Climate change, pandemics, geopolitical crises, socio-economic turbulence—the challenges our world faces today are endless. With these challenges comes the crucial need for evidence-based thinking, learning from nature, and multilateral, multisectoral collaborations. We must innovate for resiliency and sustainable development, for intellectual progress, and design solutions as the world, despite these challenges, progresses towards a diverse, tolerant, equitable, and forward-looking future.

The theme for this year’s magazine is Empowering Society: The Transformative Value of Science, Knowledge, and Innovation. Over the past year, the Editorial Committee has collaborated with experts across public service, academia, industry, and non-profit sectors to explore how the intersection of knowledge, science, and innovation can drive the creation of optimum solutions for our society and planet. The editorials in this magazine reflect a diverse range of perspectives, from emerging and established voices across domains and disciplines, about the macro and micro-trends in science policy within Canada and globally that are crucial for shaping our shared goals for the future.

We extend our heartfelt thanks to our enthusiastic colleagues on the CSPC Editorial Committee—our invaluable volunteers—who have supported us throughout this journey and across our many tasks: brainstorming editorial topics, reviewing articles, partnering in thought-leadership, and contributing to the committee’s overall governance. We also thank the wider CSPC community, its advisors, senior leadership, CEO, administrative and program staff for their support. Finally, and most importantly, we would like to thank our authors for their time and dedication in writing for us. We especially appreciate their patience and engagement during the review process. It is their enthusiasm and generosity that makes the CSPC magazine what it is year after year: an enjoyable, intellectually stimulating, and thought-provoking read.

We hope that you enjoy this collection of editorials, and we thank you for your partnership in cultivating and growing the science policy ecosystem in Canada!

Editorials

CSPC aims to promote the voice of the Canadian public, calling for members of the science and policy communities to publish their thoughts on pertinent issues with us. The Editorial Committee is in charge of both the annual magazine that you are reading as well as publishing editorials on relevant issues. In 2024, we featured a successful Summer Editorial Series with two themes: Net Zero and Brain Health.

In addition, we released a special issue magazine on the National Conversation on Canada’s Innovation Strategy. Themes were considered containing drivers such as relevance to Canadian and global policies, drivers of science policy and decision making, emerging topics of importance, innovation and funding, grand challenges affecting the planet, among other subjects.

Editorials on issues of interest are published year-round, through open calls or individual submissions, and available at sciencepolicy.ca/editorials. Feel free to review editorials published and topics discussed over the past few years.

If you have an opinion or insight which you feel the CSPC community should hear, and is of potential importance to shaping Canada’s science policy ecosystem, we welcome submissions at any time — you are welcome to submit either general editorials or theme-specific editorials!