The National Research Council in the innovation policy era: changing hierarchies, networks, and markets

Abstract

In this first in-depth examination of the governance of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) in over twenty-five years, G. Bruce Doern and Richard Levesque show how the agency's history is interwoven with the evolution of Canada's economic and industrial development and with the fostering of science at Canada's universities, in industry, and within the federal government. Using a policy and institutional approach, the authors demonstrate the ways in which the NRC has had to simultaneously absorb significant budgetary and personnel cuts and become, in its own structure and operations, an innovating institution that helps support and facilitate an innovating Canadian economy - one increasingly characterized by knowledge-based industries. By reconfiguring itself in terms of its institutional mix of hierarchies, networks, and markets, the NRC has had to confront and change its own traditions, yet maintain itself as a complex government agency that still values research for its own sake as a public good.