Applied Research in the News

The Globe and Mail today published a Report on Colleges, which included a story on the role of applied research, particularly as it relates to polytechnics. "Innovation in the 'dead zone'" outlines how college and polytechnics applied research fills a gap in the product development life cycle. This is the notion of complementarity that I have written about in other posts. With government funding programs in place that enable colleges to work with industry, we become stewards of public investment in the R&D innovation chain. This is an important role, and encouraging this investment and the formation of clusters (what the EU calls Regions of Knowledge) will spur the development of the infrastructure to enable Canada to advance its social and economic productivity.