Ontario Commits $63M to Commercialization Strategy

If you consider North America's public investment to encourage economic growth through science and technology at the state or provincial government level, Ontario should be in your top 10. And the recent injection of $63 million for technology commercialization might have bumped the province of 12 million residents up a place or two.

Late last month, the Ontario provincial government outlined a four-year commercialization plan to link public research institutions with companies that can move the research out of the lab and into the market. Universities, colleges and hospitals will receive $27 million to help them identify promising research and make them investor-ready; and institutions will receive an additional $36 million to establish pools of seed capital to commercialize the best ideas. The goal is to create more spin-off companies and accelerate the growth of small- and medium-sized enterprises and leading-edge jobs.

To further support Ontario’s focus on commercialization, the McGuinty government will:

• Create an Ontario Commercialization Advisory Committee to advise the Minister of Economic Development and Trade on commercialization opportunities; and,
• Use the expertise of the Roger Martin Task Force On Competitiveness, Prosperity and Economic Progress to advise on the creation of more leading-edge companies.

The strategy will help build capacity in university and college technology transfer offices and help increase their networks. The government also is placing a greater focus on commercialization in all its science and technology programs, including the four Ontario Centres of Excellence.

The province has invested approximately $2.6 billion into public research during the last decade, yet, according to Statistics Canada, less than 10 percent of companies are tapping into the research capacity within Ontario's public research institutions.

More information on Ontario's portfolio of tech-based economic development initiatives is available at: http://www.ontario-canada.com/ontcan/en/home.jsp