Thank you for the opportunity to appear here before the committee.
My name is Kevin Dahl. I'm the director for ElevateIP Alberta, an ISED-funded program working to increase the quality and quantity of the intellectual property that powers Alberta's start-up ecosystem. Our program resides within Innovate Calgary, which is a wholly owned subsidiary of the University of Calgary.
ElevateIP doesn't operate just in Alberta: It's a national program delivered in partnership with recipients across Canada, including New Ventures BC, North Forge, Communitech, MAIN and Springboard Atlantic.
Together we have created programs and partnerships that empower start-up companies to take control of their intellectual property, which has resulted in over 800 IP strategies being developed and over 1,600 new IP applications being filed by Canadian companies to date. We were pleased to see a commitment to renew ElevateIP in the 2025 federal budget.
Canada has no shortage of world-class ideas. What we lack is the ability to consistently turn those ideas into Canadian-owned intellectual property and ultimately into prosperity for Canadians.
For too long, we've measured innovation by how much we spend on research and development, but innovation is not defined by inputs; it's measured by outputs, meaning the patents we secure, the data we safeguard and the companies we build here at home. If we want stronger private sector investment in R and D, we need to shift from treating R and D as a cost to treating it as an investment class—so how do we shift these mindsets?
Canadian firms invest in research every day, yet all too often the resulting IP ends up owned and commercialized outside our borders. We need incentives that reward IP creation, protection and commercialization in Canada. Programs like SR and ED should continue to support research, but we also need to strengthen IP literacy, IP valuation and IP strategy support for businesses of all sizes.
We've seen how impactful this can be through the ElevateIP program, which has helped start-ups and scale-ups understand and secure their IP early. When start-ups know how to protect their ideas globally, they build stronger companies with broader freedom to operate and more private capital follows.
We also need to put more emphasis on bridging academia and industry. Canada's universities are global leaders in research, but too much knowledge remains stuck at the discovery stage. We must continue to strengthen the bridge between academic research and industrial commercialization. That includes modern partnership-ready industry engagement programs, more co-funded research models and clearer pathways that help researchers turn discoveries into investable ventures.
Across Canada, partnerships through ElevateIP have shown that when IP frameworks are clear and transparent, collaboration increases and companies invest more confidently in R and D because they know how that value can be shared.
Finally, we need to build a capital market that values intangibles. Today, the most valuable assets in the global economy are not factories or heavy machinery: They are intangibles like patents, software, data and know-how. The reality today is that over 90% of the market value of the S&P 500 stems from intangible assets, yet too many Canadian financial systems still treat these assets as invisible. If we want more private investment, we need capital markets that can see and value these intangible assets as driving modern growth. That means IP-based valuation models, IP-backed lending tools and expanding early-stage investment funds like UCalgary's UCeed program, which the committee heard about earlier this week, to help anchor those high-value IP portfolios in Canada.
We know this works. In Alberta and Canada more broadly, when companies strengthen their IP position in global markets, investors take notice. R and D increases not because government subsidizes risk but because intellectual property becomes a bankable asset.
In closing, if we want more private investment in Canadian innovation, we must build an ecosystem that rewards ownership, collaboration and recognition of intellectual value. We have the talent and we have the research strength. Now we must ensure that the value of that work stays here in Canadian companies and on Canadian balance sheets, creating Canadian jobs. That's how we move from being consumers of other nations' innovations to becoming exporters of our own. That's how we turn research into resilience and ideas into prosperity.
Thank you. I look forward to your questions.