Ottawa’s BOREALIS program and new defence innovation hubs can accelerate turning innovative Canadian technologies into operational capabilities for defence and national security, while also strengthening Canada’s industrial base.

But doing so means the Canadian Armed Forces and the national security community must step up coordination and collaboration with innovative companies, university researchers and colleges’ applied researchers – and vice versa, say academic and defence leaders.

Also, the defence innovation ecosystem needs appropriate spaces both for secure testing and scale-up of promising technologies, as well as clear rules but flexibility on research security, they said during a Canadian Science Policy Centre webinar.

“BOREALIS (Bureau of Research, Engineering and Advanced Leadership in Innovation and Science) gives us an opportunity to strengthen connections between federal support, research institutions, industry and military users,” said webinar moderator Marlies Rise (photo at right), president and CEO of Genome Atlantic.

Genome Atlantic has established a dual-use (both civilian and military applications) funding initiative with defence accelerator Vimy Forge, she said. Based in Fredericton, N.B., Vimy Forge, a non-profit, public-private partnership, is Canada’s first national defence accelerator.

Although Genome Atlantic’s partnership with Vimy Forge is in its early days, the work is revealing the capacity for genomics and biotechnology to contribute to health and readiness, environmental intelligence, resilient infrastructure, advanced materials and secure supply chains, Rice said.

The question, she added, “Is how do we turn that into practical defence capability in genomics and across every field of innovation?”

Rise noted that the first project established under BOREALIS, the Maritime Defence Innovation Secure Hub (Maritime DISH), hosted at the Centre for Ocean Ventures & Entrepreneurship in Darthmouth, N.S., creates opportunities for bringing innovators together with military users and defence research expertise.

“The wider challenge is connecting initiatives like ours with such facilities, and the universities, polytechnics and research hubs developing the ideas and talent we need,” she said.

Maritime Dish is Canada’s first classified, purpose-built innovation space. Backed by a $29.4-million federal investment, the facility lets scientists, researchers and defense partners co-develop and test sensitive ocean and security technologies.

BOREALIS was created in June 2025 with an announcement by Prime Minister Mark Carney.

One of the main reasons BOREALIS was created is that a lot of the Canadian innovation system “is fragmented, there's no coordination,” said Martin Champoux, acting director, strategic partnerships, at Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC).

“What we're seeking to do is to be able to bring that together so that [we can respond quickly] if somebody comes to us with an idea,” he said.

“There’s the notion of having BOREALIS become a bit of an orchestral conductor or an accelerator,” Campoux said. “Somebody can come to us and say, ‘Listen, we're developing this, we're at this stage' . . .  we need to know that there's a requirement for what they're developing.”

Also, DRDC is moving toward more of a mission focus “where the goal is to take technology at a fairly advanced TRL (Technology Readiness Level) and get it into the hands of the Canadian Armed Forces as well as other members of the national security in a very timely fashion,” he said. “And when we say timely, we're looking at periods as short as 18 months.”

Connecting the innovation ecosystem’s strengths

Shanti Johnson (photo at right), vice-president of research and innovation at the University of Windsor, said BOREALIS offers an opportunity to connect Canada’s strengths in research, innovation and talent “into solutions that people, businesses and the country can use.”

“The opportunity, as I see, is to connect these strengths more effectively so discoveries can inform practical application, industry experience helps shape research, and promising technologies reach real-world use,” Johnson said.

University R&D does “amazing well” with novel technologies through to about Technology Readiness Level 2, “and then it falls off” because of various misalignments, she said.

So all the players involved in defence innovation will need to co-design pathways from ideation and R&D through to commercialization and deployment, she added.

The University of Windsor recently launched a fusion strategy that brings entrepreneurship and innovation together to foster the entrepreneurial mindset and culture across the university, while creating stronger opportunities for knowledge mobilization, industry partnership and commercialization, Johnson said.

“The goal is ultimately to move the idea from discovery to application, and create more meaningful opportunities for researchers and businesses to innovate together,” she said.

Julie St-Pierre (photo at right), vice-president of research and innovation at the University of Ottawa, said the university’s Canada North Campus includes lots of companies, with professors and students working directly with industry.

At UWindsor’s Advanced Medical Research Centre, the university is building a new ecosystem “where we have all the way from discovery research to impact in society [and] clinical practice in between health innovation,” she said.

UWindsor also created a consortium, the Kingston, Ont.-anchored Canada’s Defence and Industrial Corridor, that also includes Queen’s University, Caltech, and University of Ottawa all contributing different expertise.

Grounded on the defence side by Canadian Forces Base Kingston and the Royal Military College of Canada, the region serves as a core base for training and policy research, while the corridor links critical pieces of Canada’s military research, training infrastructure and modern defence supply chains.

Sarah Watts-Rynard is CEO of Polytechnics Canada, a not-for-profit association representing the 13 largest colleges, polytechnics and institutes of technology across the country.

“What we really need to do is better connect and mobilize those research capabilities, those industry partnerships, and the facilities and the training infrastructure that we already have,” she said.

“I think that's how we can really combine the objectives of BOREALIS, aligning federal innovation programs with mission needs, and then connecting with academia and industry in a way that really can deliver an accelerated delivery of those capabilities,” Watts-Rynard said.

In addition to the Maritime DISH, BOREALIS has created two other Defence Innovation Secure Hubs: the Uncrewed Systems DISH in Mirabel, Que., and the Quantum DISH in Calgary.

“We want to create environments where innovators can come together, work together on certain themes,” Champoux said.

“So we want to bring the innovators together, give them the opportunity to not only work together, but to engage with members of the Canadian Armed Forces and the national security community to talk about what the requirements are,” he said.

