Here are three things to know about the state of Canadian innovation in 2025:

First, Canada produces world-class innovators. Every day, Canada’s sharpest minds are tackling some of the biggest issues facing Canadian society, from climate change to health care to gender-based violence. The country has a long history of developing big ideas into world-changing solutions, from insulin, to IMAX, to artificial intelligence. 

Second, Canada has a lot going for it, economy-wise. It has the most educated workforce in the G7, an enviably deep pool of natural resources, and an established and diversified industrial base. The nation’s democratic institutions, financial infrastructure, and legal systems are widely viewed as stable and strong. The economy is far from perfect, but the fundamentals are robust.

Third, Canada’s record of converting all this potential into commercial wins is spotty, at best—a situation the Conference Board of Canada’s Alain Francq has described as the country’s “innovation problem.” Some believe this state of affairs stems from the tendency towards prudence. Others blame a fragmented and reactive approach to prioritizing innovation. Others point fingers at the concentrative bent of the economy (which critics say blunts competition), the complexity of Canadian regulatory requirements (which stifles investment), and the country’s immediate proximity to the largest economy in the world (which induces complacency). 

Whatever the causes, it can’t hold. With a global trade war, geopolitical volatility, cost increases, and no shortage of pressing environmental and social challenges all testing the limits of national economic resilience, experts agree Canada needs its best and brightest to bring new solutions to market quickly and at scale. “Many of us have been asking how we can build a Canada that values innovation and encourages a greater ambition to drive change,” says Teresa Marques, President and CEO of the Rideau Hall Foundation, which oversees several initiatives meant to spur Canadian innovation, including the Governor General’s Innovation Awards, Canadian Innovation Week, and the youth-focused Ingenious+ program. “That question mattered before this moment, but it really matters now.”

How can Canada help the changemakers of today and tomorrow level up and maximize their impact? We asked some of the most accomplished innovators in the country to share their biggest and boldest ideas.

Idea 1: Stitch together research and industry

For Jean-Simon Venne, the most promising opportunity before Canadian innovators lies in tapping the country’s increasingly exceptional research and development capabilities. More of the world’s top minds are choosing Canada to do their work, which Venne says is creating a critical mass of brainpower, especially in cutting-edge sectors like AI, where he spends his days as Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder at Montreal-based startup BrainBox AI. (BrainBox has partnered with researchers at Mila and IVADO, among others.) “Today, there is more research being done by PhDs and postdocs in Canada than there is if you combine all of Harvard, MIT, and Silicon Valley together,” he points out. “That is a pivotal story, and we should be telling it at every conference, every cocktail party, and, really, every chat.”

In Venne’s view, future success will hinge on Canada’s ability to connect the dots—for universities and research institutes to find new and better ways to partner with one another and with for-profit industry players. “Look at what’s happening at universities in Ontario, in Montreal, in Calgary, and in Vancouver,” he says. “If you mesh all that together, you’ll find solutions so much quicker than if you stay in your towers or in your labs. It will really accelerate innovation.” 

Venne believes a more collaborative model—which he describes as a “core research ecosystem”—would be a win-win. It would allow upstart ventures to smoothly contract out much of their R&D work to top-tier research teams 10 or 20 times their size. “Imagine all of those people working together,” he says. “You’re going to need a lot less money to fund that startup, you’re going to be able to move a lot faster.” More collaboration would also arm researchers with troves of real-world data and intel from their corporate partners. (“Doing real stuff with real data is much more exciting for researchers than doing simulations,” explains Venne.) And if you can create ways for so  many smart and driven people to work together more effectively, he believes it wouldn’t take long for the benefits to multiply. “When you start to innovate faster, you create more spinoffs: It becomes a situation of, ‘Look what we just discovered. That’s another startup. Let’s do it,’” Venne says. “The machine starts to feed itself. And that’s very exciting.”

Venne acknowledges that integrating academic, research, and commercial entities would not be a painless effort. Researchers and entrepreneurs can both be competitive and guarded about their work—and skeptical about partnerships. There will be squabbles about intellectual property and royalties to sort out. But with so much potential upside, he believes it’s more than worth any growing pains. “It’s all here, waiting to be connected,” he says. “We just need to take the ball and run with it.”

