As announced in Budget 2007, the Government of Canada invested $46 million over four years for the creation of the Business-Led Networks of Centres of Excellence program. The goal of the BL-NCE program is to fund large-scale collaborative business-led networks to enhance private sector innovation in order to deliver economic, social, and environmental benefits to Canadians, and to promote an Entrepreneurial Advantage as described in the Federal Government’s S&T Strategy “Mobilizing Science the Technology to Canada’s Advantage”.

These networks are an amalgamation of the original NCE program’s academic perspectives and the eagerness of the private sector to solve specific problems. They are headed by industrial consortia, and help to increase private sector investments in Canadian research, support training of skilled researchers, and accelerate the timeline involved in transferring ideas from the laboratory into products and services in the marketplace.

Currently funded networks are examining innovative tools for drug discovery, nanotechnology-enhanced forestry products, next-generation aviation technologies, and sustainability challenges relating to hydrocarbon production.

Impacts of the BL-NCE program

BL-NCEs receive approximately half of their funding through the NCE, with the rest coming directly from industry. This gives an added incentive to the networks to fund research which will lead directly and quickly to products and services which generate revenue, and lead to the creation of jobs.
The BL-NCE program invites involvement from Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs). In order to encourage and promote partnerships with SMEs, $2.8 million of BL-NCE funding money has been specifically allocated for these organizations.
The BL-NCE introduces a unique and innovative partnership model, where academic and private sector partners are on an equal level. This new type of relationship is now being considered or used in countries such as France, Spain and some Nordic nations.
The BL-NCE is the only program of the three funding agencies (the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research) to allow networks to fund private sector partners directly, so that they may do research within their own facilities.