According to the Conference Board of Canada's latest How Canada Performs report card, Canada continues to be a “D” performer on innovation ranking in 14th place among 17 peer countries.
On the 12 indicators used to measure innovation performance, Canada gets one “B”, two “C”s and nine “D”s. Canada’s sole “B” is on the number of scientific articles published per one million population.
Canada ranks second to last on the new indicator – the number of international trademarks filed per million population - measure of services sector innovations and non-technological innovations. Ten of our peer countries had at least twice Canada’s share of trademarks by population.
“Canada is well-supplied with educational institutions and carries out scientific research that is well-respected around the world,” said Gilles Rheaume, Vice-President, Public Policy. “But, with a few exceptions, Canada does not successfully commercialize its scientific and technological discoveries into world leading- products and services. Canadian companies are rarely at the leading edge of new technology and find themselves a step behind the leaders.”
Countries with the highest overall scores have developed successful national strategies for innovation, giving them global leadership in one or more areas. As an example, the United States fosters a combination of top science and engineering facilities, broad and deep capital markets, and an entrepreneurial culture. It is a leader in share of world patents and knowledge-intensive services.
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Innovation (at least of the form that is recognized by those outside of boffinry) requires capital. As with many other things in our country, Capital is the problem. Capital is not encouraged to move, it's encouraged to sit. It's not encouraged to swing for the fences, it's encouraged to bunt. We have a nationwide mindset problem that runs so deep that even tax incentives have failed to dislodge it.
I wonder whom they plagiarized this report from.
I think Canada's poor ranking in innovaiton has less to do with the rank and more with the ranker. In 2006 CBoC rated Canada as 5th in Innovation in 2007 14th, quite a drop in one year. How to you go from 5th to 14th in one year.
Leagtum Prosperity Index ranks Canada as 4th in Innovaiton and Entrepreneurship in 2009, similar to the CBoC 2006 rating.
I see all the good entrepreneurs/startups getting funded in Canada. I have not experienced a lack of capital in Canada. Canadian economy is great with technological innovation. The issue is that many Canadian entrepreneurs lack in business innovation....actually taking innovations to market.
Rob Lewis
Rob is the President of Techvibes Media and Editor in Chief of Techvibes.com.
His diverse background includes stints with International Trade Finance, Web Development, and Enterprise Software and he is a graduate of the University of British Columbia, British Columbia Institute of Technology, and Simon Fraser University.