Idea 2: Build a more risk-friendly ecosystem

For Dr. Breanne Everett, there’s no question that Canadians are capable of solving the challenges of today: “We are really good at innovating in situations where there is a necessity to innovate.” As CEO Co-Founder of Orpyx Medical Technologies Inc., a Calgary-based startup behind digital therapeutics that help people with diabetes prevent foot ulcers that often lead to amputation, Everett knows this from experience. Her decision to launch the venture came after witnessing an alarming volume of patients losing limbs while working as a resident in plastic and reconstructive surgery. Canada saw innovators demonstrate nimble and effective resourcefulness as they pivoted during COVID, she points out—and it’s happening today in how forward-looking organizations are responding to the economic headwinds of 2025.

“Canadian innovators are like flowing water: We will find a way around barriers,” Everett reasons. “But we need to ask: How many of those barriers are we putting up ourselves? And which can we remove to make the path straighter?” 

Everett envisions a national incentivization program for innovation, a set of policies and processes that make it economically advantageous for funders, companies, governments, and other stakeholders to support riskier endeavours and to get rid of unnecessary roadblocks that impede progress. “That means removing regulatory complexity, encouraging buying Canadian, and creating programming that encourages private Canadian investment into risky Canadian businesses,” she explains. Initiatives like the federal government’s Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax incentive program offer a good model for risk-friendly support, she says, as does the work of the not-for-profit agency Mitacs in encouraging industry and academic collaboration. 

Everett believes an expanded suite of motivators like these would unlock new tiers of capital, raise the general can-do spirit of all stakeholders in the game, and spur the kind of flow that can deliver truly outsized results. “Innovators don’t need to be told what to do,” she says. “We just need the path before us to be unblocked so we can do what we do best.” 

Idea 3: Step up with swagger 

To understand the future that DMZ Executive Director and DMZ Ventures CEO Abdullah Snobar wants for Canadian innovators, he recommends looking back to the late 1960s, when early planning meetings began for what became the CN Tower. Yes, the idea of erecting a massive freestanding structure irked some skeptics and critics, but it also attracted enough champions to enable the development of an iconic attraction of global renown in just seven years. “Someone had to stand up and say, ‘I want to build the biggest tower on planet Earth, and I want to do it right here in Toronto,’” says Snobar. “Let’s bring that kind of ambition back.”

Canadian innovators often shy away from trumpeting our prowess, but in Snobar’s view, this is no time for tentativeness or timidity. Brand Canada has all the ingredients to attract more global partnerships and investments, he says, and Canadian innovators should be bold in how we present what we have to offer. “We need to really fly that Canadian maple leaf, and say, ‘Here’s what we’re about, here’s what we’re going to do, and here’s how we’re going to go to town with this,” Snobar says. “We don’t need to be followers. We can establish leadership by building an economic engine with innovation at its core that people envy globally.” 

As a person who spends his days surrounded by changemakers, Snobar has no shortage of ideas about the next frontier of Canadian innovation. His wish list includes detailed reforms for everything from policy, to education, to capital markets, to IP; but underpinning every one is the need to proceed with pride. “We are at a pivotal point now, where we have the opportunity to reposition Canada’s role on the global stage,” he says. “We have to set things up so that future generations of innovators can leverage what they need to build great companies that become anchor businesses, that scale, and that remain Canadian. We need to seize the day.” 

Create a ripple effect

None of these ideas are quick fixes.  

But experts agree that the stakes are high. If Canada gets things right in this moment, the country will become a place where bold bets are rewarded, where world-leading ideas deliver value at home and abroad, and where ambition and confidence drive decisions more than caution and modesty. And the effects will ripple from there. “Once you see what’s possible, and you get a little bit of support, and you remove some barriers along the way, it creates a stronger culture of innovation and entrepreneurship,” says the Rideau Hall Foundation’s Marques. “That will lead to a more inclusively prosperous country, which will lead to more pride, hope, and optimism for Canada. And that will lead to a better world.”

This content was paid for and directed by Rideau Hall Foundation and was produced independently of The Logic’s newsroom in consultation with the advertiser. You can read our policies on advertising, sponsorships and partnerships here.