I think my colleague, Ms. Rempel, very adequately drew the distinction in terms of the sustainable adoption of technology between market push and pull. I want to look at the research side of that. There is a research push and a research pull, as well. If you look at the way R and D is done in different countries, for example, we have very different models.
The pull side of it, I think, is everything from government directives that sort of change the environment, industry needs, and what they want to research. On the other side of it, the Canadian system, I think you could broadly say if you're looking at the National Research Council, NSERC, and other things like that—as you begin to get into the granting councils—it's research driven, not an industry-driven model.
They're looking to study something, sometimes out of curiosity, and I'm not only talking about basic science, but I'm talking about applications of basic science, even. Sometimes they fit into these other parameters, what industry wants, or what government wants from it. As a result, I think we have some of the best “public research in development” investment levels in the world relative to other countries, but we have poor commercialization of product compared to other countries. Having said that, the net benefit of our system is that we're training a lot of people in the research-driven side. That may be the plus side of it.
What is the historical record, if you're looking at this from an historical perspective, about university-led research in either invention or commercializing innovation? How effective is that model? What can you point to, historically, coming from that model? What are your thoughts on that?