The federal government’s Bill C-40 that created the Defence Investment Agency and amended the Defence Production Act opened up new opportunities to facilitate defence-related R&D and procurement, Champoux said.

“We want to facilitate procurement, but also see how can we help you commercialize your product so that you can be able to export it to allied countries who would also have a need,” he said.

SMEs continue to face significant barriers in defence procurement

The federal government’s Defence Industrial Strategy aims to award 70 percent of defence procurement contracts to Canadian firms (up from 40 percent), heavily integrating small and medium-sized enterprises.

Over 90 percent of Canada's defence companies are SMEs, and new federal initiatives target lowering barriers, expanding supply chains and supporting dual-use and innovation-driven businesses.

Ottawa’s Regional Defence Investment Initiative, backed by hundreds of millions in funding through regional development agencies, aim to help SMEs pivot into domestic and international defence supply chains.

Innovative Solutions Canada provides structured pathways and funding (such as $79.9 million for 2026–2027), with clearer entry points for innovative tech and dual-use SMEs.

Despite the new initiatives and goals, SMEs continue to face significant barriers in defence procurement.

Smaller firms struggle with opaque processes, high entry costs, strict compliance standards, long procurement cycles, securing financing and labour shortages, even as national spending increases, according to a BDC study.

When it comes to university researchers’ participation in defence innovation, Johnson pointed out that sometimes universities aren’t aware of the actual needs of the defence and national security sectors that they’re able to support.

“On the other side, there's so much innovation within the universities that doesn't see the light of day,” she noted.

The new Defence Innovation Secure Hubs are “fantastic,” but they won’t be sufficient by themselves to engage university researchers, “just given the breadth and width of the country and the deep needs,” Johnson said.

There also needs to be some emphasis on engaging universities and SMEs in various regions by using, for example, a hub-and-spoke model, she said.

St-Pierre said there’s a need to get all the stakeholders around the table at the beginning of the process, to map out how to build defence innovation capacity and clarify responsibilities and “handover points” in each stage of the innovation pipeline.

Polytechnics Canada’s 13 institutions participate in more than 4,000 industry-partnered projects every year, with 60 percent of that activity already in defence-relevant disciplines, she noted. Up to 15 percent of students working with an industry partner land a job with a partner they collaborated with on a project.

Watts-Rynard said it is necessary for the partners in defence innovation to bridge the gap between research and defence technology adoption.

Despite some “fabulous foundational research, fundamental research institutions” across Canada, the reason research ideas get stuck “is because we haven't yet thought about the problem they're trying to solve. It's like solutions in search for problem,” she said. “We've got to be able to think about the connections between all of those stages of development.”

Up to this point, the innovation ecosystem has worked in silos, Watts-Rynard noted. “We haven't been very good at thinking through the entire ecosystem, but if we want to talk about national defense needs and we want to move quickly, we've got to have the ecosystem ready to go.”

“We’ve got to figure out how we don't just define the problem, but then we think through that validation and prototyping and adoption and procurement,” Watts-Rynard said.

Research security and financing are other challenges

Another potential barrier, especially with defence and national security innovation, is research security.

Champoux said it’s vital that academic and other partners in defence innovation understand the idea and importance of research security. “There's a spirit of collaboration there, but we are in a defense environment, so research security has to play a role.”

“We have instances where people have a wonderful innovation ecosphere. It's crackerjack, but they're negligent on the idea of research security. Some of them don't even believe in the notion – it’s open science,” he said.

Also, “the whole issue around security clearances is a huge issue,” although the federal government is working on speeding up the process, he added.

But potential partners must recognize that they’ll be working in a defence environment, Champoux said. “If you’re not ready to take research security seriously, then we’re not ready to work with you.”

Watts-Rynard pointed out that the federal government’s recent measures to enhance research security focused on universities. “There's actually been zero funding for any kind of research security requirement in the colleges and polytechnics. We've got to solve that, particularly in the current environment.”

“Even thinking about secret clearances and so forth, we've got to get out ahead of this stuff. It takes way too long to put those things in place,” she added.

Securing sufficient access to capital for defence companies, especially SMEs, is another issue.

As Research Money reported last week, fundamental changes are required to the Canadian financial system to fix persistent funding gaps for SMEs, according to a new report by The Standing Senate Committee on Banking, Commerce and the Economy.

Canadian financial markets, including the country’s Big Banks, do not offer SMEs competitive, affordable and timely access to capital and credit, the committee said.

Bank of Montreal chief executive officer Darryl White said the federal government should go further to boost access to capital for defence companies.

BMO said it is expanding its defence sector growth strategy and announced the appointment of Michael Bonner, head of the Canadian personal and business banking distribution group, as its enterprise chair of the Canadian defence sector.

Moves by the federal government to accelerate procurement timelines and by Crown corporation BDC to inject billions of dollars into defence businesses have given large lenders more reassurance on taking risks in the sector.

However, White said in an interview with The Globe and Mail that Ottawa should provide more measures that would make it easier to lend to SMEs including clearer procurement timelines, contract visibility and export certainty.  His wish list includes government-backed risk-sharing tools, loan guarantees, and measures that attract more private-sector capital.

Champoux noted that sometimes SMEs with mature technologies for defence and national security needs need help other than funding, and that’s what BOREALIS can provide.

“All [the technology] needs is a little bit of a shove,” he said. “Sometimes what innovators need, using the broad umbrella of innovators, is access to that expertise from the Canadian Armed Forces or a little bit of guidance.”

See also: “The missing innovation foundation of Canada’s Defence Industrial Strategy,” by Robert Asselin, in the Reports & Policies section of this week’s Short Report.

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