Innovation Projects Map

Work-integrated learning can be effective in developing technical and soft skills among learners at different levels, including in high schools, colleges and universities and in professional roles.

Labour market information (LMI) is a key pillar of a well-functioning workforce development system, yet considerable gaps remain in the generation, dissemination and uptake of skills-related LMI in Canada.

The Career Development Professional Centre (the Centre) is a pan-Canadian initiative designed to enhance the capacity, professional identity and impact of career development professionals (CDPs).

Microcredentials have attracted significant attention and promotion, particularly from post-secondary institutions. Recently, existing dialogue has accelerated about how to better align educational offerings with industry needs.

Blueprint created the Practitioner Data Initiative (PDI), a pan-Canadian project that responds to data challenges nonprofits face.

This project set in motion a series of initiatives aimed to generate the necessary insights and evidence required to develop a national workforce strategy for the Canadian agriculture and agri-food sector.

The Study Buddy program connected families, children in grades K–12 and teacher candidates. It had three objectives: skills development among children and youth, particularly Black, Indigenous, racialized and newcomer populations; skills development among post-secondary students (tutors); and (3) skills and capacity development among parents and guardians.

Women in Communications and Technology (WCT), in collaboration with the Future Skills Centre and the Diversity Institute, implemented the Roberta Bondar STEM Career Development Program and, more recently, the Opening Doors program. These initiatives aim to equip women with the necessary skills, mentorship and networking opportunities to succeed in leadership roles.

Indigenous tourism is particularly crucial for Northern Canada, where it provides economic benefits and fosters community development, wellness, cultural learning and environmental stewardship.

The study underscored the importance of fostering a supportive learning culture for successful digital transformation. It highlighted the need for school leaders to mediate effectively between governmental policies and practical applications within schools.

The project, a follow-up to a previous collaboration between Future Skills Centre (FSC) and the Work-Based Learning Consortium (WBLC), focused on improving the effectiveness and efficiency of upskilling in several streams of work. 

The “Mind Your Health” project, initiated by Not 9 to 5 in Canada, addressed the acute mental health crisis in the hospitality sector.

To stem the recent downturn in labour market conditions of youth and to lay the groundwork for them to play a pivotal role in fostering growth and inclusion, it is imperative to address and dismantle the multiple and intersectional barriers they encounter.

Research shows that women and racialized entrepreneurs are often disadvantaged from a network perspective, underlining the need to foster a more inclusive entrepreneurial ecosystem that includes mentoring.

The overarching goal of this program is to empower Black entrepreneurs across Canada through comprehensive skills building, mentorship and networking opportunities designed to address the needs of these entrepreneurs at different stages of their journeys, including ideation, validation and scaling up.

Led by BioTalent Canada, the project “Building Resiliency and Sustainability for the Bio-economy to Withstand Disruption” tackled pressing issues faced by the Canadian bio-economy during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This project reviewed the management literature on the digital economy to better understand what knowledge and skills managers need to bring about a more equitable version of the digital economy, and how managers could learn these critical skills.

This project aimed to enhance digital fluency among under-represented groups, including youth, newcomers, racialized individuals and people with essential skills gaps.

This project focused on the challenges and necessary competencies for effective interprofessional collaboration in virtual care settings, which were highlighted by the rapid shift to virtual health care during the COVID-19 pandemic.

This paper synthesizes and identifies the gaps in the research on online experiential education.

Youth mental health is closely tied to young Canadians’ economic participation. Not only do mental health challenges act as a barrier to entering the labour market and pursuing educational credentials, but youth who are not in employment, education or training (NEET) are at greater risk for declines in mental health.

Green-related skills and knowledge are growing in significance and are becoming widespread across many sectors and occupations, requiring more workers to upskill by building upon their existing competencies. 

Canada boasts the world’s largest coastline; however, its ocean-related industries contribute only 1% to the GDP, significantly trailing behind other nations. This project identified a pressing need for specialized training in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) to bridge the skills gap in ocean-related occupations in the sustainable blue economy (SBE), including marine transport and ocean technology.

The Canadian aviation and aerospace industry currently faces challenges recruiting, training and retaining a qualified workforce. To address this issue, the Canadian Council for Aviation and Aerospace (CCAA) developed and tested a digital learning resource and a stackable micro-credential framework.

