Coming out of World War II, there was a sense that science and research had the potential to transform society in positive ways. There was the creation of a lot of funding agencies here, and in the States and Europe, that were designed to promote basic research or applied research and to have these things exist effectively independently. We're still living with the aftershocks of that.
I think there's a recognition of that within the community. Last week actually, we signed a sort of memorandum of understanding with NSERC, to make sure we're coordinating and collaborating, because we all have the same essential participation base: Canadian researchers at universities, Canadian companies engaged in research. We're all geared toward the same sorts of outcomes, which are innovation and research, and so on.
I think that collectively the community is trying to find ways to work together. I think the government can maybe accelerate that process by encouraging cross-sector collaboration, but looking at mechanisms in order to do a better job of coordinating the pieces or prevent duplication and overlap.
I know those are areas that have been a focus for the government for some time. They were areas that have been identified, for instance, in the Jenkins report on industrial R and D, which came out a couple of years ago. Anything in that regard is likely going to yield positive effects.