S&T ministers meeting produces few specifics

Federal and provincial S&T ministers have agreed to meet following the national innovation summit this November to continue discussions on how they can increase Canada’s innovation capacity.

The ministers met late last month in Vancouver but the official release only contained vague generalities such as the “need for early progress” and addressing the issue of indirect costs for university research, “the environment for biotechnology” and developing criteria for successful federal-provincial-territorial partnering.There was also consensus on the need to improve support for R&D and community-based innovation.

Ontario, Quebec and Nunavut presented papers that produced agreement respectively on encouraging greater availability of venture capital (VC) including the issue of flow through shares, synergies among players in the innovation process (clustering) and innovation challenges in remote and northern communities.

The papers apparently will not be made public.

The ministers also provided comments on the current innovation agenda process and the meeting’s discussions will lead into the national summit proceedings.

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