The persistence of labour and skill shortages within the trades is exacerbated by challenges with on-the-job training and skills recognition. The prevailing methods to document and formally recognize the skills that apprentices acquire through workplace learning are outdated.

Key Insights Industry-specific, employer-driven initiatives have been successful in accelerating and enhancing the employment prospects of newcomers. The collaborative approach of engaging with employers directly…

Indigenous Works, a national Indigenous not-for-profit organization, developed the Luminary Research and Innovation Project to enhance innovation in Indigenous business environments, with the knowledge that more Indigenous-led research is needed to catalyze innovation and community well-being. 

This project equipped top executives and C-suite innovation leaders to champion EDI (equity, diversity and inclusion), as it is a key enabler of organizational innovation, growth and global competitiveness.

This project was a short, online certified program in artificial intelligence (AI) for professionals and leaders offered by IVADO in collaboration with the University of Montreal.

The Wood Manufacturing Council (WMC), with support from the Conference Board of Canada (CBoC), launched the Skills Matching and Opportunities in Wood Manufacturing project to address the gap between job seekers’ desires for viable and desirable career transitions and the recruitment challenges faced by the wood manufacturing sector.

Nearly half of Canadian adults have inadequate literacy skills, meaning they have poor reading, writing and numeracy skills that limit their ability to participate in the economy and daily life. ABC Life Literacy, an expert in adult learning, has been successfully offering adult literacy courses in person, and sought to migrate this content online to be more widely accessible to individual learners and other literacy organizations across the country.

This project implemented land-based camps that sought to marry Indigenous knowledge and STEM education.

Despite its ability to positively transform healthcare, there is some reluctance among healthcare providers to adopt artificial intelligence within their practice. This project set out to tackle these challenges and capitalize on the potential of AI in healthcare.

FSC-supported AI tools have bolstered outcomes in skills matching, career development guidance, and recruitment. The overall effectiveness of these tools was underpinned by recognizing and mitigating the inherent bias and discrimination embedded into these technologies.

The project aimed to advance gender equity in the Canadian labour market and address the unique challenges women and equity-deserving groups face in accessing gainful employment.

A large percentage of people from diverse groups recruited into STEM undergraduate programs do not complete a STEM degree. This project conducted a systematic literature review exploring current research about retention efforts for women of colour in post-secondary STEM programs.

COVID-19 created an uncertain landscape that required new knowledge and tools for employers to enable them to support employment of people living with disabilities.

In recent years, young people have faced difficulties in the labour market. Pandemic lockdowns impacted school and work for most young people, alongside accelerated technological change and the increasing prevalence of gig work (characterized by short-term, on-demand, and task-based labour) have all had negative impacts on quality of work for young people. 

The increased deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in work and society offers tremendous opportunities in terms of innovation and productivity but has also raised concerns about its potential negative, and wide-ranging effects.

Skilled migrants often face barriers in the Canadian labour market, leading them to pursue other jobs in different sectors – alternative careers, often characterized by occupational downgrading.

Have questions about our work? Do you need access to a report in English or French? Please contact communications@fsc-ccf.ca. How to Cite This ReportChan, G.,…

Improving quality of work, through better wages and benefits, social environments, security, safety, and inclusion, alongside skills and professional development is one part of a larger strategy to address these labour shortages.

In recent years, young people have faced difficulties in the labour market. Pandemic lockdowns impacted school and work for most young people, alongside accelerated technological change and the increasing prevalence of gig work (characterized by short-term, on-demand, and task-based labour) have all had negative impacts on quality of work for young people. 

With several years of hybrid work implementation, this project sought to document the hybrid work experiences of 20 Canadian executive-level leaders in workforce innovation and skills development and private sector organizations in culture, finance, tech, and professional services. 

This project used Canadian job ads to understand changes in the terms of employment offered to job seekers, focusing specifically on skill, education, and experience requirements, as well as job benefits, between the two-year period prior to the pandemic (2017-2019) and 2022.

Platform apps and gig work predate the pandemic, but the number of people that they employ increased sharply as a result of COVID-19 related lockdowns and job losses.

Have questions about this report? Contact us communications@fsc-ccf.ca. How to Cite This ReportMcDonough, L. (2023) Project Insights Report: Employer-sponsored skills training: A picture of skills…

Canada needs to address long standing shortages of skilled tradespeople to advance policy priorities around decarbonization, affordable housing and transforming industry to add more value to what we produce.

