Alberta gets 'C' grade on Conference Board of Canada innovation report card

Alberta leads the country when it comes to entrepreneurial ambition, but the Conference Board of Canada's first innovation report only gives the province a "C"grade overall.

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With almost 20 per cent of residents reporting some kind of "early-stage entrepreneurial activity,"the province gets an "A+"for that aspect of innovation.

"It also earns an 'A'and ranks first among the provinces for enterprise entries, reinforcing perceptions of Alberta as a province of self-starting entrepreneurs," the board says in its report.

But Alberta's score was dragged down by "C"grades on investment in information and computer technology (ICT) and "D" grades for venture capital investments, new patents and public research and development.

Alberta also gets a "D-"gradefor the number of researchers andamount of private-sector R&Din the province.

"With public R&D of only 0.47 per cent of GDP, Alberta ranks 25th among the 26 jurisdictions, ahead of only Ireland," the report says.

Overall, the report puts Alberta 15thamong 26 jurisdictions the 10 provinces plus 16 advanced countries.

But Sharon McIntyre, who works fora Calgary-based innovation software company,says the study doesn't accurately consider small businesses apart from the oil and gas sector.

"We've a very rich ecosystem here," she said. "While it's true many of our large oil and gas companies don't tend to radically innovate from within, they buy smaller companies.Well who's measuring those smaller companies that are doing the outlierradical innovation?Not the Conference Board of Canada."

Alberta was outscored by Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and sits below the national average, the board says.