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Investing for impact: Building a stronger Canada with National Research Facilities

Report highlights real-world outcomes from country’s Major Science Initiatives

Canada’s National Research Facilities support thousands of researchers, skilled professionals and partners in government and the private sector, according to a new report from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).

The report, Investing for impact, provides an overview of the outcomes and achievements of 16 of Canada’s National Research Facilities supported through the CFI’s Major Science Initiatives Fund between 2017 to 2023.   

A pan-Canadian network supporting world‑class research 

The CFI supports research facilities from coast to coast to coast that tackle some of the most important issues facing society by bringing together researchers from Canada and around the world. As science becomes more complex, large facilities like these become crucial for exploring the frontiers of research and keeping Canada competitive in key economic sectors, including defence, health and agriculture. 

Over the six-year period covered by the report, the CFI contributed $535 million through its Major Science Initiatives Fund (MSIF) to support the operating and maintenance needs of National Research Facilities. This investment was matched by $645 million from partners, resulting in a total investment of $1.2 billion. In addition, since 1997, the CFI has invested nearly $800 million in capital to build the capacity of these facilities. 

Some of the outcomes of these facilities between 2017 and 2023 include:  

  • 1,000+ skilled personnel employed annually
  • 64 percent increase in total number of public-and private-sector researchers using the facilities, growing from 36,979 to 60,616
  • Nearly 22,500 highly qualified personnel trained annually on average
  • 260 patents filed annually on average, reported by nine facilities
  • 47 spin-off companies created annually on average, reported by five facilities
  • International collaborations with Europe, Japan, Australia, Brazil and the United States 

Read the report

Economic growth 

The facilities also supported economic growth via collaborations with industry. For example, the André E. Lalonde National Facility for Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) in Ontario collaborated with a Finnish company to improve testing for biofuels, which helps companies demonstrate their products are derived from renewable sources, not fossil fuels.

Arctic sovereignty

Some facilities reinforced Canada’s security and sovereignty, including the CCGS Amundsen, a research icebreaker that sails through the Arctic Ocean every summer, Ocean Networks Canada, which models and provides hazard monitoring on earthquake and tsunami risks to secure Canada’s coastal communities and SuperDARN Canada, a facility in Saskatchewan that collaborated with the Department of National Defence to evaluate and troubleshoot over-the-horizon radar for early warning use in the Arctic. 

Read more: Securing Canada’s Arctic sovereignty with early warning radar tech

Infectious disease preparedness

Other facilities contributed to human and animal health improvements through COVID-19 research initiatives, genome sequencing, new vaccines and unique and specialized training programs. Twenty-thousand doses of a vaccine developed and produced by the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization (VIDO) were used to protect livestock during the 2017 and 2018 swine coronavirus outbreaks in Manitoba. And the Canadian Cancer Trials Group Operations and Statistics Centre offered the only training of its kind in Canada, providing practical clinical trial experience for a new generation of biomedical researchers. 

As of CFI’s most recent MSIF competition, the total number of facilities supported is 19.