Taking our Industry to the Next Level: Measuring The Economic Impact of Business Incubated Firms in Canada
The Federal Government has committed, as a priority, to create a supportive environment for businesses to thrive in order to give Canada an “Entrepreneurial Advantage” over competitors. We know that business incubators are catalysts in the Canadian economy that help their clients contribute to this economic development priority. Incubation programs help people acquire entrepreneurial skills, assist companies in translating knowledge into practical applications, create jobs, and promote company development. Our challenge, as an industry, is to provide strong evidence of these contributions and showcase them to all levels of Canadian government as well as to the larger community. The goal is to create visibility for these contributions that our industry is making and garner support, from all of our stakeholders, to further develop our industry, to take it to the next level of impact on Canadian communities, entrepreneurs, workers, and the economy.
To gather evidence of the economic contributions that the business incubation industry is making, CABI is undertaking a research project with Statistics Canada, and possibly other partners. The study will measure the economic impact of incubated companies. But in order to do this, we require that all business incubators participate by:
- Listing all of their past and present incubated clients, over the period from 2001 to 2008, on our very short survey. Please click here to download. Please also include companies that did not complete the incubation process, failed or ceased to operate.
- Reviewing CABI’s list of Business Incubator, Accelerator, and Innovation Centres. Please identify any omissions or errors on this list so that we can ensure that we have an accurate list of Incubation Programs in Canada.
- Completing this survey by January 15th, 2009 please. Return this survey to us by E-mail to: [email protected] or via Fax: 416-345.9044.
From this list, Statistics Canada can generate aggregated statistics for the population of incubated companies, including: growth in sales, growth in profits, jobs created, and research and development expenditures. These statistics can be compared to similar non-incubated companies to estimate the economic value that the business incubation industry brings to the Canadian economy.
The private information provided by business incubators will be treated as strictly confidential. It will only be used by CABI and researchers directly associated with this project, such as Statistics Canada researchers, to estimate the impact of business incubation. Only aggregated industry data will be publicly released.
If you should have any questions regarding this survey, please contact CABI at [email protected] or call 416.345.9937.