Are there any pitfalls for women in commercializing intellectual property? I would say that it's women's struggle in general to take their rightful place in society.
Are intellectual property issues more important? In social innovation—the door I want to open—when we talk about commercializing new ways of doing things and new approaches, anything having to do with equity, diversity, inclusion and decolonization is part of those new practices. This is very often forgotten when we talk about commercialization of intellectual property. That's why I prefer to talk about using intellectual property.
In addition, intellectual property that is created in social innovation generates multiple types of wealth, because it can be transferred across multiple organizations. We often want knowledge to multiply and be shared far and wide. Therefore, if we want to help women and minorities take their place, we mustn't forget the mechanisms that need to be put in place to support the use of intellectual property in social innovation. One way to do that would be to create a funding program dedicated to applied college research and adapted to its realities at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, but also at the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. It could use the same model as the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada's college and community innovation program. That would start appropriating new and innovative societal practices more broadly.