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Canada's research policy over the past three decades has steered national science toward industrial innovation. Yet, the outcomes of this policy orientation are debatable. Macro-level indicators continue to show weak performance in firm innovation, and there is also evidence that this policy stance has had material effects on science at the meso and micro levels. If so much public investment has gone into harnessing university–industry collaborations for a substantial period of time, why has Canada not seen an uptick in innovative activity? To address this puzzle, we turned our gaze to the policy machinery that promotes academic–industrial collaboration. We carried out case studies of two long-standing federal programs supporting research and development activities between universities and industry. Both programs are administered by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Canada's largest funder of natural sciences and engineering research. Drawing from multiple sources of data, we find that underneath the apparently successful implementation of these programs lies a misalignment between micro- and meso-level incentives for collaboration, and macro-level policy goals related to technological innovation and economic renewal. Our article makes two main contributions. First, it calls into question the escalating federal investments in university–industry partnership programs, as long as their ability to meet operational milestones remains the main source of evaluation. Second, it demonstrates the relevance and need for the literature to go beyond a focus on narrow technical questions at the micro level, and address broader questions about the purpose, goals, and beneficiaries of university–industry collaboration policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high degree of interest that higher education systems around the world have in employability has driven the profound development of industry-university cooperative education. Canada’s industry-university co-op education system has served as a model for global cooperative education, and its accreditation system guarantees the high quality of cooperative education. Canada’s industry-university co-op education accreditation system is characterized by the authority of the certifying institution, scientific accreditation standards, and operable review criteria. As it continuously improves, it has always embodied the best practices of co-op education. The social environment and administrative mechanisms for Chinese industry-university-institute cooperative education are still immature, and the primary functions of its evaluation system, including monitoring and diagnosis, feedback and regulation, and incentives and guidance, are an important starting point for perfecting the system. In learning from Canada’s accreditation experiences, it is necessary to update the concept of cooperative education, refine evaluation entities, and build a Chinese industry-university-institute cooperative education accreditation system with global vision, to further improve evaluation methods. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Canadian universities are perceived as less vibrant and engaged generators of technologies with commercial value than their American counterparts, and such perceptions have driven science policy for decades. This paper shows that contrary to these prevailing views, Canada's largest university has a long history of experience in dealing with the technological gaps in national industry and in attempting to work with domestic firms. Three historical periods, particularly critical in shaping these interactions, are identified and discussed. By the time policy initiatives began emphasizing university-industry relationships, the university had already built essential organizational underpinnings for the commercialization of technologies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities traverse epistemic, sectoral and geopolitical boundaries with increasing frequency, but along the way encounter challenges in mitigating unequal capacities, soaring costs and proprietary concerns. The bridging of disparate stakeholder interests requires an enormous effort, as research policies, institutional norms and organizational cultures in global science often remain irreconcilable. In seeking to identify strategic leverages for optimal balance in cross-border partnerships, this paper considers the case study of the Structural Genomics Consortium, which represents a synergy of resources, interests and commitments by research universities, governments and industries in Canada, Sweden and the UK. By triangulating data derived from content analysis of institutional materials, interviews and participant observations in Toronto, the study zeros in on the Canadian equilibration of symbolic, cultural and organizational forces aimed at securing long-term stakeholder support across institutional, sectoral and geopolitical domains. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Collaborations between and within sectors are common and crucial to the creation and transfer of knowledge. It is often unclear who is involved in the collaboration, and with whom and why they are collaborating. I studied reasons for collaboration and how capital and institutions affect collaboration through a mixed methods analysis of infection and immunity research and development collaborations in Vancouver, Canada between individuals affiliated with universities, firms, and health-care organizations. I found that both capital and institutions were important in collaboration decisions. Collaboration worked as a balancing act between capital and institutions. Potential collaborators needed to offer different capital to the collaboration while supporting the dominant institutions of potential collaborators. Participants' organizational and sectoral affiliations influenced available capital and dominant institutions. These findings help policy makers understand collaboration dynamics between sectors and how translation can occur between universities, firms, and health-care organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the forest products industry evolves into a modern industry based on cutting-edge industrial and management research, the prevalence and importance of university research centres have gained importance. Although there has been increased funding and attention given to university-industry research centres from policy makers and researchers, little is still known about the benefits or value that these collaborations provide and create for firms. Applied academic research requires the active participation of researchers and practitioners. In the Canadian forest products industry, there are other important actors that need to be considered, the federal and provincial governments as owners and regulators of the resource and funders of research and development projects and intermediary