Québec Commits $1B+ for Innovation & Research Strategy

The provincial government of Québec committed to infusing $888 million (Canadian) into its science and technology community over the next three years, as a result of the innovation and research strategy released earlier this month. The new investment is in addition to $278 million committed this year alone for research infrastructure and the Québec Aeronautical Industry Development Strategy.

 

To help put the magnitude of the nearly $1.2 billion total Canadian three-year investment into perspective for most Digest readers (approximately $1.01 billion US), Québec’s 2006 population of nearly 7.7 million people would make it the 12th-largest state, between New Jersey and Virginia. 

 

An Innovative and Prosperous Québec outlines the province’s mechanisms to increase the development of knowledge and technology transfer, with specific and aggressive goals by 2010 of increasing:

• the annual domestic expenditures on research and development to 3 percent of the gross domestic product (GDP), which would be up from 2.7 percent of GDP in 2004, and
• the private sector’s share of R&D financing to over 66 percent (compared to a 60 percent share in 2002).

The report outlines how funds will be spent in the next three years, including:

• $420 million in research infrastructure;
• $221 million for public research and the development of strategic technologies;
• $101 million for knowledge development and transfer mechanisms;
• $80 million in tax measures;
• $68 million to support industrial research and innovation in businesses; and,
• $10 million to encourage scientific culture and cooperation.

Some of the more interesting allocations found within Québec’s strategy include $10 million in financial support to private firms who collaborate with the province’s 31 technology transfer centers, $7 million to promote ethics and culture in science and technology, and $6 million to encourage innovative design for products, among others.

 

The English version of An Innovative and Prosperous Québec can be found at:

http://www.mdeie.gouv.qc.ca/publications/pdf/ministere/strategie_innovationEN.pdf. Page 69 of the document provides a more detailed breakdown of Québec’s proposed investments in research and innovation.



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