Ontario funding to encourage commercialization of research

Toronto, ON – May 19, 2004 – The Ontario government’s new budget, announced yesterday, includes some initiatives to fund costs associated with bringing scientific discoveries from publicly funded research institutions to market. The initiatives include:

– providing $27 million through the Ontario Research Commercialization Program to help universities, colleges and hospitals identify discoveries with commercial potential; and

– providing up to $36 million through the Ontario Commercialization Investment Funds program to help these institutions establish pools of seed capital to commercialize promising technology.