Some lessons for R&D (and Innovation) Policy

Jeffrey Simpson has a good article in today's Globe that looks at R&D spending and its relationship to Canada's (lacklustre) international R&D performance. He specifically calls out the pharmaceutical sector for a lack of R&D spending. Mentioned but almost lost in the piece is the fact that Canada's public sector R&D spending (HERD) is high by OECD standards. It is private sector R&D where we are doing poorly. This is useful to remember as the government crafts an Innovation Agenda. We need to do more to fix the dual R&D productivity problem: a lack of commercialization of publicly funded R&D and the lack of private sector R&D spending.