Evidence of meeting #6 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was funding.
A recording is available from Parliament.
President, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Absolutely. We need—
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
We understand that what you're saying is that with technologies whether it's a phone, or a pipeline, or whatever, we have to bring in a mindset of the general population, and you've had that as part of your strategic planning.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
How did that go? How successful have you been? Have you been able to measure that?
President, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Remember that we are the organization that is mandated to fund the research, so what I can do is cite to you projects that have worked more on that end of the equation, or more on that end of the innovation cycle. For example my colleague David Wolfe at the University of Toronto, from the Munk School, does economic research on clusters. He's looking at whether or not clusters and incubation really help technologies sync in different sectors. He provides an absolutely critical element for us.
We have another colleague, and I'm sorry I don't remember his name—
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
I'd like to move back because we're looking at clusters exactly. You're saying that he's looking at the human element of how a cluster, because there's a technological aspect, helps make two plus two equal five maybe or six. Is that what I understand?
President, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Yes, absolutely. That's on a more macro scale. We also have a colleague—and I'm sorry, his name escapes me today—at l'Université Laval who's doing work on security and sensors, on how sensors are able to identify security threats in public places. The work that he does is within our disciplines. He uses the technology of remote sensing, but he has to apply to that a way that the camera or the system understands whether a person's actions, as monitored by the camera, constitute a threat or not. That's one of the things he's looking at.
We're also involved in projects around commercialization. We are in discussions around the appropriateness of a more open innovation platform versus a more closed model for technology transfer that's very incipient. It's coming out of some of our work in the knowledge synthesis grants. I need to be clear that we can always provide you with examples. We don't lead the research. We're trying to lead our researchers a bit in terms of the incentives to do this work, and they are.
Liberal
Frank Baylis Liberal Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC
You are trying to drive that forward. Thank you. That's excellent and critically important work.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
Thank you very much.
Now for the final question. Mr. Masse, you have two minutes.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Thank you.
I want to thank the guests for being here. They answered the questions I had previously, but continuing on it would be nice—and I would extend this to other members of the committee—to get a bit of a regional look at some of the value-added projects taking place. If possible, without causing too much work for you, maybe you could go back to some of the earlier projects that were completed, as examples, because I think it's important to remind people and taxpayers that these things are not just happening now, but have been happening in the past.
Without causing you to research this too much, it would be interesting to get that snapshot of the regional contributions. That's all.
Thank you very much for your attendance today.
President, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
Mr. Chair, I assume we'll work through you to provide this information.
President, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada
I have a list here.
The other thing I would say is that we are extremely happy to be here, first of all, but extremely happy to return at any time: all of us, some of us, more of us. We never tire of telling our story.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Dan Ruimy
Let me say that it was great to have you here. You have a very interesting program that I hope has a lot of potential to continue to contribute to our growing economy and help innovation, which is exactly what we're striving for. Thank you very much.
We will suspend for five minutes.
[Proceedings continue in camera]