Canada plans to spend $1.36 billion over 10 years to support fuel the Canada First Research Excellence Fund, but the details on how the fund will operate are a bit fuzzy, Science Insider reports.
Canada's Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced the plan this week as part of 2014-2015 fiscal plan. The initiative will start slowly, providing an initial tranche of $45 million, but that will increase each year until it reaches $182 million in fiscal year 2018-2019.
Science Insider's Wayne Kondro writes that the fund resembles a proposal last fall that would provide money to improve partnerships between industry clusters and universities, but he said finance officials say it is too soon to say if the program will emphasize commercialization.
"For now, all that’s been established is that the new fund will involve peer-reviewed competitions; that it will be administered by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council… and that there will be a prohibition on using the monies for capital investments…," Kondro notes.