Education R&D Spending
Today, StatsCan released results about spending on R&D in the higher education sector. In 2008/2009, spending went up 7.3% from the previous year to a total of $10.9 billion. About two-thirds of the R&D spending occurred in Ontario and Quebec, and most of the R&D that occurred got it’s funding from higher education institutes and/or […]
Fact or Fiction: We Already Get Funding from Another Program so Can’t Claim SR&ED!
A lot of times the funding that you get from other programs don’t cover the same areas of business as the SRED program covers. In the instances where you are getting a grant, loan or reimbursement for something R&D related you need to remember one thing: you cannot double dip for funding. Some examples are […]