Canada has dropped from 25th to 41st among industrialized countries in terms of its performance in science and technology according to a report by the Science, Technology and Innovation Council. The council is a panel of 18 senior members of the business, research, education and government sectors which advises the Canadian government.
Business needs to do more in research and development, the report recommends. It also needs to invest in information and communications technologies. More funding should go into higher education. Canada needs to produce more science and engineering doctoral graduates and more people need to go into science and technology.
“We’re in a period of austerity at the moment,” said Paul Dufour, fellow and adjunct professor at the University of Ottawa’s Institute for Science, Society and Policy. “So a lot of companies are looking at the bottom line and making some serious decisions about where they want to invest.”
Dufour noted Canada has lost some big tech companies like Nortel which used to perform heavily in technology and innovation. “That’s impacted significantly on the overall environment for innovation in this country.”
Much of Canada’s economy is based on commodities and natural resources, said Dufour. “Historically they haven’t invested much in this area. They don’t add value to many of the products. All these combinations have affected our performance.”
If Canada’s performance does not improve Dufour is concerned productivity will lag and that will have a negative impact on health care, education and other programs. “There are a number of spillovers from this that are of some concern if we don’t increase our performance.
Countries like Germany, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea have an integrated approach to innovation in the private sector. “They bring together the private sector, government agencies, their academic institutions,” said Dufour. “And they tend to mobilize much of their efforts around significant strategic areas in a much better, more coherent way than we do.”
Canada is a big spread out country noted Dufour. So he thinks the government needs to play a leadership role in bringing people together to improve the country’s performance in science, technology and innovation.
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