The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically changed Canada with the country facing a public health crisis, an economic crisis, and struggling to address significant social inequities, particularly those driven by racism and colonialism. Strategic investments in universities and colleges must be made now to ensure a safe re-opening, a strong recovery and…

Science and Technology (S&T), like Research and Development (R&D), has become a case of capital investment like any other economic sector. This has distanced R&D from social needs, to the extent that part of R&D ends up actually being fictitious, in the sense that it acquires a price on the market but never becomes part of material…

Massive federal education competitions like the $650 million Investing in Innovation fund have heightened interest in practical education research, but even the most promising findings aimed at improving student learning face a long, uncertain path to become something more concrete and usable for the classroom. Unlike fields such as physics or…

Governments across the world are investing large amounts of money in scientific research, often with the belief that such investments will increase economic growth--yet the scientific evidence for this belief is, as Colin Macilwain notes, "patchy." Science agencies are charged with identifying and funding the best science, yet there is little…

The "CAUT Almanac of Post-Secondary Education in Canada" is a source for the most current statistical information available on post-secondary education in Canada. The Almanac provides statistics on the following: (1) finance; (2) academic staff; (3) students; (4) universities and colleges; (5) research and development; (6) libraries; (7)…

Over recent years governments have been placing more emphasis on innovation as a source of national competitiveness. Governments now assess their investments across many areas in terms of the contribution that such investments make to increasing innovation. This has been especially significant for education and in particular for the development of…

The authors describe a classroom experiment that illustrates the research and development investment incentives facing firms when technological spillovers are present. The game involves two stages in which student "sellers" first make investment decisions and then production decisions. The classroom game can be used to motivate…

Is the United States in danger of losing its competitive edge in science and technology (S&T)? This concern has been raised repeatedly since the end of the Cold War, most recently in a wave of reports in the mid-2000s suggesting that globalization and the growing strength of other nations in S&T, coupled with inadequate U.S. investments in…

The most important natural resource Texas has is Texans. Unfortunately, the state suffers from a "brain drain" as many of the best and brightest students leave to further their education. A contributing cause is a lack of "tier one" universities in Texas. Proposition 4 (a constitutional amendment to create a National Research…

Since taking office, President Obama has taken historic steps to lay the foundation for the innovation economy of the future. The Obama Innovation Strategy builds on well over $100 billion of Recovery Act funds that support innovation, additional support for education, infrastructure and others in the Recovery Act and the President's Budget, and…

"Investing in Innovation" provides a snapshot of trends in the states and identifies a wide range of strategies now employed. California's big investments, such as $3 billion for stem cell research, have already grabbed national headlines. But states like Arizona, Indiana and North Dakota, which haven't historically been big research and…

Reports that some universities are starting their own venture-capital funds to develop campus companies, or are investing endowment funds with established venture-capital firms inclined to finance potential spinoffs from campus research. Examples cited are from the University of Alabama, Vanderbilt University (Tennessee), University of…

Over the last two decades, Ireland has proactively marketed its educated workforce, its favourable corporate tax rates, membership of the European common market, and other advantages, to multinational technology corporations. The resulting foreign direct investment in high-tech manufacturing operations has driven a booming Irish economy that has…

The research and development limited partnership offers a university a better approach to determining the commercial potential of technology, funding its developmnt, bringing it to market, and maximizing profit without entangling the university in a commercial venture or draining institutional funds. It also has attractive tax benefits for…

Describes the efforts of a young investor who travels the country in search of university-based companies. (EV)