News That Matters To You

By Mark Lowey
Federal policymakers ignored established innovation cluster success factors and failed to integrate regional expertise in establishing cluster networks, policy experts David Wolfe and Travis Southin said in a study of the government's innovation clusters program. They argue that this systemic inability to learn from past policy mistakes reflects a deeper institutional flaw in the federal public service.

By Andrew Maxwell
Canada must shift its focus from AI research discovery to widespread deployment and experimentation to spark a national productivity revolution, says Andrew Maxwell at York University. By treating AI as a transformative system rather than just a technology sector, Canada can integrate AI tools into public operations to drive meaningful economic and social progress, he says.

By Mark Lowey
The federal innovation clusters program suffers from a critical lack of public service institutional memory, as government officials failed to learn and apply lessons from a previous national cluster initiative, say policy experts David Wolfe and Travis Southin. This disconnect hinders the clusters' effectiveness and their impact on national productivity, and underscores the need for a coordinated and integrated approach to innovation policy.

By Mark Lowey
Politicized regional agendas sidelined strategic technology and productivity goals in the federal innovation clusters program, resulting in policymakers repeating the mistakes of a previous national supercluster initiative, according to a study by David Wolfe and Travis Southin. This lack of institutional memory in the public service suggests that Canada's approach to industrial clusters requires a fundamental rethink to actually drive economic growth.

By Stephen Murgatroyd
Higher education institutions must shift from self-contained providers to stewards of distributed learning ecosystems, says Stephen Murgatroyd. To remain relevant, institutions must redesign structures to accommodate AI, employer-led credentialing and lifelong learning. Universities and colleges must become more permeable – organizationally, pedagogically and technologically, he says. Temporal structure of higher education must shift.

By Mark Lowey
Early-career researchers need supportive infrastructure, better funding and transitional career pathways to stay in Canada, leaders working in the area said at a Canadian Science Policy Centre webinar organized by the Brain Canada Foundation. Universities need to broaden academic evaluation for promotion, greater collaboration is required between academic and industry, and more domestic capital is needed to scale health tech startups, they said.

By Stephen Murgatroyd
The concept of innovation in higher education has been progressive corrupted, Stephen Murgatroyd argues. Higher education institutions engage in "innovation theatre," presenting minor changes as transformative to appease stakeholders while maintaining traditional structures, However, converging forces like AI and demographic shifts are making this approach unsustainable, requiring genuine structural redesign for long-term viability, he says.

By Mark Lowey
Angel investment capital deployed in Canada hits a five-year low with the deal count the second-lowest in five years, prompting the National Angel Capital Organization to urge the federal government to allocate $750 million to pre-seed and seed funding. NACO argues that directing funds to early-stage ventures is crucial for maintaining a robust venture capital pipeline to attract later-stage VC investment and grow and keep companies in Canada.

By Mark Lowey
The National Angel Capital Organization's largest Moonshot cohort of startups in NACO's history is aligned with Canada's national priorities. Despite their diversity across 10 sectors, the 27 companies share opportunities, including the federal government’s new focus on building out defence supply chains. The challenges include funding and commercialization challenges, needing more Canadian investment to avoid losing innovations to the U.S.