organisations who are often charged with transforming academic results into tools and methods able to be implemented into industry firms. This paper presents the results of three comparative case studies of university-industry research centres operating in the Canadian forest products industry through an exploration of their knowledge and technology transfer processes. The goal is to better understand the value that has been created for the four main groups of actors involved though informal and formal transfer processes and which processes are best suited for different types of knowledge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Facing more turbulent and competitive environments, private companies are paradoxically forced to collaborate, over short or long-term periods. In order to better understand how these collaboration processes take place, this article analyses the experience of a community of practice in Canada, established in order to promote quality improvement of public services. This community of practice counted upon the participation of provincial and federal governments, even though federal-provincial relations in Canada are characterized by tension and rivalry. From a critical and qualitative perspective, our analysis shows how the community of practice promoted cooperation in common projects, such as the adoption of a pan-Canadian survey on satisfaction with public services. As we can establish a parallel between the Canadian federal environment and the competitive environments of private companies, we believe that the public sector can inspire private practices, in the sense of using communities of practice as a strategy to diminish the ideological component of initiatives and make collaborative efforts possible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objectives. To characterize rural health care and pharmacy recruitment and retention issues explored in Canadian pharmacy strategic guidelines and Canadian Faculties of Pharmacy curricula; compare the availability of pharmacy workforce across Canadian jurisdictions; and identify models for potential collaborations between universities and rural pharmacies in the North. Methods. Review of Canadian pharmacy strategic documents, Canadian Faculty of Pharmacy websites, Canadian pharmacy workforce data and relevant literature based on the search terms to identify university- rural community pharmacy initiatives. Results. Three recent Canadian pharmacy strategic documents do not directly address issues related to rural and northern pharmacy practice, with recruitment and retention mentioned only in Canadian Pharmacists Association documents. Few Canadian Faculties of Pharmacy provide curricula on rural and northern health care issues or discuss rural recruitment and retention during training, with barriers to experiential rural practicums impeding placements. An innovative new partnership between the University of Waterloo School of Pharmacy and Gateway Rural Health Research Institute has the potential to enhance rural education, pharmacy services and community-based research. The number of pharmacists per 100,000 population in northern regions of British Columbia and the territories is low when compared with other Canadian provinces. In Australia, a model of university-rural pharmacy collaboration has been developed that may have the potential to inform future Canadian initiatives. Conclusions. Development of a coordinated, multifaceted approach involving universities, pharmacy professional associations and community-based research organizations in rural and northern regions of the country has the potential to enhance pharmacist education, practice recruitment, practice retention and community-based health outcomes research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Universities can play critical roles in regional industrial development through innovation and entrepreneurship clusters. Formally managing this function in an integrated fashion is not well practiced by many universities. To improve this practice, we define the roles that universities can play and numerical indicators to measure them. Most world regions are 'peripheral' to a few core areas where academic research concentrates. Peripheral regions depend heavily on natural resource industries in both developed and developing countries. Therefore, we study universities involved with wine, salmon culture, mining and eco-tourism, and collect original comparative data from four universities in Canada and four in Chile. They are mostly small schools in peripheral regions, but among the national leaders in involvement with the local resource industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the social capital that evolved in the Sustainable Forest Management Network (SFMN), one of the Canadian Networks of Centres of Excellence. Our longitudinal study shows a sevenfold increase in the total number of researchers and a high density of relationships among (researchers from) provinces across the country. The results of a social network analysis revealed that 52.6 percent of the network researchers maintained the same number of collaborators while 46.7 percent increased their number of collaborators enormously: the maximum increase in number of collaborators being 6900 percent and the minimum 6 percent. A bibliometric analysis suggested that the number of publications was strongly correlated to measures of social capital. From a science and innovation policy perspective, the finding that more than half of the researchers in the SFMN did not increase their personal networks of collaborators raises important questions. A theoretical model is proposed to examine whether funding agencies should focus on fostering various network structures and evolutions or rely on competition in the distribution of research funds through networks. The proposed model is designed to measure the impact of various network structures on the development of social capital and research output. