Supporting Canada's innovation superclusters

In Budget 2017, the Government of Canada put forward the Innovation and Skills Plan—an agenda to spark growth and help Canada realize its potential as a global leader in innovation. To advance this agenda, Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada launched an initiative to accelerate innovation through superclusters.

The Innovation Superclusters Initiative is investing up to $950 million to support business-led innovation superclusters that have the greatest potential to energize the economy and become engines of growth.

In 2018, 5 superclusters were selected to accelerate Canada's global advantage in highly innovative industries: advanced manufacturing, digital technologies, protein industries, ocean, and SCALE.AI (Supply Chains and Logistics Excellence Artificial Intelligence).

As Canada's largest research and development organization, the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) has a century‑long track record of bringing its national network of researchers and scientific facilities to bear on our most pressing immediate challenges and longer-term innovation goals.

The NRC will develop programs that build on our organization's scientific expertise to support the superclusters and foster strong collaboration with innovators in both industry and academia. These collaborations with external research organizations, in particular academic researchers and small- and medium‑sized enterprises, will be supported through grant and contribution funding.

As the programs and projects in support of superclusters are developed, they will be posted here including opportunities for collaboration.

For more information about the NRC's capabilities or to discuss opportunities for collaboration, contact the identified priority leads: