Mark Freel Receives a Grant from SSHRC

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) awarded $88,919 to Associate Professor Mark Freel’s research project entitled Complexity, Novelty and Innovation Networking in Small Firms.

Over the last twenty years, network based models of innovation-led economic development have grown increasingly popular to both the policy and the academy. In most OECD countries, public authorities tend to favor policies that encourage inter-firm cooperation, rather than provide direct financial assistance to individual firms. By elaborating the relationship between networking and innovation, the objectives of the research are to provide guidance to Canadian policymakers and small firms, and to contribute to ongoing debates and discussions further afield.