Key Insights Supporting employers in overcoming structural barriers to training investment is key to addressing labour and skill shortages. Ensuring that employers are actively engaged…

Future City Builders was a four-month program that supported youth to work collaboratively to develop real-world solutions for healthier and more equitable cities.

This project explored the uptake of microcredentials within digitally intensive industries in Canada, a field projected to grow and change in coming years. The project used a novel form of labour market information — LinkedIn profiles — to discern differences in skill, occupational seniority, and microcredential certification in the tech labour market in Canada.

This research examined the experiences and attitudes towards remote work in Canada for employees and supervisors and sought to understand how the arrangement has affected productivity, satisfaction, trust and well-being.

The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic triggered a rapid increase in the adoption of digital technologies, leading to significant disruptions across work and society.

This project sought a better understanding of how PLAR is used, or can be used, to effectively accelerate learners through programs in the applied health sciences.

The research explored the extent of economic and job quality inequities between those who had access to remote work options during the pandemic and those who did not, as well as the widening disparity in job satisfaction between the two groups.

The pandemic expanded digital technologies to connect and support remote workers, and increased electronic monitoring of those working remotely. While some employers see value in monitoring, overuse can negatively affect employee well-being and job satisfaction. 

At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in March 2020, Canada’s unemployment rate reached one of its highest levels at 14.1 per cent. In response, the federal government launched the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB), providing a financial benefit of $2,000 a month to workers directly affected by COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the nature of work, leading to more connectivity and a blurring of boundaries between work and non-work.

This research examines the relationship between access to benefits and quality of work in the current Canadian context, with a central focus on mental health and well-being, diverse forms of care and greater inclusion for those without benefits.

This research sheds light on the reasons why people engage in gig work and the policy levers needed to mitigate the risks associated with this new form of employment.

Have questions about our work? Do you need access to a report in English or French? Please contact communications@fsc-ccf.ca. How to Cite This ReportCuento, M….

Supporting displaced mid-career workers requires a clear understanding of the barriers and difficulties they face, and it should also seek to build on highly valued skills developed through years of work and life experience.

Canada’s ability to meet its goals for a green and sustainable economy will require support for workers in sectors and industries crucial to climate transitions such as the cleantech sector. An adequate supply of skilled workers to support the sector’s growth is crucial, yet many cleantech companies are experiencing challenges in recruiting workers with the skills needed to support the success of their businesses.

Key Insights The quality and intensity of employer engagement is critical to the overall success of interventions to support newcomers. Employer engagement needs to go…

There is considerable promise in the role digital tools and virtual career services can play in improving access to training and career development, particularly for those with geographic barriers or constraints such as family care or other work responsibilities.

The real estate development industry is vital to Canada’s economy, but there is low representation of racialized professionals in the industry. This makes the sector less responsive to diverse community needs than it could be and limits its ability to address the worsening housing crisis.

In this research project, the Brookfield Institute conducted interviews and surveys with 14 industry leaders from 11 firms spanning three broad sub-sectors across the country. The objective was to improve understanding of what is contributing to the low uptick of technological innovation in the construction sector.

This project supports training and skills development needs among small and medium enterprises (SMEs) across Canada and fosters more inclusive workplaces.

This project aims to provide career intelligence and access to targeted training for professionals in the public service to help them navigate the changing workforce.

This project aims to transform the Canadian cybersecurity sector into a field that is inclusive and better positioned to meet the soaring demand for cybersecurity specialists in the country.

Owners and operators of SMEs will learn the innovation skills to develop a long-term remote work strategy.

This project will create and share resources for employers in disability management on a national basis to improve processes and policies to engage, accommodate, and keep employees with disabilities.

Young women will transition out of the services sector and into social entrepreneurship as this program equips them with social, emotional and entrepreneurship skills to launch social impact businesses and through one-on-one coaching.

The first, fully-online, multilingual education opportunity specifically designed for historically isolated, unregulated care workers.

Create innovative educational opportunities that reduce barriers to Indigenous peoples’ participation and increase the number of Indigenous youth workers with postsecondary certificates who have marketable skills.

First Canadian test of online VALID-8 tool allowing trades apprentices to be objectively assessed by a certified journeyperson and also demonstrate what they are capable of to prospective employers.

Transitioning into strong growth rate jobs