Summary
This guide helps you understand which player in Canada’s innovation ecosystem to engage based on your actual needs. It compares the roles of universities, CCTTs/CATs, RTOs, and private companies to help you better explore, validate, improve reliability, or scale an innovation to production.
What You’ll Get in This Guide
Clear, structured, decision-focused content to help you choose the right innovation partner at the right time.
- Understand the innovation framework through the lenses of what is useful and what is feasible.
- Compare the roles of universities, public research centres, CCTTs/CATs, RTOs, and private companies.
- Identify the stage at which each type of organization creates the most value in a project.
- Assess the advantages, limitations, and expectations associated with each type of partner.
- Explore real-world collaboration examples to better map out your own innovation path.
Technical Level
Guide Overview
The guide follows a simple logic: start with the need, understand the players involved, then bring it all to life through real-world collaborations.
The Innovation Framework
Understanding What Is Useful and What Is Feasible
The guide presents innovation as the intersection of a real market need and the technical ability to deliver a solution. It also shows that value creation depends on stages such as demonstration, reliability, and viability.
The Ecosystem’s Key Players
Knowing Who Does What—and When
You will see how universities mainly support fundamental and applied research, how CCTTs/CATs address more operational needs, and how RTOs connect research, industry, and scale-up.
Real-World Collaboration Examples
From Theory to Practice
The guide includes cases that illustrate how these players complement one another, including collaborations between GHGSat, INO, and Polytechnique Montréal, as well as between INO and the NRC.
Who This Guide Is For
This guide is intended primarily for business leaders, innovation managers, R&D teams, and companies that want to better understand Canada’s innovation ecosystem so they can choose the right partner based on their needs, context, and project maturity.