Industry committee  The council's study began with an examination of our strengths and our weaknesses. That is our starting point. It was a major ground-level review. They held consultations all across the country. If we have the opportunity to come back to the committee, we will send it to you beforehand and we can discuss it in more detail.

Industry committee  When we are dealing with intellectual property, we have to ask ourselves whose it is. In pure research, it varies greatly among universities and among researchers. It is often specifically included in collective agreements between researchers and universities. It varies a lot from country to country.

Industry committee  That is what varies greatly among universities and depends on the negotiations that unions and researchers have had. There is one arrangement at Waterloo University, another at the Université de Sherbrooke, and yet another at the University of Calgary. In the United Sates, at Stanford University, for example, intellectual property completely belongs to the researchers.The university does not get involved because it gets its investments back indirectly.

Industry committee  We would appreciate the committee's views.

Industry committee  What's happened in the States is a terrain where prudent bureaucrats dare not venture. In regard to how we went about picking those four sectors, we had requested the Council of Canadian Academies to do a broad sweep across the country to truly identify where we have research excellence, what the strengths are.

Industry committee  As I said to you, Mr. Chairman, I'm quite prepared to come back on any point the committee would like to pursue.

Industry committee  The indirect costs program. When you have Chad Gaffield next week, or whenever, he's the president of SSHRC and that particular federal program is delivered through his granting council.

Industry committee  You raised two issues. One is strategic aerospace and defence initiatives. This program is administered by the Department of Industry and is focused very much on the aerospace industry to identify partnership opportunities for Canadian companies to work with government to bring new products to market.

Industry committee  I have two points. One, provincial governments do have the primary responsibility for the electricity, water, rent, and that type of stuff. I'm somewhat familiar with this, having been a former deputy minister of education and post-secondary.... Secondly, the federal government does have a program, which is delivered through the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Industry committee  I've been around governments for a number of years. What has struck me is that governments at different points in time get advice in different ways. Sometimes they institutionalize advice by salvaging something within the bureaucracy and sometimes they go outside. Recently I did a paper, and it got me to read the Glassco report.

Industry committee  I think that's a very good area or question to explore, and many other countries struggle with a similar question; that is, what are the indicators, what are the metrics you could use? Where we've ended up is that if you want to get a sense of the effectiveness or usefulness of your investment, you have to look at a basket of indicators—for example, citations per capita.

Industry committee  I have two comments. One, we do try to emphasize the peer review part of it, whereby these are identified on the basis of competition and reviews by other people who identify the best. Secondly, with a view to diversifying that, we did establish a private sector advisory board to complement, if you will, the academic peer review, to say where we could get the best bang for the R and D investment.

Industry committee  The Department of Finance, in the previous budget, said they would look at it, so they had a series of consultations about the tax credit. They talked to a number of folks about it and I think made some small modifications to it. Iain can add to that, but the holder of that public policy instrument is the Department of Finance, given that it's a tax measure.

Industry committee  If you take all of the granting council support, it doesn't add up to the tax credit as a government expenditure. You can have direct expenditures and tax expenditures.

Industry committee  The feedback we get from various people is that in a basket of public policy instruments ranging from the NRC's IRAP to the work of the granting councils, to the venture capital that the Business Development Bank has to bridge products to the marketplace, tax credit does play a significant role in that basket, but you need to have all the other elements to make it work.