Budget 2.0 Supports Innovation [reprise]

Today's federal budget is a reprise of the applied research and innovation supports and continues the important work Canada's colleges and polytechnics do to support industry innovation. Notably, new funding is as outlined in the first iteration of the budget:

• $80M in new funding for IRAP to link businesses with colleges
• Supporting 30 new Industrial Research Chairs at colleges with $3 million in 2011–12 and $5 million a year on a permanent basis starting in 2012–13.
• Allocating $12 million over five years, starting in 2011–12, through the Idea to Innovation program to support joint college-university commercialization projects.

Both the ACCC and Polytechnics Canada have worked hard with our industry partners to show the value proposition that college and polytechnic applied research brings to the Canadian innovation system. These are important structural changes that will have positive downstream social and economic productivity effects.

As an  enabler of the innovation economy, George Brown College is committed to supporting business innovation, and will be utilizing these new funding opportunities to further help build a robust and complementary innovation system in Canada.