Targeting more public research funding directly to commercialization outcomes will not by itself fix the country’s weak innovation performance, say federal research funding agencies and university associations.

Funding agencies and Canadian universities insist they’re helping to drive commercialization of academic research, but say the effort is hindered by larger structural problems in Canada’s innovation ecosystem.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) said it agrees that Canada needs to do more to turn world-class research into benefits for Canadians, including better health, new technologies, Canadian companies and economic growth.

“Commercialization is an important part of that continuum, but it cannot be the only measure of research success,” David Wolkowski (photo at left), a spokesperson for CIHR, said in an email to Research Money. “Curiosity-driven research remains essential because many transformative innovations begin with discoveries whose eventual applications cannot be predicted.”

CIHR’s role is to support excellent research while strengthening the pathways from discovery to translation, commercialization and impact, Wolkowski said.

Commercialization is a highly complex dynamic involving many different players, including entrepreneurs, researchers, governments and institutions, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) said.

“SSHRC has a very important role to play in that collaborative effort,” Sylvie A. Lamoureux (photo at right), chief operating officer and vice-president, research, at SSHRC, said in an email.

SSHRC’s contribution is focused on research, talent development and knowledge mobilization, rather than on funding later-stage commercialization activities directly, she said.

“We do not believe it’s feasible to measure our funded research impacts on the latter [later-stage commercialization], and we are not aware of any assessment approaches used anywhere in the world that could accomplish this reliably,” Lamoureux said.

SSHRC funding helps create “important foundational resources that enable commercialization, including the development of research talent, discovery and insight,” she said.

Research Money asked the funding agencies to respond to a report by the Ottawa-based Centre for Canadian Innovation and Competitiveness. The report said Canada should significantly expand commercialization-focused grant programs through CIHR and increase Canada’s overall health science research investments to a scale commensurate with global competition.

Canada invests heavily in academic health research, yet its commercialization outcomes trail those of leading innovation economies, the report noted.

Key factors include the share of CIHR funding directed toward commercialization, discontinuity of grant programs, an absence of a national intellectual property framework, limited tech-transfer capacity, and an academic culture that could better reward entrepreneurship, according to the report.

“Canada needs a strategic expansion of commercialization-oriented grant programs and structural reforms to improve its capacity to convert academic research into economically impactful innovations,” the report said.

A separate analysis by Lawrence Zhang, head of policy at the Centre for Canadian Innovation and Competitiveness, argued that SSHRC’s budget of $1.41 billion – which is comparable to the budgets of CIHR and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) – should be essentially cut in half because SSHRC-funded research doesn’t support commercialization as much as CIHR and NSERC-funded research.

“A serious rebalancing would reduce SSHRC’s appropriation over a multi-year period and redirect the savings to NSERC and CIHR, the councils most directly tied to commercialization, industrial research, and health innovation,” Zhang said.

Supporting social sciences and humanities research is only part of SSHRC’s budget

But Lamoureux pointed out that only a portion of SSHRC’s total budget is earmarked specifically for social sciences and humanities research.

The rest is directed toward institutional-support programs, such as the Research Support Fund and multidisciplinary programs administered by SSHRC on behalf of the three federal research funding agencies, through the Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat (TIPS), housed at SSHRC.

In 2025-26, SSHRC expenditures for social sciences and humanities programs (including relevant TIPS components such as SSHRC Canada Research Chairs) amounted to $596.9 million  out of a total budget of $1.27 billion, Lamoureux said.  

She said a noteworthy example of TIPS programming administered by SSHRC are the new Eddie Goldenberg Research Chairs of Canada and Canada Impact+ Emerging Leaders programs, both part of a recent $1.7-billion investment from the federal government announced in Budget 2025.

“These programs are designed to advance research across a variety of disciplines that is highly likely to have a transformational and translational impact – including commercialization of research – on a global scale in areas of strategic priority for Canada,” Lamoureux said.

As for CIHR, the funding agency supports research across the full continuum from discovery to application, including commercialization, Wolkowski noted.

“We are also working with partners to strengthen translational research, clinical trials, health data and biobanking – key parts of the pathway that helps promising Canadian discoveries move toward real-world impact,” he said.

