Since its establishment in 1916, Canada’s largest research and technology organization, the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), has supported business innovation and the advancement of science and technology.
According to NRC Vice-President of Engineering Dr. Jean-François Houle, the organization continues to fulfill its mandate through the network of specialized facilities it operates across Canada, its pursuit of research excellence, and its Industrial Research Assistance Program, which is now 76 years old and supports innovative Canadian small- and midsize enterprises (SMEs) to increase their innovation capacity and take ideas to market.
Houle also emphasized that the NRC pursues its objectives by working with international partners bilaterally and multilaterally, including through such frameworks as the RD20 initiative.

Support for business innovation at home

The NRC operates 126 major research and development facilities at sites across Canada, says Houle, which are grouped into 12 research centers that focus on specific sectors, ranging from advanced manufacturing and clean technologies to energy and natural resources, health and biosciences, and transportation, among others. Houle explains that all told, these research centers have more than 2,000 scientists, engineers and other technical specialists on staff to assist businesses hoping to take advantage of their research infrastructure.
In addition, the NRC conducts research and development in support of business innovation, particularly among SMEs. The NRC Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC IRAP) is geared toward supporting SMEs with advice and funding to develop and commercialize their technologies. According to Houle, the program has aided over 9,000 SMEs on average annually in recent years, including funding in the neighborhood of $500 million Canadian dollars distributed to more than 3,000 businesses.
These facilities and programs help to drive innovation in a variety of ways, says Houle. In the clean energy field, he cites the example of an SME called Pulsenics, a Canadian technology company focused on improving green hydrogen production that collaborated with German and Canadian innovators to develop its next-generation product. The company turned to the NRC and NRC IRAP for support. In addition to receiving funding through NRC IRAP, Pulsenics worked with the NRC’s Clean Energy Innovation Research Centre for help testing in real-world conditions, to make electrolyzers more efficient and scalable and to help pave the way for a sustainable hydrogen economy in Canada and beyond.

The NRC’s ongoing support for business innovation was reinforced in 2024 with the release of the National Research Council Strategic Plan 2024-2029, says Houle. The plan focuses on four overlapping research and innovation priorities: climate change and sustainability, health and biomanufacturing, digital and quantum technologies and foundational research.
In a statement accompanying the plan, NRC President Mitch Davies likewise stressed the role of NRC IRAP in supporting innovation among Canadian SMEs, with the goal of helping Canadian businesses to become “industry leaders and make an impact on domestic and global markets.”

Collaborations with international partners

In addition to its domestic concerns, the NRC is quite active on the international front, says Houle. It engages in a range of bilateral and multilateral collaborations, including the RD20 initiative. The NRC looks for complementarities with its partners, he says, explaining, “We partner with like-minded individuals and organizations to help develop novel technologies and solutions.”
The NRC has an office in Tokyo and has collaborated with several Japanese research organizations, such as the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology (AIST), RIKEN, the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), and the National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT), among others.
One example of a joint call for proposals, he says, is the work the NRC is doing with the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) whereby consortia composed of at least five partners collaborate. They work on collaborative research projects under the theme of artificial intelligence-based solutions for well-being, better living environments and social connection for aging populations. The hope, he says, is to develop assistive technologies so people can maintain their health and independence, live longer and remain productive. “We are trying to successfully age, if that’s possible,” he explains.
The NRC has also developed a number of consortia calls for proposals with research and funding organizations in Germany and the United Kingdom, Houle says. In the case of Germany, these have focused on areas such as AI solutions for industrial production and on the pursuit of low-carbon hydrogen technologies. Meanwhile, collaborations involving the U.K. have covered advanced manufacturing and the wielding of AI machine-learning technologies to speed up manufacturing. NRC IRAP has also facilitated collaborations between Canada and other nations, such as SMEs involved in biomanufacturing and quantum and clean technology, adds Houle.
Including the RD20 initiative, the NRC is involved with several multilateral fora, says Houle. One such grouping is Eureka. Dubbed the world’s largest international network for industrial research and development collaboration, it includes over 45 economies from around the world. Canada joined as an associate member in 2012, became a full member in 2022, and co-chaired the network with Germany during 2024-2025. Touting the network’s benefits, the NRC says that Eureka participants get access to the support and services needed to help them collaborate and grow beyond Canada’s borders.

Clean energy and RD20

It is the benefits of such networking possibilities that make the RD20 initiative very attractive to the NRC and Canada, says Houle. As already noted, one of the NRC’s research centers is dedicated to the issue of clean energy. The RD20 initiative provides NRC researchers with the opportunity to learn about approaches and technologies that are applied in other countries.
“Some of them are very regional. It [has been] a fantastic place to learn about how people dealt with their regional constraints or approaches. Even life-cycle analysis and technical-economic analysis are very highly dependent on the region where you live and what you have available. We’ve learned so much about that,” he says.
Furthermore, Houle adds, learning where other researchers have been focusing their attention has helped to discover what approaches might be more impactful for developing Canada’s own clean technologies. Stressing Canada’s relatively smaller population — approximately 41.5 million people as of mid-2025, according to Canadian government statistics — Houle says simply, “We need to collaborate.”
He adds: “There is definitely something fantastic about collaborating with different people globally. To see ourselves as part of these global value chains where everybody brings their specific expertise. That gives rise to prosperity, and to a sustainable world. For us, that’s one of the major drivers for collaborating in these types of large multilateral fora. It’s really the exchange of people.”
Houle will himself be taking a more noticeable role at this year’s RD20 conference, as he will be delivering a keynote address in the technical session plenary. And NRC researchers will be presenting research innovations supporting Canada’s energy future in the technical sessions.
In his talk, he suggests that he will highlight how, on the one hand, Canada has its own unique needs because of its geography and resources. However, by the same token, some of the technologies that have been developed in Canada to address those needs nonetheless can have spinoff effects with applications to address the needs of other countries.
“I always like to highlight our collaborative spirit because of the small size of Canada’s economy. We do have very pointed and focused expertise in certain areas, but we are definitely looking for collaboration,” Houle says.
“We’re engineering solutions for everyday life, and hopefully they’ll be impactful by making the world a better place. It’s really what we’re trying to do.”