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Category: Innovation

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

What Is Innovation/Innovation Policy, Anyway?

I write and tweet a lot about innovation policy, mainly with respect to my frustration with our current government’s two-dimensional views on the subject.  I’ve been meaning to write a piece on how to do innovation policy right, but based on a number of conversations I’ve had with folks, I think it’s important first to deal with the question of: “what is innovation” and “what is innovation policy”? Because frankly these terms are getting slung around with such abandon that

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March 15, 2017 2 Comments

Tea Leaves on the Rideau

Last Tuesday, federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau set the date for the federal budget for next Wednesday (March 22) and naturally people are wondering: what goodies are in store?  Without being privy to any inside information, here’s my take on where we are going. At the press conference announcing the budget date, Minister Morneau dropped some important hints.  The biggest one is that, contrary to what had been heavily promoted for the past year, this budget will not be an

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March 13, 2017 1 Comment

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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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