Universities Canada is a national membership organisation representing Canada’s universities and degree-granting institutions. It advocates on behalf of the sector, supports collaboration between universities, government and industry, and works on issues including research, skills development, international education and public policy.
How would you describe Universities Canada’s role within the country’s higher education system today?
Universities Canada is the national voice for 97 universities across the country, both at home and abroad. Our members include Canada’s largest research universities, regional institutions that anchor local economies, and smaller universities focused primarily on undergraduate education in tight-knit communities. For more than a hundred years, the organisation has worked to give universities a strong voice with the federal government, support the talent the country needs, and create opportunities for university leaders to cooperate and learn from one another.
We also work nationally with the business community, entrepreneurs and government on policies that support this work. Part of our role is helping universities share initiatives and adopt best practices across the system. Without the right policy framework, Canada excels at early-stage research and discovery, but struggles to commercialize those breakthroughs. Our role is to help close that gap, ensuring that the economic benefits of homegrown intellectual property stay in Canada and deliver massive returns for our investors and industry partners.
What are the biggest priorities and structural challenges facing Canadian universities today, and what needs to change to keep the system competitive and sustainable?
Canada has an outstanding university system that accentuates the country’s strengths. You can go almost anywhere in Canada and get a good undergraduate education at an affordable cost while benefiting from growing research excellence and globally recognized universities. It is a strategic asset; universities contribute $48.6 billion to Canada's economy and support nearly 410,000 jobs. Canada has avoided much of the polarization around higher education seen in the United States while keeping the system broadly accessible. But it has become easy to take for granted. Over the last 25 or 30 years, there has been very little discussion about the partnership between government and students that built it. Government per capita student investment has fallen from about half the cost of education to around 40%, creating a structural deficit that is showing up in bigger classes, ageing facilities, and a real risk that we will not be able to provide opportunities to everyone who will need them as another wave of young Canadians arrives over the next five or six years.
We are focused on three major areas. The first is Canada’s ability to attract and develop the talent it needs to compete globally, which means sustaining universities while repositioning Canada as a destination for the best and brightest from around the world. When Canada’s visa policies are fragmented and unpredictable, we do more than just create uncertainty—we actively deter top-tier global talent. This reactive approach directly weakens the research pipelines that protect Canada's sovereign capability. To secure our competitive advantage and align federal and provincial governments, we must transition to a comprehensive International Higher Education Talent, Research and Innovation Strategy. The second area is infrastructure and housing, because many university facilities are ageing and those pressures are becoming acute. The third is innovation and commercialization. Canada’s universities perform about a third of the country’s research and development, more than any other G7 country, but we need to do a better job of protecting those investments and connecting them to commercial opportunities outside the university. AI is a good example: Canada became a world leader in AI research but has struggled to retain the employment and commercialization opportunities that come with it.
How does university research in Canada translate into commercial and economic impact?
As Canada prepares to absorb $1 trillion in new global investment across energy, critical minerals, and AI, capital alone isn't enough. Investors need scalable talent pipelines and R&D infrastructure to make those investments viable. Canadian universities provide that foundational bedrock, acting as the ultimate 'de-risking partners' for global capital. We are making big strides in connecting this research to commercial impact, ensuring countries and companies position themselves as beneficiaries of the AI revolution, rather than followers. One track is knowledge creation through programs that bring researchers into partnership with industry around projects companies want to advance or problems businesses need to solve.
That is especially important in Canada because small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) actually make up 98.2% of employers in the country. While they are the backbone of the economy, they often lack the 'absorptive capacity' to invest in new technologies, take on large research projects, or scale new patents on their own. This gap creates 'IP leakage,' where the financial benefits of homegrown discoveries end up going abroad. Universities serve as the crucial bridge to solve this. By partnering directly with SMEs—like Brock University does when local businesses need researchers to solve a challenge—universities build that absorptive capacity, preventing IP leakage and ensuring that the economic benefits of Canadian discoveries stay right here at homeThere are also larger partnerships around biohealth and artificial intelligence. Some of Canada’s biggest tech companies grew out of university computer science departments, including OpenText, which started with ideas blossoming on campus at the University of Waterloo.
How are you positioning universities as economic drivers rather than simply education providers?
One of the most encouraging things over the past 12 months has been seeing universities respond actively to the moment and to the government’s agenda. Universities offer the country’s most scalable platform for rapidly expanding talent, innovation, and sovereign capability. But in several areas, you can see how quickly the sector has mobilized.
In February, we took 20 university presidents to India as the government worked to rebuild Canada’s relationship with the country after a difficult period. We were the first sector in the economy to take a unified senior national delegation focused on rebuilding and expanding those ties. The government also announced funding last year to attract world-class researchers at a time when many people see the United States as a less attractive destination. Universities had to mobilize in record time to identify candidates and build support around them, and by all indications, we are ahead of schedule.
A third area is defence. As the government implements its Defence Industrial Strategy, Universities Canada and research leaders from member institutions are now working with the Department of Defence to ensure universities are central to this effort. Specifically, universities offer the most scalable platform to advance 'dual-use technologies'—innovations that serve Canada's national security needs, like the BOREALIS initiative, while simultaneously supporting broader civilian priorities. This means the research we do for defence will also deliver solutions for climate resilience, critical infrastructure protection, and secure supply chains, ensuring defence investments drive massive economic value for all Canadians.
Why does Canada continue to struggle with retaining highly skilled graduates and researchers?
The financial opportunities, particularly in the United States, are so substantial, especially around cutting-edge technology companies. To compete, we need to produce and attract more talent to Canada. The federal government has recognized this, recently making a historic $1.7 billion investment through the Canada Global Impact+ Research Talent Initiative to bring the world's best researchers to our institutions. While attraction alone does not solve retention, an influx of top-tier global talent builds the critical mass we need to make retaining them much easier.
We also need to make it easier and more attractive for people to use those talents here. More of the knowledge and innovation happening inside universities has to result in opportunities at home, which means supporting commercialization and deepening the linkages between universities and industry. Industry needs to be involved earlier in the research enterprise so opportunities are identified and developed through the research process itself. Canada also has to compete as a great place to live, work and do research by retaining its advantages as a stable, fair, rule-of-law country while preserving the foundations that make it such a good place to live and do business.
Which regions globally are the biggest priorities for attracting talent and research collaboration?
The Indo-Pacific is an important priority, particularly in the near term. We are also strengthening relationships in South America, and we just completed a mission to Chile in June involving vice-presidents of research.
We are associate partners in Horizon Europe, which has been deepening partnerships between Canadian universities and counterparts across Europe. Canadian universities are highly mobilized and open for international business, research collaboration, and global investment. Finding a new balance in international research partnerships will be important, just as it is for the economy as a whole. One of the hardest challenges right now is deciding where to focus because there are opportunities in so many regions, but the Indo-Pacific, Horizon Europe and growing opportunities in South America are the priorities at the moment.