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Abstract: Canada began research on space-relevant biological life support systems in the early 1990s. Since that time Canadian capabilities have grown tremendously, placing Canada among the emerging leaders in biological life support systems. The rapid growth of Canadian expertise has been the result of several factors including a large and technically sophisticated greenhouse sector which successfully operates under challenging climatic conditions, well planned technology transfer strategies between the academic and industrial sectors, and a strong emphasis on international research collaborations. Recent activities such as Canada’s contribution of the Higher Plant Compartment of the European Space Agency’s MELiSSA Pilot Plant and the remote operation of the Arthur Clarke Mars Greenhouse in the Canadian High Arctic continue to demonstrate Canadian capabilities with direct applicability to advanced life support systems. There is also a significant latent potential within Canadian institutions and organizations with respect to directly applicable advanced life support technologies. These directly applicable research interests include such areas as horticultural management strategies (for candidate crops), growth media, food processing, water management, atmosphere management, energy management, waste management, imaging, environment sensors, thermal control, lighting systems, robotics, command and data handling, communications systems, structures, in-situ resource utilization, space analogues and mission operations. With this background and in collaboration with the Canadian aerospace industry sector, a roadmap for future life support contributions is presented here. This roadmap targets an objective of at least 50% food closure by 2050 (providing greater closure in oxygen, water recycling and carbon dioxide uptake). The Canadian advanced life support community has chosen to focus on lunar surface infrastructure and not low Earth orbit or transit systems (i.e. microgravity applications). To advance the technical readiness for the proposed lunar missions, including a lunar plant growth lander, lunar “salad machine” (i.e. small scale plant production unit) and a full scale lunar plant production system, a suite of terrestrial developments and analogue systems are proposed. As has been successfully demonstrated by past Canadian advanced life support activities, terrestrial technology transfer and the development of highly qualified personnel will serve as key outputs for Canadian advanced life support system research programs. This approach is designed to serve the Canadian greenhouse industry by developing compliance measures for mitigating environmental impact, reducing labour and energy costs as well as improving Canadian food security, safety and benefit northern/remote communities. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

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We analyze the collaboration between manufacturing firms and universities in Canada. The data comes from the Statistics Canada Survey of Innovation, 1999. After a survey of the literature we present a statistical description of collaborating firms, their reasons for collaboration and the impact of collaboration on their performance. The econometric analysis estimates the probability that a firm collaborates with universities. The results suggest that collaboration with universities is frequent in knowledge based industries. Research undertaken in partnerships complements, rather than replaces, R&D by collaborating firms. Collaboration improves the performance of innovating firms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Quality clinical supervision is fundamental for the consolidation of knowledge and the development of a professional identity for baccalaureate nursing students. Problems in providing high-quality clinical supervision range from a lack of practitioner role models to inadequate or unsupportive learning environments. Collaboration between the education and service sectors allows for the development of enriched clinical learning experiences for students. This paper describes an innovative collaborative educational process developed by McMaster University School of Nursing and the Nursing and Education Departments at Hamilton Psychiatric Hospital, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. Front-line nursing staff are the clinical supervisors, with support from clinical nurse specialists, the hospital educator and the university faculty member. When compared to more traditional approaches, this model ensures that the students receive more variety in placements and access to expert human resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses criticism of Canada's prime minister Stephen Harper for his autocratic leadership style and cuts to environmental research. Topics include accusations by Harper's detractors that he is anti-science and anti-evidence, a report by Canada's Science, Technology and Innovation Council (STIC) that found, since Harper's election in 2006, Canada's research expenditures relative to gross domestic product (GDP) have dropped from 16th to 23rd among all industrialized nations, and Harper's promotion of science as a tool to restructure Canada's economy, which resulted in the establishment of the Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECRs).

Information on the issues discussed at the 5th Clinical Trials conference organized by Insight Information in Canada is presented. Topics revolve on the diminishing number of clinical trials in the country, cooperation between the contract research organizations and the academe, and the challenges that the clinical trial industry faces. The conference also featured clinical trial experts including Margaret Kerr, Pierre Gervais, and Robert Phillips.

Policy-makers and practitioners alike have increasingly embraced the innovation ecosystem approach to support the flow of knowledge within the Triple Helix framework. This approach focuses on the collaborative and interdependent nature of innovation, which is based on social aspects of knowledge transfer supporting relationships, partnerships, and connections. The important role of intermediary stakeholders that help to facilitate such partnerships is under-researched. This paper examines the work of three intermediary stakeholders in the Canadian innovation ecosystem—the Canadian Science Policy Centre, the MaRS Discovery District, and university Vice Presidents Research. By interviewing 40 experts from the federal and provincial governments, non-governmental organizations, industry, and the higher education sector in Ontario, this study examines how innovation ecosystems are created and what factors influence the success of bringing diverse stakeholders together. The findings suggest that strong political vision and leadership, an inclusive approach to recognizing the needs of diverse stakeholders, and clarity on ways to measure and fund innovation serve as important factors in the Canadian innovation ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses a focus on industrial research partnerships and applied research in an April 21, 2015 budget proposal for the government agency Canada Foundation for Innovation. Topics include the relationship between the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper and scientists, Harper's funding for the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, and the government's Canada First Research Excellence Fund.

Reports on the efforts of several countries to support their biotechnology industry. Background on collaborations among local clusters in the Canadian biotechnology industry; Details of initiatives developed in the U.S. for the growth of biotechnology companies; Information on partnerships between research and development companies and the academia to pioneer advances in biotechnology in Germany. INSET: Leading R&D in London.