In the sciences and innovation, there is a local context and a global context. I spend a great deal of time in Francophone universities, including Laval University, and I have observed at the local level that people do talk and work together in French; however, when it comes time to publish, they often choose English because publishing means they are competing at the global level and the dominant language of science is English.
I would like to give you two examples of actions we have taken to promote bilingualism among scientists and engineers. First of all, we have partnership programs where we create linkages between researchers in different regions of the country. For example, we have just established such linkages between Laval University and the University of Alberta. On both sides of the partnership, they speak and work in both languages.
Second, we have programs in place to encourage student mobility, so that they can have experiences in another context, another country. Other than Canada, the three most targeted countries, in terms of mobility and partnerships, are the United States, the United Kingdom and France. This is a way of allowing Francophones to improve their English through partnerships with the United Kingdom or the United States, and Anglophones to improve their French in France. We are seeing the positive spinoffs of these partnerships and this kind of mobility.