Bringing Precarn’s 24-year Program to a Close and
Celebrating Our Impact on Canada’s
ICT Community, Industry and Economy
A Message from Dr. Henri Rothschild
President and CEO, Precarn
OTTAWA, Ontario - September 30, 2011: On behalf of the Board of Directors and the employees of Precarn, I would like to thank the many stakeholders who have supported our R&D program over the past years. For more than two decades, we have assisted Canadian ICT innovators and collaborated with an outstanding collection of federal and regional partners that have contributed significantly to our success.
Together, we have built a strong and enduring national network of ICT technology developers, entrepreneurs, technology end users, companies, academic researchers and public and private investors that accelerates the R&D, commercialization and adoption of innovative ICT-based products. We are confident this network will continue to perform this critical role, and strengthen the Canadian economy, as Precarn brings its 24-year tenure to a close.
We are truly proud of what we have achieved over the last two decades. Precarn has fulfilled its role as a facilitator of market-driven, collaborative R&D in robotics, intelligent systems and other ICT innovations, accelerating the development, commercialization and adoption of these technologies across the Canadian economy. Since its inception, Precarn has contributed to the competitiveness of Canada’s ICT sector by:
- Funding more than 300 R&D projects engaging more than 300 ICT companies and 3,000 researchers, enabling the development of 400 new technologies or products, 45 start-ups, 86 patents and hundreds of new Canadian jobs
- Investing $70+ million in industry-led research, leveraging $265 million in total industrial research
- Generating at least four-fold economic return for every dollar invested in Precarn
Over the last year alone, 42 SMEs leveraged this Precarn approach and related funding to establish partnerships with first customers and external research partners. These firms hired 48 new employees; invested an additional $9.2 million for a BERD (Business Expenditure on R&D) ratio of 2.4 to 1 and converted 91 performance-enhancing technologies into market-ready products. Moreover, these SMEs turned $3.8 million in project contributions from Precarn into $9.7 million of total project funding.
Building on these and other outcomes, we hope Canadian innovators will continue to benefit from Precarn’s legacy as one of the most efficient industry-led programs for accelerating product development, and apply its effective and efficient approach to future R&D activities.
