Saskatchewan earns a "D-" in Conference Board's Innovation report card
Mix of grades show potential for improvement.
OTTAWA, May 14, 2018 /CNW/ - Saskatchewan has entrepreneurial spirit but poor scores on nearly all other innovation indicators, earning the province a "D-" grade and 24th spot overall in The Conference Board of Canada's How Canada Performs: Innovation report card which compares the provinces, Canada and 15 peer countries.
"Saskatchewan performs well on the entrepreneurship indicators in our report card, but remains weak on nearly all other aspects of innovation capacity and activity, earning it an overall "D-" grade. The province faces persistent challenges in innovation-related spending and attracting capital to support innovation—including investment in public R&D, business R&D, ICT and venture capital," said Paul Preston, Director, Science, Technology and Innovation Policy, The Conference Board of Canada. "Saskatchewan could benefit from its entrepreneurial spirit by prioritizing investment in innovation capacity and activities."
HIGHLIGHTS
- Saskatchewan earns a "D-" and ranks 24th overall on the innovation report card.
- The province receives an "A" for entrepreneurial ambition and a "B" for enterprise entries.
- Saskatchewan is very weak on public and business R&D, ICT investment, and attracting venture capital for innovation.
Ten indicators were used to measure the provinces' innovation performance. This includes indicators in three categories:
- innovation capacity—i.e., investments and resources that provide a foundation for research, idea-generation, and insight-sharing (including public R&D, researchers engaged in R&D, and scientific articles);
- innovation activity—i.e., entrepreneurial ambition, investments in ICT and venture capital, and business R&D activity that help to transform ideas into commercialized products, services and processes; and
- innovation results—i.e., evidence of the impact of research, innovation and commercialization as captured in patents, new ventures, and overall labour productivity.
Saskatchewan earns an "A" and ranks seventh among international peers on entrepreneurial ambition (the percentage of the working age population who report being engaged in early-stage entrepreneurial activity). It scores a "B" and ranks fifth among provinces on enterprise entries. While Saskatchewan's performance remains strong on both indicators, its relative rankings slipped slightly over the previous report card.
Saskatchewan earns a "C" on scientific articles, measured as the number of peer-reviewed scientific articles per million population, and on labour productivity. However, like Alberta, Saskatchewan's high ranking on labour productivity relative to the other provinces may be more the result of its resource-intensive economy (with resource wealth contributing to its higher GDP per hour worked) than its innovation performance.
The province earns its lowest grades on R&D as a share of GDP and attracting capital for innovation. It scores "D" grades on public R&D and venture capital investment, and falls to a "D-" on information and communications technology (ICT) investment. Like most provinces, Saskatchewan does poorly on business enterprise R&D (BERD). With BERD sitting at 0.31 per cent of GDP, the province ranks 24th out of 26 jurisdictions and earns a "D-". Saskatchewan also scores "D-"s on patents and researchers engaged in R&D (including researchers employed in business, higher education and government).
How Canada Performs is an ongoing research program at The Conference Board of Canada to help leaders identify relative strengths and weaknesses in Canada's socio-economic performance. Six performance domains are assessed: Economy, Education and Skills, Innovation, Environment, Health, and Society.
This is the second time that provincial rankings have been included in the innovation report card. Further details, including information on data sources and the methodology behind the rankings, can be found on the How Canada Performs website.
Paul Preston will present the findings from the How Canada Performs Report Card on Innovation in a live webinar on June 26.
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SOURCE Conference Board of Canada
Yvonne Squires, Media Relations, The Conference Board of Canada, Tel.: 613- 526-3090 ext. 221, E-mail: [email protected]; or Juline Ranger, Director of Communications, The Conference Board of Canada, Tel.: 613- 526-3090 ext. 431, E-mail: [email protected]
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