Keith Belinko has over 40 years of experience in IP management and technology commercialization. He is currently a Senior Technology Consultant with Doyletech Corporation.

Innovation sits at the heart of Canada’s economic ambitions. Policymakers consistently point to research and development as the engine of industrial competitiveness, productivity growth, and long-term prosperity.

Yet despite billions in annual public R&D investment, a fundamental question remains largely unanswered: are Canadians seeing meaningful returns?

Nearly two decades ago, the federal government launched its Science and Technology Strategy: Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada’s Advantage. The Strategy outlined a number of policy commitments to improve Canada’s national system of innovation.

The S&T Strategy highlighted a key principle: “To ensure that these investments are effective in improving Canada’s S&T capacity and contributing to our economic and social objectives, it is important to measure the full impact of these initiatives and communicate this back to Canadians.”

The solution was straightforward. Public institutions needed to adopt appropriate Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that actually demonstrate value.

Nearly two decades later little has changed.

The literature is abundant with S&T performance frameworks, but few consider the measurement of impact, instead focusing on outputs and outcomes which do not truly reflect actual economic or societal benefits. Consequently, research managers have been left without having adequate tools to measure and report the actual impact of their programs.

Today, Canadian research and granting institutions, including universities, science-based government departments, and funding agencies, continue to rely on the same narrow set of metrics; e.g., the number of publications, citation counts, patents filed, licenses executed, and spin-off companies created.

While these indicators are easy to track and compare, they ultimately measure activity, not impact. In other words, they tell us what was done, not what difference it made.

For example, a scientific patent is often celebrated as a sign of innovation and frequently rewarded with a salary increase and promotion for the scientist(s) involved. But on its own, it reveals very little about actual impact.

Did the underlying technology ever reach the market? Were jobs created? Did it strengthen a Canadian industry or generate export revenue?

This creates a perverse incentive structure. Researchers are rewarded for filing patents, not for commercializing them. Scientists can advance their career by generating intellectual property that never reaches the marketplace, that remains locked away in institutional filing cabinets, or that gets licensed to foreign competitors who better understand how to exploit it.

Our current KPIs are inadvertently incentivizing exactly the opposite of what we should be measuring.

The same can be said of scientific publications. While the open dissemination of knowledge is essential to scientific progress, it does not automatically translate into economic or societal benefits for Canada. In many cases, it enhances the reputation of individual researchers without contributing meaningfully to national prosperity.

The problem is not a lack of effort or talent within Canada’s research ecosystem. Rather, it is a failure to measure, and therefore prioritize, the right metrics.

If institutions are rewarded primarily for outputs, they will optimize for outputs. If success is defined by publication counts and patent filings, then those metrics will dominate decision-making.

The result is a system that excels at producing knowledge but often falls short of converting that knowledge into tangible socio-economic value.

What should we be measuring?

So what should we be measuring instead? 

Real economic impact is not abstract: it is tangible, measurable, and far-reaching. When research is successfully commercialized, it generates revenue, boosts GDP, creates high-skilled employment across multiple sectors, and expands Canada’s tax base.

It also strengthens domestic supply chains by creating demand for local suppliers and service providers. It drives export growth, improves Canada’s trade balance, and enhances global competitiveness.

Beyond these direct effects, commercialization produces powerful spillovers. Innovations often find applications beyond their original intent, benefiting adjacent industries and accelerating broader technological advancement. Partnerships between academia, industry, and government can amplify these effects, creating ecosystems of innovation that extend far beyond individual projects.

There are also important efficiency gains. Commercialized technologies can reduce costs, improve productivity, and enhance performance across a wide range of industries.

These benefits accumulate over time, delivering value not only to businesses but also to consumers and society at large.

To capture these impacts, Canada needs more appropriate KPIs.

Through my decades working in technology commercialization, where I have used input-output (I-O) economic modelling to assess innovation impact, I have become convinced it is essential.

An I-O model traces how a single innovation ripples through the economy, capturing direct impacts such as revenue and job creation, indirect impacts on suppliers and supporting industries, and induced impacts driven by higher wages and consumer spending.

Such models provide a far more complete picture of value creation. They translate research investments into concrete economic narratives that policymakers, taxpayers, and the public can understand; and hold institutions accountable.

The need for this shift is becoming increasingly urgent. Canada is operating in a highly competitive global environment, where technological leadership is closely tied to economic strength and national security. Other countries are not only investing heavily in research but are also ensuring that those investments translate into domestic economic gains.

If public funding is to continue flowing into research at current levels, institutions must demonstrate that they are delivering real returns. This means tracking innovations beyond the lab, beyond the publication, and into the marketplace. It means aligning incentives for researchers with outcomes that matter; i.e., jobs, revenue, competitiveness, and societal benefit.

The commitment made in the 2007 S&T Strategy was both necessary and forward-looking. But commitment alone is not enough. Without meaningful change in how performance is measured and managed, Canada risks continuing to invest heavily in innovation without fully capturing its benefits.

It is time to close that gap!

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