Innovation Trends Reports
Explore how innovation is taking shape across Canada’s provinces and regions. This two-part series includes provincial dashboards and quarterly regional deep dives, offering insights into the strengths, gaps, and emerging trends in innovation ecosystems. Drawing on a broad set of indicators, these reports are designed to help policy-makers and analysts understand the evolving landscape of innovation performance.
Page updated: September 4, 2025
Provincial Dashboard
Provincial Innovation Dashboard
Ontario consistently led innovation performance in the last five years (2020–24), followed by Quebec and Nova Scotia, which demonstrated solid performance despite some fluctuations. New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island trail behind, and British Columbia’s ranking slipped from third to fourth position in 2022. Closing the innovation gap will require intensified efforts to foster innovation ecosystems, especially in underperforming provinces.
September 4, 2025 • Online experience • 8-min read
Regional Releases
More planned research is upcoming.
About the Series
The only report in Canada examining provincial and regional innovation economies .
Innovation Trends Reports is a two-part research series that explores innovation performance at the provincial and regional levels to better understand how effectively these jurisdictions are building a competitive advantage. This research highlights key strengths, identifies gaps, and uncovers the trends shaping Canada’s innovation landscape.
Use these reports to inform investment decisions, shape innovation strategies, and guide policy interventions that support long-term provincial economic competitiveness.
Provincial Innovation Dashboard (PID)
Get data and analysis on each province’s innovation performance over the past five years. The dashboard includes provincial rankings, key findings, charts highlighting geographic differences, and recommendations for strengthening innovation outcomes.
PID’s comprehensive framework tracks key indicators across three interconnected pillars that capture the full innovation ecosystem:
- capacity—foundational resources for talent development, knowledge creation, and entrepreneurship
- results—tangible outcomes that boost productivity and market competitiveness
- activity—investments and initiatives that turn ideas into real-world applications
Regional Innovation Spotlights (RIS)
Spotlights on Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, and Western Canada examine each region in detail and compare its performance against national benchmarks, offering actionable insights into strengths, gaps, and emerging trends. RISs dig deeper by focusing on organization-level statistics, including R&D expenditures and research personnel at businesses and universities. They also disaggregate innovation funding into specific sectors and analyze the composition of exports to provide a more granular view of regional innovation dynamics.
The Innovation Trends series has been produced since September 2025.
Methodology
Our Innovation Trends Reports deliver a clear, evidence-based view of Canada’s sub-national innovation performance through two complementary inFact products: Provincial Innovation Dashboards (PID) and Regional Innovation Spotlights (RIS).
PID provides a holistic assessment of each province’s innovation ecosystem using a rigorous three-pillar framework that captures capacity, activity, and results. It reveals the foundational resources for talent and knowledge creation, the investments and entrepreneurial efforts that transform ideas into market-ready solutions, and the tangible outcomes that drive productivity and global competitiveness. This approach enables provinces to identify strengths, gaps, and priority areas for targeted strategies that foster long-term economic growth.
Building on these insights, RIS offers a deeper, ecosystem-focused analysis of four major economic regions (Atlantic Canada, Western Canada, Ontario, and Quebec), examining critical drivers such as R&D activity, technology adoption, innovation financing, and high-tech exports.
Both PID and RIS analyze historical performance alongside a current-year snapshot, offering a dynamic perspective on progress and emerging trends. Together, these products empower decision-makers with timely, usable intelligence to help them craft resilient, long-term strategies in an increasingly knowledge-driven economy.
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Questions?
If you have any questions about the Innovation Trends series, or about becoming a subscriber, please contact us.