A contrary view… You ask: “The major question of our time is how do we mobilize our talent more effectively to improve our well-being, our security and our economy?” How? You make no reference to the need for more sophisticated management skills. No one in Canada seems to talk about management or the contribution our management school researchers should be adding. So many claim to be experts in entrepreneurship and innovation who have never read a textbook in either.

Perhaps you can explore Gary Hamel’s (London Business School) new paper: Searching for Significance: The Case for Reimagining Management Research. He authored innovation books and papers for 30 years. He argues that the greatest innovation in the past 150 years was large-scale industrial management. Without this, nothing would have happened. But his main point is what research is funded today. He offers data from US National Science Foundation. In 2018, US corporations spent $4.7 billion funding university research. Of this, business and management research captured a minuscule 1%.

What is spent in Canada to study innovation management? Anything? I can't name a single interesting paper on public-sector innovation or private-sector innovation from Canadian academia. Linked to Hamel’s point… if such research is happening, it isn't translated into insights, models, and tools for executives. (FYI, I taught in a Master's in Innovation, Entrepreneurship, and Commercialization in Australia in the 2010.) Keep in mind, the Canadian Council of Academies published a paper in 2018 on the need and opportunity for our universities to teach innovation management. Perhaps it is worth exploring strategicmanagementrevi…