Industry committee  Good morning, Mr. Chair, and thank you. On behalf of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, I want to thank you and the committee members for the opportunity to appear before you today with respect to additive manufacturing and other disruptive technologies. At SS

Industry committee  Thank you. I would just simply agree with much of what's been said. From the perspective of SSHRC and the social sciences and humanities, we tend to see the basic versus applied issue as more of a continuum. People do work that may be seen as very basic but then it leads to appl

Industry committee  I think this is a very good question, and as you noted, it gets at something I talked about that I want to emphasize once again. In this model that we tend to apply we think of basic research moving down a continuum to application. Then we ask the question about where the eureka

Industry committee  I think they'll have slightly different answers than mine, because I want to talk a bit more about process. The kinds of things that I was talking about—design, the content piece, the things that really make technologies sing, that create the disruptions—quite often are not reg

Industry committee  I agree with you. That said, our organization funds research, so I am not sure we have the solution. We encourage partnerships with industry. There are also internships and training under our Mitacs partnerships. But we do not control the activities of industries and companies.

Industry committee  I'd be happy to. I'm glad you looped back to something I wanted to touch on. On the safety issue per se, I could come back to the example that I gave with the Forest Products Association of Canada and their 40-storey wooden buildings. A lot of that is, again, simply research tha

Industry committee  Absolutely. In part it's an exercise conceived to help impress upon Canadians from all walks of life the importance of the research that's done in social sciences and humanities for the future of our country. In terms of the specific areas, the intention was to engage Canadians,

Industry committee  Subject to the same ups and downs, but the exercise was very focused on encouraging that discussion. Some things have come out of that. With NSERC, CIHR, Genome, and others, we're developing a framework policy for data management that will include an open data element at the end

Industry committee  If I might, one thing I want to point out is that these types of subjects are precisely the subject matter of much of the research in social science today. I would refer you to Professor David Wolfe, from the University of Toronto, who has done extensive work on clusters and hubs

Industry committee  Thanks, Mike. I think that's a great question. This program is absolutely unique, in my understanding of the types of programs that have been established worldwide. But what's interesting here—and I will relate it back to the conversation we've been having—is that it begins wit

Industry committee  Totally, and it's another great point because it's not always about technology. When we think of disruptive innovation, I tend to think of the market, things that are disruptive in the market and turn things on their head. Not all those things go anywhere. I don't know how many o

Industry committee  Thank you very much for that kind introduction, Mr. Chairman. On behalf of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today with respect to our operations, goals, challenges, and some of our strategic priorities. Let m

Industry committee  No problem. I can repeat anything I said. I can repeat it 1,000 times if you like. Through SSHRC's Connection program, research knowledge is mobilized to inform Canadian and international research, debate, decisions and actions. This accounts for 10% of program expenditures. O

Industry committee  Sure, I'll clarify that. It's a great question, but I may answer this a little differently from the way you've asked it. I'll point out that we're saying that through our projects and through the projects we fund, we are able to bring another 80¢ to the table in addition to the d

Industry committee  Absolutely...the students and the training costs, the infrastructure and the equipment costs. When we talk about research and innovation, I always say we have to think about several legs of the stool that are involved. We provide one leg. There are several other components. Tha