Industry committee  I'll try to give an even shorter answer. I did not mean to give the impression that that's not important. That sort of discussion goes on between the institutions and their private sector partners. Right from the outset, there is that sort of discussion. I thought you were askin

Industry committee  Well, we do provide it, in that we ensure that it's only the most meritorious projects, and part of the assessment of the merit is their potential economic and social benefits.

Industry committee  I will take a stab at giving some numbers. If we look back now at the first seven or eight years of CFI's existence, we see that because there had been such a deficit in infrastructure in universities, the percentage of the total federal research investment, as you've put it, th

Industry committee  Right. It's one of the four areas I identified--

Industry committee  Certainly the S and T strategy identified the four strategic priorities, of which environment is one--

Industry committee  Perhaps I can just back up, because you asked whether government gave those to us, or you implied it. The answer is that government priorities reflect the reality on the ground--in other words, what Canada's strengths are. The four priority areas that were identified were not as-

Industry committee  CFI per se doesn't have a focus. We focus our resources where the most meritorious applications are focused. We don't specifically identify one particular area.

Industry committee  Your question is a very good one. Partnerships are the order of the day in research. That is part of the evolving landscape. There's the old stereotype of the ivory tower, with researchers tucked away somewhere, having no foot in reality or connection with the private sector or g

Industry committee  It depends again on which field. Canada is the benchmark in many respects. Certainly organizations like the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Canada research chairs are being emulated internationally. They were the pace setters. They are unique. Overall, which countries h

Industry committee  I think you touched on an important point. You took forestry as an example, and it's a good example to the extent that historically our natural resource industries were very successful, but not necessarily investing a lot in their own R and D and innovation. In that sense, perhap

Industry committee  The answer is yes. The universities are now working in several jurisdictions much more closely with their local industries. You mentioned automotive. CFI has funded a number of projects with the University of Windsor, for example, in partnership with the automotive industry. So t

Industry committee  I would concur with what Michelle Gauthier just said. To add to it in terms of outcome and long-term benefits, which I think was the point you were getting at, there are the economic benefits as a result of commercialization. I'll come back to that one in a moment. It is importa

Industry committee  If you're asking for specific figures, which is a very legitimate question, these are hard to come by, but there have been studies and there are ongoing studies of the return on investment in research in a number of countries. In general, overall, the return is something in the o

Industry committee  That's a very important question. The global landscape is changing in the sense that there's a bit of irony. Research has become much more collaborative between jurisdictions, between countries, and at the same time much more competitive. The results of research are communicated

Industry committee  I can only speak for the projects funded by CFI, of which there are well over 5,700 now across the country. We actually did a study a couple of years ago on the ongoing operating and maintenance costs, and what you say is correct. You hear about those. But only 17% of the project