This fall’s federal budget should create a mission-driven research organization, a “purposeful” Science and Innovation Advisory Council and mechanisms to connect Canada’s research strengths with sovereign capability objectives, U15 Canada says.

In its pre-budget submission, U15 Canada said the country needs to build a “modern science and technology architecture” to strengthen Canadian research.

“Canada lacks a clearly defined innovation and industrial strategy to guide investments,” said the organization, which represents 15 of Canada’s leading research universities. Robert Asselin (photo at right) is CEO of U15 Canada.

Sectoral initiatives exist across areas such as AI, quantum, clean technology and biomanufacturing, but they operate independently and do not add up to a coherent innovation strategy for Canada, according to U15 Canada’s submission “This makes it hard to translate research strength into economic and sovereign advantage.”

The 2023 report by the Advisory Panel on the Federal Research Support Systems was clear that the federal granting agencies – Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and Canadian Institutes of Health Research – have excelled at their core mission of knowledge creation and talent development, and that their foundational role must be retained and strengthened, U15 Canada said. “The problem is the absence of a complementary structure that purposefully links Tri-Agency excellence to mission-driven national objectives.”

Federal Budget 2024 proposed the creation of a mission-driven research organization, and Budget 2025 reiterated that commitment.

“Budget 2026 must deliver on that commitment – advancing mission-driven capacity without compromising the excellence of the current system,” U15 Canada said.

U15 recommended three design principles for the new organization:

• Protect the integrity of investigator-led research.

The new organization should add strategic capacity for mission-driven research alongside the granting agencies, without redirecting discipline-specific research or subordinating their important role in supporting fundamental, discovery-oriented research.

“Mission-driven research does not displace fundamental inquiry, it depends on it to respond to national challenges.”

When a security threat emerges, a pandemic strikes or a critical technology window opens, governments can only mobilize research capacity that already exists, U15 noted.

• Continue to sustain well-funded discovery-oriented research that can be leveraged toward specific goals.

Canada needs a lean, purpose-built organization with a nimble operational model that works alongside and in partnership with the federal granting agencies, mobilizing government and researchers towards mission-driven activities, with flexible program authorities, streamlined contracting tools, and the agility to move at the pace of technological change, U15 Canada said.

“Missions by their nature require speed and adaptability, and the organizational model must reflect that. The mission-driven organization should not be thought of as an efficiency exercise and must avoid adding more bureaucracy.”

• Establish a purposeful Science and Innovation Advisory Council.

The advisory council should be a small body of leaders with diverse representation from research universities, industry, and government, with the Chief Science Advisor as a standing member.

To support this work, the Chief Science Advisor's office should be elevated as the government's central science office, with whole-of-government coordination authority.

The advisory council's most important function goes beyond its convening role. Its primary purpose should be to develop and steward a clearly articulated national strategy on science and innovation.

Anchored in the Chief Science Advisor's office, this strategy would provide the direction and vision needed to ensure missions are grounded in national priorities rather than defined ad hoc.

“Properly designed, the mission-driven research organization and advisory council can become the architecture Canada needs – not only to align its research activities and harness world-leading capacity, but to build the sovereign capabilities that will define Canada's security, prosperity and sovereignty in the decades ahead.”

“Misalignment” of innovation programs with business has been recognized for years

The 2011 Jenkins Panel recommended the establishment of a Canadian Industrial Research and Innovation Council to rationalize and deliver federal business innovation programs. 

Budget 2022 proposed the Canada Innovation Corporation (CIC) – a new Crown corporation focused on improving business-facing innovation support.

The CIC concept originated with work by Dan Breznitz, professor and Munk Chair of Innovation Studies at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy at the University of Toronto. Breznitz’s proposed CIC incorporated dynamic aspects of the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Finland’s Business Finland.

Both a new business innovation agency (named the Canadian Innovation and Investment Agency) and a new academic research funding management organization, or capstone agency (named the Canadian Knowledge and Science Foundation), were recommended by the federal Advisory Panel on the Federal Research Support System, chaired by Frédéric Bouchard, Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the Université de Montréal, in its 2023 report.

