Mission

TRRA's mandate is to help mobilize the Toronto Region to promote its extraordinary strengths and to compete more effectively in the international research and development (R&D) marketplace. TRRA works with regional partners to:

• Attract new innovative research-intensive companies and to expand those already here; and
• Strengthen the Toronto Region's public and private capacity for research, development and innovation

 
A neutral convener, catalyst and advocate on issues and opportunities related to our R&D mission, we help forge a regional consensus on strategic priorities. In addition to our significant sales activities, we deliver informed analysis, promote cross-sectoral dialogue, increase awareness and facilitate coordinated action.

Our activities are focused in four priority sectors where the Toronto Region possesses impressive competitive advantages:

• Advanced manufacturing including materials science
• Bio life sciences
• Energy & Environment
• InformationTechnology/Communications

 
Our Opportunity

Highly-successful economic regions around the world are characterized by innovative industry clusters that produce high-quality jobs and superior productivity and rates of business formation. They are typically driven by powerful collaborations of government, business, and academic institutions working across a variety of research-intensive sectors and disciplines. Metropolitan areas worldwide have been rapidly mobilizing to foster greater innovation and cluster development, investing significant resources to build their R&D capacity and aggressively compete for international research-driven companies and investment.

The potential of the Toronto Region in this highly competitive global environment is extraordinary:

• The most diversified economy and most highly-educated workforce in North America.
• Unparalleled access to North American markets, with 400 million people accessible through NAFTA and an exceptional transportation and communications infrastructure.
• The third-largest information and communications technology (ICT) cluster and third-largest biomedical and biotechnology cluster in North America.
• The highest concentration of post-secondary institutions in Canada, with an R&D infrastructure that attracts the best and the brightest researchers from around the globe.
• The most multicultural urban region in the world -celebrating more than 100 different languages and dialects.
  

 
The future prosperity of the Toronto Region - and indeed Ontario and Canada - depends on our ability to sustain and enhance this extraordinary capacity and capitalize on the results of research to create new businesses, strengthen existing business and attract research-intensive companies to the region.

Our Goals

The Toronto Region Research Alliance is committed to working collaboratively with partners in industry, research institutions and government to realize the following goals:

1.  Attract more R&D investment and research-intensive industry to the region

• Build a comprehensive, web-based Toronto Region R&D fact base to support marketing efforts and benchmark progress
• Compile a comprehensive picture of the key location drivers for our target sectors and identify the region's corresponding selling features for each sector.
• Help develop and aggressively market the Toronto Region R&D story.
• Marshal business, institutional and government leaders to help promote the region's R&D capacity across the world.
• Attract two to four major new research-intensive industrial facilities within three years.
• Significantly expand the R&D facilities of two to four major existing companies within three years

 
2.  Build research capacity

• Act as a focused voice for the region's research community to help shape and respond to federal and provincial government science and technology initiatives.
• Assist in building industry/research institution R&D partnerships.
• Release an annual report on the region's innovation performance.
• Significantly increase the region's share of public research investment.

 
3.  Promote the importance of research and innovation to future prosperity

• Work with our stakeholders to develop communication strategies to increase public awareness of the region's research strengths and the importance of research and innovation to our future prosperity.
  
  

What's New

TRRA CEO Courtney Pratt participates in Canadian Business Thought Leadership Round Table Series - Sustaining Manufacturing in Canada: What Will It Take? More