CIHR tracks the results and impacts of the research it funds through mechanisms including end-of-grant reporting and program evaluation. Depending on the program, this can include commercialization-related outcomes such as intellectual property, patents, licenses, industry partnerships and spin-off companies.

“However, commercialization is only one form of impact; CIHR also considers impacts on health, clinical practice, policy, health systems and society,” Wolkowski said.

“Targeted commercialization incentives can play an important role, particularly for programs designed to move discoveries toward market,” he said.

“But funding incentives alone will not solve Canada’s commercialization challenge,” he said. “Stronger translation requires a connected ecosystem linking discovery research with clinical trials, industry, investors, procurement, adoption and scale-up. Canada needs stronger pathways so that Canadian discoveries can become Canadian impact,” Wolkowski said.

SSHRC’s Lamoureux noted that the largest segment of Canada’s research ecosystem is in the social sciences and humanities writ large (about 70,000 individuals), of which SSHRC funds approximately 30 percent of this community.  

Knowledge from the social sciences and humanities research contributes to the legal, economic, regulatory and policy systems that commercial systems rely on, she said.

For example, in 2025-2026, SSHRC funded $39.9 million in research under the combined disciplines of economics, business, management and administrative studies, Lamoureux said.

“Moreover, commercialization is more than technology readiness levels,” she added. “Social sciences and humanities research provides important insights into market-readiness and societal readiness, which is why interdisciplinary research teams are important and encouraged by the federal research funding agencies.”

For example, SSHRC recently provided a new $6-million, 15-year grant to support Canada’s Productivity Initiative, led by the University of Calgary, uniting partners from the university, government and non-governmental sectors in this long-term collaboration. 

Lamoureux said all recipients of SSHRC funding must report on how they have used SSHRC funds, and on the outcomes and impact of their research. SSHRC also reports on many different outcomes, both officially through regular reports and program evaluations, and more informally through products like SSHRC’s research stories. 
“Social sciences and humanities research supported by SSHRC is essential to help address Canada’s commercialization challenges,” Lamoureux said.

“Ultimately, these challenges are based on broader structural issues, including our national economic fundamentals, our business networks, our policy environment, our role in international supply chains, and our financial systems.”

[See also: Rethinking the role of social sciences and humanities to help drive innovation and productivity].

Survey shows Canadian universities struggle to commercialize research

When it comes to Canadian universities commercializing academic research, a recent survey by the non-profit AUTM (previously known as the Association of University Technology Managers) found that Canadian universities are still struggling to commercialize their research, even though research institutions filed more patents and launched more startups in 2025.

Research spending at universities and research institutions rose nearly six percent year-over-year to $8.4 billion in 2025. However, gross licensing income from intellectual property fell about four percent to $143.7 million.

That’s about $171,000 in income for every $10 million spent on research last year, down from about $233,000 per $10 million of research spending in 2021.

New patent applications rose more than 20 percent, and the number of startups created from academic research increased six percent, from 117 in 2024 to 124 last year.

But more university-linked startups founded in Canada failed, with the number of companies that ceased operations jumping 65 percent last year. And the number of active licences declined eight percent.

In 2022, the 30 Canadian universities surveyed by AUTM together had Cdn$164 million in licensing and royalty revenue, according to the Centre for Canadian Innovation and Competitiveness study. [See first item in the Reports & Policies section in the August 12, 2026 Short Report].

Robert Asselin (photo at right), CEO of U15 Canada, said more than 1,200 startups have launched out of a U15 university since 2010, more than tripling in terms of annual research spinouts.

“The commercial relevance of the research is reflected in long-standing partnerships with the private sector,” he said in an email to Research Money. “Each year, private businesses conduct more than $900 million in research with U15 universities.”

According to recent data, business enterprises fund about seven per cent to 10 percent of total R&D expenditures in Canada’s higher education sector, varying by institution type and specific reporting metrics.

In comparison, business-funded academic R&D in the U.S. amounts to about six percent, or US$6.2 billion annually, showing steady growth year-over-year.

Asselin noted that U15 universities already work closely with provincial authorities, the Canadian Association of University Business Officers, AUTM and other partners to track and report the outcomes from research being conducted at U15 universities.

