Dr. Andrew Maxwell (photo at right), is the Bergeron Chair in Technology Entrepreneurship in the Lassonde School of Engineering at York University.        

Canada does not suffer from a shortage of ideas about innovation. We suffer from a shortage of outcomes.

The Canadian Science Policy Centre’s (CSPC) recent synthesis on Canada’s innovation strategy reaches a blunt conclusion: our problem is not the generation of research or talent, but our inability to convert them into real economic and social impact.

We perform well on innovation “inputs” and poorly on “outputs.” We publish. We patent. We fund. But we do not adopt, scale or deploy.

That diagnosis echoes what I argued in two recent pieces: one challenging our fixation on patents as proxies for impact, and another contending that Canada’s innovation system lacks an agreed destination, a designed process, and any real accountability for outcomes.

The CSPC report does more than validate these concerns – it exposes their structural roots. What it stops short of saying is what must now follow.

Canada does not need more discussion about innovation. It needs an innovation system.

We don’t have a system – we have activity

The CSPC report makes something unmistakably clear: Canada’s “innovation gap” is not technological. It is institutional. We have world-class universities. We generate strong research. We invest billions. And yet we remain among the weakest performers globally when it comes to translating those inputs into market results.

That is not a funding problem. It is a design problem.

In any engineering or operations environment, persistent underperformance would trigger a careful analysis of the process itself – where value is lost, where handoffs break down, and what behaviours are being rewarded.

Canada does none of this for innovation. We treat innovation as an aspiration rather than as a workflow. We assume that if enough research is funded and enough intellectual property is protected, impact will eventually follow.

It usually doesn’t.

Adoption: the stage we pretend does not exist

Innovation only creates value when someone actually uses it. Productivity improves only when new tools reshape work. Public benefit emerges only when technologies are adopted in real organizations.

Yet adoption – the behavioural, organizational, and institutional process through which innovation becomes real – is the least understood and least supported part of our system.

Adoption is not a technical problem. It is a human one. It depends on trust, risk perception, workflows, procurement rules, regulatory interpretation, and organizational culture.

We routinely design technologies without understanding the environments they must survive in. We build prototypes for users we have never engaged. We measure success by activity – grants, patents, pilots – rather than by uptake.

We do not have an invention problem.
We have an adoption blindness problem.

The CSPC report identifies risk-averse procurement, weak links from research to market, and low risk tolerance as systemic barriers. These are not isolated issues. They are symptoms of a system that has never treated adoption as a core capability.

Measuring motion instead of direction

One of the strongest insights in the CSPC report is its call for outcome-based metrics rather than input measures. This matters more than it may first appear.

If we measure innovation by publications, we get publications.
If we measure it by patents, we get patents.
If we measure it by dollars spent, we get more programs.

But none of these tell us whether innovations are being used, scaled or embedded in the economy. We do not systematically track whether publicly funded technologies are adopted, how long it takes to move from prototype to deployment, or whether innovations improve productivity inside real organizations.

Because we do not measure outcomes, no institution is accountable for them. Each organization optimizes for its own mandate. The system as a whole drifts.

Why Canada needs a central innovation body

Here is the uncomfortable reality: no one in Canada currently sees the entire innovation process.

Universities see research. Funding agencies see programs. Departments see compliance. Accelerators see startups. Procurement sees rules. Investors see deal flow. But no organization owns the journey from idea to adoption to national impact.

This is not a coordination problem. It is a governance gap.

If Canada is serious about innovation as a driver of productivity, resilience and competitiveness, we need a central innovation body with a clear mandate to design, align, and continuously improve the system itself.

Not another funding agency. Not another forum. But a small, focused organization responsible for defining national innovation outcomes, identifying where the system breaks down, testing new mechanisms, and measuring what actually works.

High-performing systems do not treat innovation as a by-product of activity. They manage it as a process.

From conversation to experimentation

CSPC has built a strong reputation as a convener of thoughtful dialogue. That role remains valuable. But the report it has produced points toward something more demanding: experimentation, learning and evidence.

Canada does not need another document describing what we already know. It needs to try new approaches in the real world – new procurement models that act as first customers, new ways of embedding users into research, new outcome-based funding structures, and new partnerships that span academia, industry, and government.

Failure should not be hidden. It should be studied. Learning must be cumulative. Otherwise, each new initiative simply repeats the same structural errors under a different name.

The CSPC report calls for mission-driven innovation, modernized procuremen, and meaningful metrics. Taken together, these are not incremental reforms. They imply a fundamental shift.

Innovation must be treated as a national capability, not as a collection of institutional activities. Incentives must align with adoption and impact, not just with research output. Organizations must be connected across boundaries around shared outcomes. And above all, the system itself must be designed, measured, and improved.

Canada’s problem is not a lack of talent, ideas, or ambition. It is the absence of system architecture.

Until we build one – until someone is responsible for the whole process rather than its fragments – we will continue producing activity instead of impact, potential instead of productivity.

The CSPC report tells us what is broken.
My earlier articles explain why it keeps breaking.

What remains is the hardest question of all: Are we finally willing to build what has been missing all along?

Not another conversation.

A destination.
A process.
And the courage to test it.

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