Excerpt from an article written by Eric Bosco, chief business development officer at Mitacs, a national, not-for-profit organization that connects top-level research with private-sector needs. The full version appears on The Globe and Mail.

After attending the recent Science Technology for Society (STS) forum in Kyoto, Japan, it was clear to me that Canada is poised to teach the world a thing or two about partnerships. While other countries are finding the effort frustrating and, for the most part, are failing to yield the fruit of their collaboration attempts, Canada already has a proven recipe for success. In fact, judging from the session, “Collaboration among Academia, Industries and Government,” we are way ahead of other countries when it comes to forging these alliances.

For example, our group discussed the need to create online databases – a one-stop match-making service, so to speak, where businesses can connect with academic researchers and vice versa. In Canada, thanks in large part to the efforts of Mitacs – a national, not-for-profit organization that connects top-level research with private-sector needs – we have a successful ‘boots on the ground’ model that is far more effective than a database-only approach.