As far as aerospace engineering is concerned, if that's the direction you want to go to, the pioneer in that respect was.... It might still be the University of Toronto, what they call the University of Toronto Institute of Aerospace Studies—UTIAS, I think, is how you pronounce it. As far as development is concerned, they certainly do research. They provide assistance to small companies. There is very often basic research, students going to their specialized areas and becoming engineers so that they're hired by companies. There is certainly a great deal of research being done for research's sake, although that is changing.
If you look at NRC, my understanding is that there is a focus to make it more industry driven, or in order to make it available to industry. Although there have been cases in the past—for example, I believe it's called the crash position indicator—various devices that might have been developed, if not completely internally, at least partly, by NRC that were certainly put out in the market.
The same thing holds also for the de-icing of aircraft using electricity. NRC was heavily involved in that, and the research was made available. Nowadays, pretty much everybody uses electrical de-icing on airliners.