However, Budget 2025 offered no update on CIC and provided no new details on a proposed new capstone research funding organization to provide better coordination across the federally funded research ecosystem.

Iain Stewart, a senior fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, recommended earlier this year in a working paper for the Munk School that the federal government follow through on establishing both the CIC and the new capstone agency.

Stewart retired in 2024 after 30 years working in a range of federal departments and agencies, including as president of the National Research Council.

“The current system is shaped by incentives that are at times misaligned with the fundamental objective of promoting a more innovative and productive business sector,” Stewart said.

The misalignment of federal innovation programs reflects administrative constraints, fragmented responsibilities, outdated delivery models, and a persistent emphasis on early-stage R&D over technology adoption, commercialization and scaling-up successful technology companies, according to Stewart’s paper.

Ensure Defence Industrial Strategy provides opportunities and support for university research

U15 Canada, in its pre-budget submission, said the federal Defence Industrial Strategy represents an ambitious national vision. “But ambition requires implementation architecture.”

Canada's current investment does not match the Defence Industrial Strategy’s ambition, U15 noted.

Canada invests significantly less in defence-related research and development than its peers. Of that total, only $40 million annually flows through higher education institutions, U15 said.

“That amounts to less than one percent of the total federal investment in higher education research. This leaves much of Canada's research expertise outside the defence innovation system entirely.”

Canada's leading research universities hold world-class capacity across the sovereign capability areas identified in the Defence Industrial Strategy, “but without standing interfaces to the needs of the defence sector, that capacity remains underutilized,” U15 said.

Promising research stalls after early-stage success, never progressing to experimentation, validation, or adoption. “Canada must now build the systems to turn that innovation potential into sovereign capability at scale.”

The establishment of the Defence Investment Agency, BOREALIS (Bureau of Research, Engineering and Advanced Leadership in Innovation and Science), Defence Innovation Secure Hubs, and the Science and Research Defence Advisory Council, alongside the government's commitment to significantly increase investment in defence research, signals a recognition that innovation capacity, not procurement alone, will secure sovereign capabilities for Canada, U15 Canada said.

U15 Canada recommended that the federal government prioritize three design features as the Defence Industrial Strategy architecture takes shape:

• Clear, standardized points of entry.

Universities need a predictable front door to the defence needs of government – named capability sponsors, standardized security and intellectual property templates, and consistent onboarding processes that make engagement routine. “Without this, scale is impossible regardless of funding levels.”

• Mechanisms that span the innovation continuum.

Effective dual-use and defence innovation requires instruments that support the full range from discovery through to mission-aligned applied research, all the way to experimentation and validation of high technology readiness levels.

There should be built-in transition pathways so promising work moves into testing and adoption rather than stalling at handoffs.

• A sustained talent pipeline.

Securing sovereign capabilities is ultimately a human capital challenge. Structured graduate scholarships, fellowships and secondment programs, designed with clear pathways between universities, Defence Research and Development Canada, Department of National Defence, and trusted Canadian firms, “are among the highest-leverage investments available.”

U15 Canada also recommended that Canada “commit early and publicly” to the European Union’s research and innovation program for 2028 and beyond – called FP10, which has a proposed budget of €175 billion.

FP10 will include a focus on emerging priorities in digital transformation, health and biotechnology, clean transition, and defence and space that closely align with Canada's own priorities, U15 Canada said.

Position Canada as a partner in priority technology domains, using FP10 engagement to collaborate in dual-use and security-relevant research areas where Canadian and European interests converge – AI, quantum, advanced materials, and dual-use technologies – in a manner consistent with Canada's research security framework, the organization said.

Expand the Horizon Europe program secretariat and national contact points, including a permanent Canadian presence in Brussels, to match the ambition of Canada's FP10 association, U15 Canada said.

“Securing Canada's place in FP10 is a direct opportunity to diversify partnerships and align with like-minded partners at a moment when that has never mattered more.”

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