Innovation Nation: Lax rules around university R&D programs are doing more to benefit foreign multinationals than Canada
Canada has a rich history of innovation, but in the next few decades, powerful technological forces will transform the global economy. Large multinational companies have jumped out to a headstart in the race to succeed, and Canada runs the risk of falling behind. At stake is nothing less than our prosperity and economic well-being. The Financial Post set out explore what is needed for businesses to flourish and grow. You can find all of our coverage here.
The comments probably gratified many in the room, but for some it was a reminder that Canada, for all its advances in research and development, routinely gives away huge chunks of its intellectual property rights to foreign multinationals — often through the very academic institutions that it pays to develop innovative new technologies and concepts.
But some of those funding efforts may increasingly end up creating IP for foreign companies. In 2016, 58 per cent of the patents granted to Canadian inventors were assigned to companies located in other countries, up from 45 per cent in 2005. “We have to say this is a philanthropic thing, we can’t be saying it’s generating money,” Hinton said. “The universities have oversold what they’re able to deliver on.”
That crowding out, at least in the telecom space, Arabzadeh said, is largely a result of Nortel Networks Corp. going bust in 2009, which left a dearth of Canadian firms to lead research and development. But the ability of Huawei and others to work with select professors also gives them a direct funnel to up-and-coming talent, allowing them to hire the students of the professors they work with, Arabzadeh said.
“There’s money flowing everywhere, without necessarily an overarching strategy to it, other than spend money on innovation,” Moffat said.
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