CFI preparing to roll out new strategic plan required to launch major 2010 competition

The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) is putting the finishing touches on a new strategic plan that will guide the arm's length agency's next major competition, scheduled for 2010. The plan is being prepared in conjunction with a value-for-money audit and performance evaluation that will set the stage for the next stage in CFI's evolution.

"Before the end of 2009 it will be a done deal, hopefully well before," says CFI president and CEO Dr Eliot Phillipson. "It (evaluation and audit) will be a very positive report. I've already has a taste of some of the impacts ... There's broad support in the community for the four S&T priorities (identified in the federal S&T Strategy) and we'll be working with the granting councils to promote them."

The CFI will consider the new strategic plan at its next board meeting in mid-November. Phillipson says it likely won't contain any dramatic departures from past CFI practices and policies although there may be opportunities for some program revisions.

Budget 2009 provided CFI with $600 million to launch a major new competition contingent upon drafting a strategic plan in conjunction with Industry Canada officials and minister Tony Clement.

Phillipson recently experienced international reaction to the CFI funding model following a presentation he made to the annual Science and Technology in Society forum in Kyoto Japan.

"I was stunned at the response. I was swarmed by people wanting more information and that included individual science ministers," he says. "No other country has anything analogous to the CFI."

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