In the technology transfer in the office of research, we promote spinoff companies where other universities tend to frown on them because there's risk involved. It's much easier to license some IP to an existing company and let them run with it, collect a royalty, and that's it. It does nothing for the local community, however. So that's one of the things we tend to focus on.
However, we still have the challenge of this sort of valley-of-death financing after the commercialization funding that's available through organizations like NSERC and through the Ministry of Research and Innovation through the provincial government. There is still a huge gap in funding, and that gap, in Ontario at least, has been created in part because of the demise of the labour-sponsored investment funds. These funds provided, at one point in Ontario, up to half of the venture capital investment, and since that program is being phased out by the provincial government, about $500 million a year has been sucked out of the venture capital community in Ontario. It's a huge amount.
The provincial ministry has done a great job of introducing new programs specifically aimed at that space through the Ministry of Research and Innovation, but it's only a drop in the bucket when you compare it to what has been sucked out of the investment community.