Open Science as a Catalyst for Canada’s Innovation Strategy

From new medicines to better software and smarter factories, ideas drive progress. In fact, research shows that roughly half of US economic growth has come from innovation in inventions, software, designs, organisational improvement, and more. But innovation is slowing down, not because we’ve run out of ideas, but because too many are locked away in silos. The future of science and technology depends on breaking down those silos. In an era when collaboration is often constrained by politics and borders, Canada has an opportunity to lead by example by promoting and sharing with the world its expertise and experience with open science.

Economist Joel Mokyr won a 2025 Nobel Memorial Prize for observing that the Industrial Revolution wasn’t driven by individual genius or luck, but by the emergence of a culture of open exchange. A community of inventors and thinkers started sharing their ideas freely, creating what he calls a “market for knowledge. That culture of openness not only drove the breakthroughs of the 18th and 19th centuries, it also set the pattern for how progress happens today. From the early days of modern medicine to the invention of the Internet, innovation has always accelerated when people share and build upon each other’s ideas.

Open sharing has never been more essential than in the age of AI.Training and validating AI models to tackle our health, engineering, environmental, and industrial problems, depends on access to high-quality data – lots and lots of it. No single company or country can generate that data alone, and those at the heart of AI development agree that the only way to build it is through collaboration and open sharing. The very same elements that powered innovation during the Industrial Revolution are needed to drive progress today.

Canada already leads in open science through world-renowned initiatives. It is home to the largest open science collaborations in the world: the Toronto labs of the Structural Genomics Consortium, the Montreal Neurological Institute and Hospital, the Tanenbaum Open Science Institute (TOSI), and Conscience. Together, these efforts funnel hundreds of millions of dollars into open research and innovation, not just in academia, but to Canadian firms and start-ups applying knowledge to real-world innovation. Conscience offers financial support to Canadian AI companies and SMEs working in drug development while TOSI funds eight research centres that have embraced open science practices. By connecting researchers, companies, and funding, Canada is creating an ecosystem where ideas can travel and grow, strengthening both science and the economy.

Given the country’s size, Canada cannot go it alone in science and innovation. However, it has critical advantages that give it global influence. As the US decreases health research (which is expected to substantially decrease the number of new medicines in the future), makes immigration more difficult, and abandons diversity efforts (leading to a further decline in innovation), Canada remains open, diverse, and internationally trusted. Its leadership in open science, AI, and quantum computing, combined with  its history of embracing immigrants and multilateral diplomacy, positions Canada to become a model of how to navigate the changing global environment.

In spite of its leadership in open science and innovation, it’s true that Canada’s productivity has been slipping, and business investment in research and development lags behind other OECD countries. This is all the more reason for Canada to do something different, drawing on its strengths, rather than repeating strategies that haven’t worked. While open science won’t solve every challenge that Canada faces – from technology adoption, reliance on the US and on natural resources, to the need for tax policies that help SMEs innovate – it is part of a solution that Canada can offer the world.

By embracing open science, Canada can do more than strengthen its own research: it can build international partnerships at a time when diversifying economic partners is critical. Canada has already taken steps by adopting policies to support open science, such as the Tri-Agency Open Access Policy on Publications (2025), and Canada’s endorsement of UNESCO’s Recommendation on Open Science and commitment to the Open Science Action Plan 2021–2026, but words alone are not enough. To fully realize the benefits of openness, Canada needs more targeted funding and tailored, results-oriented incentives that encourage collaboration across institutions and borders.

Through the Strategic Response Fund, Canada is already funding initiatives like Conscience, which focuses on collaborative drug development. In this context, policymakers could explore approaches that link funding, intellectual property, and transparency to tangible outcomes. One option is to extend certain exclusivities over drugs by four years if a firm agrees to openly share its research results and adopt intellectual property practices that would accelerate advancements across the board.

The results of these types of policies would go beyond accelerated drug discovery and health innovation. Open sharing of data and tools would also create a stronger innovation ecosystem, lowering barriers to entry for startups and researchers and enabling new ideas to flourish. On the global stage, this approach would enhance Canada’s visibility and influence as a hub for collaborative science.

To reap these benefits, Canada must act now. The ongoing efforts to develop policy to spur AI and quantum innovation present an opportunity to integrate open science into Canada’s innovation strategy. Bringing these ideas to international forums such as the G7, G20, and OECD (where Conscience will be steering discussions in April 2026) will enable Canada to play a leadership role at a time when other countries, including the US, are withdrawing. 

The world has lost its focus on the key ingredient that has spurred economic growth for two centuries: sharing and building upon ideas. Canada has the opportunity to lead by example by adopting a more  flexible and forward-looking innovation model – one that embraces open science to unlock new discoveries, fuel innovation, and strengthen global collaboration.