IMPACT OF PUBLICLY FUNDED RESEARCH ON THE CANADIAN TERRITORIAL ECONOMIES

In 1998 it was recommended by the Canadian Task Force on Northern Research that action must be taken to monitor, manage, and safeguard the northern environment and respond to emerging social issues in the North. Since these recommendations were made, considerable financial contributions have been made by Canada for its northern and arctic research activities. Although northern research is necessary to monitor changes occurring in Canada’s north, northern research has had other ‘spillover’ effects on local and territorial economies. This study evaluated the economic contribution of publicly funded research in Canada’s territorial economies between 2000 and 2009 using Statistics Canada input-output multipliers. By using these multipliers the economic impacts of research expenditures in the North on output (sales), GDP, income and employment were determined for Nunavut, Yukon and Northwest Territories. Through this research it was determined that territorial publicly funded northern research expenditures has increased substantially causing millions of dollars in economic impacts within the territories. It was estimated that 65% of the impacts occurred between 2007 and 2009. Although the public research sector has grown considerably, in the context of the entire territorial economies, it was estimated that during 2007 northern research impacted the territorial GDP by only 0.04%, income by 0.09% and employment by 0.11%. Thus viewing the impacts of publicly funded northern research on a territorial level it appears that the economic contribution is minimal. Although the territories-level benefit is small, more significant impacts may be realized within communities. For example, the money spent locally on lodging, subsistence, the hiring research assistants, paying for translation services, providing compensation for research involvement, and other associated costs may have a substantial effect on those northern comunities where the research activity is conducted, as they otherwise have limited wage earning or revenue generating opportunities. Overall, this research provides the first economic evaluation of northern research treating the research expenditures as an economic activity or ‘sector’. Through this research an evaluative framework has also been developed that will enable the northern research institutes to monitor and assess the economic benefits of northern research at the territorial level in the future