Canadian industrial research and development organizations

Expenditures by Canadian corporations on research and development accounted for about 50% of all spending on scientific research and development in Canada in 2007.

In the corporate sector research and development tends to focus on the creation or invention of new products and services or more commonly the incremental improvement of existing products and services. A good example of the former would be the invention of the BlackBerry, by the Waterloo, Ontario-based company, Research in Motion, while an example of the latter would be the development of a new class of aircraft, the regional jet by Bombardier Aerospace of Montreal, Quebec.

It is rare for corporations to undertake what might be considered "pure" scientific research. In almost all cases the corporate bottom line is a paramount consideration and the payoff for such activity is not usually immediately evident. However it is true that there are times when the difference between the two is not at all clear, as was the case for example, with atomic research at Chalk River, Ontario, during World War II and in the post war years, which led to the development of the CANDU power reactor. More recently, research in the field of nanotechnology blurs the distinction as well. Is investigation into the principles of the manipulation of atoms science or engineering?

In 2006 total spending on scientific and industrial research in Canada amounted to C$28.067 billion or about 2 percent of GDP. In 2006 Canadian corporations spent C$14.858 billion on research and development, representing about half of all R&D spending in Canada and about one percent of Canada's GDP.

In 2007 Canadian corporations spent C$15.773 billion on research and development, again representing about half of all R&D expenditures in Canada and an amount equal to about one percent of the GDP.

Below is a list of the largest corporate R&D spenders in Canada ranked by size. Also described are sectorial R&D expenditures for the fiscal year 2006. A section that lists some important government R&D funding agencies is also included.