Reports & Briefings

Canada should significantly expand commercialization-focused grant programs through the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and increase Canada’s overall health science research investments to a scale commensurate with global competition.

Canada funds university research but gives universities too little reason to turn that into Canadian firms, patents, and industrial capacity. To better align their incentives with national goals, funding should flow in part on standardized commercialization outcomes, with universities left to decide how to deliver them.

The USMCA is the operating system for North American production, investment, talent, and digital commerce. Canada, Mexico, and the United States should renew the agreement and explore ways to update it to preserve certainty, deepen regional supply chains and innovation capabilities, and strengthen the continent’s ability to compete with China.

Technology exists, and policy instruments are available, to develop a new, state-led model of water governance for data centers and other large industrial users. What’s missing is institutional coordination, regulatory specificity, and a set of standardized mechanisms and metrics.

China has become an increasingly capable competitor in the global biopharmaceutical industry. To remain competitive, the United States should double down on policies to ensure that it offers the world’s leading environment to support private sector life sciences innovation.

The Trump administration has imposed tariffs on semiconductor imports on national security grounds under Section 232 of the Trade Expansion Act. These tariffs would raise ICT prices and thereby lower ICT consumption and capital stocks, which would reduce economic growth and lower Americans’ living standards.

Manufacturing start-ups, particularly in critical national economic power industries, are essential to the nation’s economic and security strength. Yet, U.S. manufacturing start-ups have declined over the last three decades.

Increased federal funding for STEM research is necessary but not sufficient for America to avoid losing to China. It’s also time for a new model for federal research funding that focuses on the technology needs of national power industries and directly benefits firms in the United States.

Boeing and Airbus have long dominated the global commercial aircraft industry in production and innovation. But the rise of COMAC—China’s government-created, mercantilist-fueled national champion—threatens the foundations of market-based commercial aviation.

The EU has an array of discriminatory policies that target major U.S. tech firms, a legitimate basis for action under Section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. U.S. policymakers should favor amicably negotiated solutions, but this tool is available as a last resort if necessary.