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Category: Innovation

Arguing for Science in All the Wrong Ways

You can tell it’s pre-budget consultation time in Ottawa because university Presidents are writing op-eds about the importance of research and backing the Naylor Report.  But man, are they ever unconvincing. Let’s start with University of Toronto President Meric Gertler’s September 12th Toronto Star op-ed entitled “Don’t Let the World Pass Us By on Science”.  The sentiment is fine, I suppose, but the specific evidence Gertler uses to back up his claim is – to put it politely – weak.  It says

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September 26, 2017 2 Comments

Naylor Report, Part II

Morning all.  Sorry about the service interruption.  Nice to be back. So, I promised you some more thoughts about the Fundamental Science Review.  Now that I’ve lot of time to think about it, I think I’m actually surprised by what it doesn’t say, says and how many questions remain open. What’s best about the report?  The history and most of the analysis are pretty good.  I think a few specific recommendations (if adopted) might actually be a pretty big deal – in

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May 8, 2017 1 Comment

Losing Count

Stop me if you’ve heard this story before: Canada is not sufficiently innovative, and part of the reason is that we don’t spend enough on research.  It’s not that we don’t spend enough on *public* research; adjusted for GDP, we actually do above-average on that.  What pulls us down is in international comparisons corporate R & D.  Our narrow-minded, short-sighted, resource-obsessed business class spends far less on R&D than its equivalents in most other country, and that is what gives

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March 27, 2017 3 Comments

There is no Fourth Industrial Revolution

I am seeing an increasing number of otherwise thoughtful people in Canadian university and research circles going around talking about the “Fourth Industrial Revolution”.  They need to stop. There is no such thing as the Fourth Industrial Revolution.  It is a catch-phrase made us by Klaus Schwab, head of the World Economic Forum (the Davos folks), which he developed in an eponymous book released in late 2015.  I read it.  It’s dreadful.  Seriously, seriously awful.  No redeeming characteristics whatsoever. The

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March 20, 2017 10 Comments

Good Innovation Policy

Yesterday, we looked at what actually constitutes Innovation Policy. Today, I want to talk about what an ideal innovation policy would look like. I apologize in advance for the length of the post. So, the first ingredient in innovation policy is skills. But this term needs to be understood in some specific ways. It certainly means having a large number of what are called “Highly Qualified Personnel”, which usually but not always means PhDs, across many fields. Part of the

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March 16, 2017 7 Comments

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One Thought to Start Your Day is our founder and CEO Alex Usher’s popular daily blog, brimming with up-to-the-minute insights and informed opinions on today’s higher education industry.

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