Research & Development

Quebec’s R&D fiscal assistance system is one of the most attractive in the world. The net cost of a $100 R&D expenditure can be as low as $49 for large corporations, thanks to refundable tax credits. Given its favourable fiscal environment, along with the competitive salary situation and low turnover of research specialists, the Quebec region and its pool of research specialists offer a particularly favourable research environment.

• R&D spending is almost 2% of GDP
  (higher than EU standards)
• Corporate research in Quebec is growing fast with an annual growth rate of 10%.
• Thanks to the most advantageous tax environment in North America for R&D, companies here are better able to explore and enter new markets.

Other factors are also at play:

• our highly-skilled, multilingual and very stable workforce;
• the presence of world-renowned research centres;
• access to the highest concentration of venture capital in Canada.

The followings are a few examples of research labs that involve both universities and private partners:

• Canadian Institute for Telecommunications Research (CITR)
• Centre de Recherche en Informatique de Montréal (CRIM, an IT research centre)
• UNESCO-Bell Chair on Communications and International Development
• NSERC/IDACOM/CITI Chair for Industrial Research on Communications Protocols

Institut de recherche d'Hydro-Québec (Varennes) works on photonics-related projects to develop measurement and testing instrumentation to be used for monitoring and maintaining its electrical network.