ABOUT
Our Vision
Based on decades of research and expertise in science and research translation from university and industry labs, invention to Innovation (i2I) programming was created to unlock the entrepreneurial mindset and build innovation skills in the variety of individuals and systems required to move Canada’s innovation ecosystem forward and increase our national innovation capacity.
Our Approach
There is no single path that will transform Canada’s innovation capacity. Ensuring world-class research is translated into social and economic impact requires translational scientists to be ready to match their research to emerging needs; spinning-off growing science-based companies requires scientist-entrepreneurs to be strategic and visionary before and while founding companies; and growing those companies or innovative capacity in existing organizations to scale and reach back into the lab requires innovation champions with entrepreneurial mindset and research skills.
i2I embraces three equally important and interconnected roles in the innovation ecosystem.
Innovation Champion
Translational Scientist
Scientist-Entrepreneur
Increasing science-based innovation in Industry
- Ensuring rewarding careers for researchers, including new product development, business development, leadership, and more
- Creating bridges back to novel university inventions
- Increasing Canadian industry’s capacity to absorb new science and technology
Increasing translational of research into impact
- Increasing success in winning translational grants to fund meaningful research
- Creating well-funded, more strategic academic labs
- Ensuring better training for researcher personnel
- Increasing ability to match research with emerging market and societal needs
Founding “well-endowed” science based spinoffs
- Creating ventures with strong strategic and team foundations
- Enhancing regional and national societal and economic value
- Creating good paying local jobs for highly trained personnel
- Strong links back to the university and research system
Our History
Founded in 2015 at Simon Fraser University’s Beedie School of Business, the invention to Innovation (i2I) graduate certificate was created in recognition that over 80% of university PhD and post-doc students will not become tenured professors, but with the right training, these talented researchers could catalyze their own careers and the translation of Canada’s world class research into impact. Uniquely, the i2I program has always embraced skills and mindset development as primary goals, with career transitions to industry, culture change and improved transitions in university labs, and/or creation of science-based ventures as complementary and equally important goals.
In 2019, SFU Beedie partnered with Mitacs to create the Mitacs i2I Skills Training as an asynchronous program available across Canada, a training program that still ladders into the SFU Graduate Certificate in Science and Technology Commercialization. The program has continued to expand in partnership with other leading Canadian Innovation Universities. In 2020, in collaboration with Queens University, the i2I Eastern Cohort was launched, and in 2021, the Mitacs i2I Atlantic cohort was launched in partnership with Dalhousie and Memorial Universities. Continuing its national expansion, in Spring 2023, the first national cohort of the i2I Graduate Certificate was launched with participants from coast to coast, and a French-language cohort is being launched in Fall 2023.
i2I’s programming continues to grow across Canada in co-creation with our regional delivery partners, funders and ecosystem partners, focusing on building the skills, mindset and networks required to expand Canada’s innovation capacity.