“We agree that more needs to be done to fully capture the impact of federally funded research, and U15 Canada has been engaged in the development of a new survey by Statistics Canada on the commercialization of IP,” he said.

“At the same time, it is important to note that economic and societal outcomes from research activity are not easily captured by any single metric,” he added.

A disclosure, a patent or a spinout is a step toward greater domestic commercial and industrial capacity, “not the finish line,” Asselin said.

Asked whether tying more of universities’ research funding directly to commercialization outcomes would improve commercialization of academic research, he said: “Leading research universities are already delivering economic impact from research.” He pointed to over 11,000 patent applications that have been filed by U15 universities since 2010.

“Our universities are home to world-class expertise, develop highly qualified talent and invest in advanced infrastructure that can help drive new inventions and discoveries,” Asselin said.

However, this effort will also require more research being performed by small and medium-sized enterprises, better access to capital so that university spinouts can scale and closer connections between graduates and advanced new industries, he said.

“That will take more engagement with industry and more willingness from firms to adopt and scale Canadian discoveries,” Asselin said.

Canada needs both continued research investment and stronger pathways to commercialization

“Canada needs to do a better job of turning Canadian research into Canadian companies, products, jobs and economic growth,” said Gabriel Miller (photo at right), president and CEO of Universities Canada.

“But research is one of Canada’s strengths, and the part of the innovation pipeline that works best,” he said in an email. “Universities are enablers of commercialization, not bottlenecks. We should focus on de-risking commercialization and making it easier to bring Canadian discoveries to market.”

Canada needs continued investment in research and stronger pathways to translate research into economic value, Miller said.

Canada's universities are already major research engines, performing roughly one-third of all R&D in Canada, a larger share of domestic R&D than the higher education sector performs in any other G7 country, he noted. “Canada has internationally competitive research strengths, but our commercialization pipeline remains underdeveloped.”

Universities produce significant intellectual property and startup activity, he added. “The challenge is turning more of that research strength into Canadian commercial success.”

Technology-transfer offices often operate with limited resources. Early-stage companies face a smaller and more cautious venture-capital environment than their U.S. counterparts. Small and medium-sized businesses can lack the time, financing and expertise required to adopt emerging technologies or pursue intellectual property.

The drug Ozempic is an example of this challenge, Miller said. The scientific foundation of GLP-1 research happened in Canada, “but the downstream capacity to seize on that opportunity is where Canada missed the boat.”

Universities Canada has been advocating for stronger technology-transfer capacity, better support for IP and patent development, closer industry partnerships and programs that help Canadian businesses access and adopt university-developed innovation.

“Canada needs both a strong research base and a stronger commercialization system. Shifting resources away from discovery to reward short-term commercial outcomes risks weakening the very pipeline we're trying to improve,” Miller said.

Universities Canada also supports expanding initiatives that bring universities and industry together, he said.

The recent Defence Innovation Secure Hubs are a promising model that could be scaled beyond the defence sector, alongside stronger support for technology transfer, including patent costs and commercialization capacity, he said.

Miller noted that more than 900 currently operational startup companies have emerged from Canadian university research, alongside licensing activity, industry partnerships and other forms of technology transfer.

Commercialization pathways can also take many years and involve researchers, institutions, governments, businesses and investors, so attributing a final commercial outcome to a single research grant is not always straightforward, he noted.

Better and more consistent information about how research moves from discovery to application would be valuable, he said. “This requires collaboration of provincial and territorial governments and national leadership by the federal government.”

Organizations like AUTM collect useful measures of commercialization activity, but those metrics do not capture the full value university research brings to the Canadian economy through industry partnerships and the development of highly qualified talent, he said.

The numbers in the latest AUTM survey don’t  reflect the strong partnerships universities have with industry, nor do they reflect the economic value that comes from the highly specialized talent that is nurtured at universities, Miller said.

Research investments made today will produce commercialization outcomes over the medium and longer term, he said. “The path from discovery through IP development, validation, investment and ultimately market entry often takes years.”

Said Miller: “The issue is not simply whether the research takes place, but whether Canada has the capacity to translate promising discoveries into economic value here at home.”

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