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Category: Innovation

Evaluating the Superclusters

Yes, this again.  Why?  Because a few weeks ago the feds released an economic analysis of the benefits of Innovation Superclusters (recently rebranded as Global Innovation Clusters to make them sound slightly less ridiculous).  It’s horrible analysis, but since this topic unites my twin pastimes of making fun of crap economic impact analysis and crap pseudo-industrial policy, I could not resist.   Some background: early in the Liberals’ first term, they announced that the key to growth was clusters – that

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September 19, 2022 1 Comment

CARPA vs Tekes/IIA.

As noted back in our budget commentary, the Government of Canada seems to have abandoned the idea of a Canadian Advanced Research Projects Agency (CARPA – see here, here and here for previous takes on this) in favour of a yet-to-be-named innovation-and-investment agency said to be based on the Finnish agency Tekes and the Israel Innovation Authority.   A number of people have asked me to explain what the difference is between the two.  As always, I am here to oblige:

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April 12, 2022 No Comments

A Tech Talent University?

Late last week, Sheldon Levy, former President of Sheridan College & Ryerson University, former Deputy Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities of Ontario, and current Interim President of University Canada West (UCW) wrote an op-ed in the Globe and Mail about the tech talent shortage in Canada and why existing universities may not be up to the challenge of ending it.  When someone like Sheldon Levy talks, everyone should listen. The op-ed is a follow-up to a white paper that

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February 23, 2022 No Comments

The Evolution of Micro-credentials and Short Courses

It has been about a year since I last took a look at micro-credentials and I want discuss how I see things evolving in this space. The most important thing to note is that there remains a massive disconnect between those people who think micro-credentials are building blocks towards credentials – that is, that they should be courses or groups of courses which are both independently coherent and can build towards larger “macro-credentials” like a Bachelor’s or Master’s Degree, and

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February 15, 2022 6 Comments

How Big Consulting thinks about Higher Education

A couple of weeks ago, David Kernohan at WonkHE, wrote a wonderfully cutting little piece about a new Ernst & Young report calling for a “fundamental re-think” of higher education, and how it seemed to rely on millenarian scenarios in order to sell what was actually a fairly modest call for institutions to maybe improve their IT capabilities.  It inspired me to think a bit more about how the rest of the big consulting groups – Deloitte, KPMG, Ernst &

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February 7, 2022 5 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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