Strategy for Partnerships

Partners in R&D: Celebrating 5 years of success in helping businesses Innovate, connect, collaborate and prosper

In 2009, following a year of consultations with businesses, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) launched an ambitious strategy to support and encourage industrial innovation and investment—the Strategy for Partnerships and Innovation.

The Strategy successfully built on NSERC's significant expertise with the foundational and applied research done by the university and college experts and leveraged it to show companies how they can benefit from working with universities and colleges.

Five years later, NSERC has achieved concrete results enhancing R&D and business innovation in Canada.

We funded more than 13,400 projects between businesses and researchers, helping develop new knowledge and expertise and transfer it to Canadian-based organizations. And, industrial contributions increased 67%, from $108 million to $195 million.

More companies of all sizes now work with NSERC – Especially small and medium-sized enterprises.

Today, NSERC works with more than 3,000 companies every year. Seventy-five percent of these are SMEs, the largest segment of our economy.