Research Implementation Challenges

Canada spends $50 billion a year on R&D and commercializes less than 2% of it. Why are we so bad at this? I spent years working with university incubators across University of Waterloo, University of Toronto, York University, and McMaster University. The pattern was always the same: brilliant innovators who couldn't build their products alone, and a VC ecosystem that wouldn't invest in IP-based companies before revenue. The bottleneck isn't invention. We're exceptional at that. It's the Vision-to-Execution Gap. Non-technical founders can't translate their IP into Production-Ready MVPs without burning $400k on scoping fees or getting trapped in vendor lock-in. So the IP either dies in the lab or gets assigned to foreign companies. More than half of the IP we generate here ends up owned elsewhere. We don't have an innovation problem. We have a translation problem.

How does impact-focused funding influence researchers’ knowledge mobilisation activities? This recent study of Canadian researchers funded through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada provides a sobering answer. Rather than consistently increasing engagement in knowledge mobilisation (KMb), the authors find that more researchers disengaged from KMb after receiving funding than began engaging. In short, impact-oriented funding alone may not reliably translate into sustained impact practice. The study draws on document analysis of publicly available professional webpages, CVs and social media profiles. As the authors acknowledge, this approach may lead to systematic under-reporting of engagement activity. For me some interesting take-home messages: 1. Funding requirements may not be enough: Even where impact expectations are embedded in funding criteria, researchers face structural barriers: limited time, weak institutional support, disciplinary norms, and competing academic incentives. Without an enabling environment, impact activity remains fragile. 2. Disengagement matters as much as engagement: The finding that previously active researchers disengage after securing funding is as important as patterns of uptake. It suggests that impact may still be treated as instrumental, something to demonstrate for funding, rather than as a practice supported across the full research lifecycle. 3. What we measure shapes what we see: While methodologically careful, reliance on document analysis inevitably under-captures informal or confidential forms of engagement and, crucially, it cannot tell us why researchers stop engaging. That last point feels particularly important and I do feel this study would have been strengthened by speaking directly with researchers to understand: ↳ how they are mobilising knowledge in practice ↳ why they disengaged  ↳ what could have supported them to stay engaged For me, the implication is not that impact-focused funding is misguided, but that funders, institutions and impact support need to work in together. Funding can set expectations, but sustained impact requires aligned practical support and space for reflection - especially if we want knowledge mobilisation to be meaningful rather than performative. #KnowledgeMobilisation #ResearchFunding #ImpactEvaluation

While some aspects of research funding in Canada are positive, two things that I and many colleagues get super frustrated by is that (1) research funding typically requires industry funding, and (2) there are no avenues for funding academic research projects without some form of stipulation. For the latter, some might point to New Frontiers in Research Foundation - Exploration, but this requires an unconventional collaboration. For example, I had a proposal rejected because a collaboration between a bioinorganic chemist and a chemical engineer was not unconventional enough. Forcing researchers to create "unconventional collaboration" is an idea that makes sense only to non-scientists. Others might point to the NSERC Alliance Society, but this has vague requirements that end users directly benefit. Not sure what to make of this. All of this is in stark contrast to the NSF in the USA, where the NSF has sub-programs dedicated to different fields and open calls for innovative research. You have an awesome idea? Cool. Submit it! Here in Canada, if you have an awesome idea, there's often literally no place that you can just write a proposal and try your luck. All of this incentivizes applied, iterative research that will not place Canada in a leadership role moving forward. Canadian research funding is definitely due for a re-think.

The biggest hurdle to economic benefit from Canadian academic research is the valley of death, the gap that exists between the point at which research grants dry up and private sector funding can take over. In their position as the source of most of the deep tech IP funnel, universities are uniquely positioned to both bridge the valley of death and to derive benefit from doing so. 𝘛𝘩𝘪𝘴 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘳𝘴𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘧𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘱𝘰𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘴𝘶𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘻𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘭𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘣𝘺 𝘊𝘢𝘯𝘐𝘯𝘯𝘰𝘷𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘯𝘦𝘸𝘴𝘭𝘦𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳. 𝘠𝘰𝘶 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘥 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘶𝘭𝘭 𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘪𝘤𝘭𝘦 𝘢𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘬 [1] 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴.  In recognition of this, in recent years there have arisen an increasing number of university-attached sources of funding for commercialization of academic IP. While a few have been operating for long enough to have exits, most are relatively new, and the approach being taken varies widely between universities. Over the last several months, I have been surveying sources of first cheques into deep tech companies available from across Canada. The goal of this effort was primarily to learn what has and what has not worked, and to synthesize the lessons learned into a document that can be used to guide design and iteration of such funds across the country. I was pleasantly surprised to find that while variation exists in implementation, there is clear consensus as to best practices and consistency in the lessons learned. In this article, you can find both a synthesis of my findings and a partial source document, which summarizes some of the content of the conversations that led to this article and serves as the beginnings of a map of the Canadian deep tech funding ecosystem. This is not a comprehensive ecosystem map, as many funds are not yet represented and will be added as more information becomes available. Both the source document and the primary article will be updated from time to time to reflect the addition of new interviews and additional guidance on best practices. Given the relatively short time that some of these funds have been in operation, ongoing information as to their evolution and success rates will be important in ensuring that this information remains relevant and useful. If you are involved in a relevant fund (defined as any organization that seeks to get the first cash injection above $25,000 into a startup company commercializing IP arising from a Canadian academic institution) that is not represented here, please reach out to schedule an interview. I would like to extend a heartfelt thanks to everyone who contributed to the research that went into this article. Your willingness to discuss the complexities and challenges of university commercialization projects and the first-hand insights you shared are invaluable in finding ways to address Canada’s challenges with deep tech commercialization.