Innovation Projects

Investing in innovation, evidence generation, and capacity building, through future-focused partnerships

The Future Skills Centre (FSC) is a pan-Canadian organization dedicated to creating a future in which everyone has life-long access to high-quality career advice and learning opportunities. We are responsive to the changes happening around us and strive to test, measure, and learn from what works—and what does not—when it comes to skills development.

Our innovation projects identify emerging and in-demand skills, and test new methods of training delivery. The insights that come from our projects will help inform governments, the private sector, labour, educational training institutions, non-for-profits, and academics on the broader adoption of novel approaches to training and skills development.

The innovation projects will assist Canadians make informed decisions about their career pathways and ensure every Canadian has the opportunity to contribute to and benefit from shared prosperity. That is why we are committed to an inclusive approach, with an emphasis on addressing systemic barriers and engaging underserved groups, such as women, youth, Indigenous peoples, newcomers, racialized people, LGBTQ2S+ people, persons with disabilities, veterans, and Canadians living in rural, remote and Northern communities.

We’re making a $37 million investment into innovative and community-based programs to find solutions to Canada’s changing workforce

With a strong focus on how we can provide meaningful action for our community’s disadvantaged and underrepresented groups, the Future Skills Centre is investing in 30 new projects to fill employers’ skills gaps and help workers gain in-demand skills in this post-pandemic period.

This $37-million investment into community-based programs focuses on the needs of diverse Canadian workers and employers by exploring innovative approaches to training and upskilling for emerging and in-demand skills.

These 30 projects span all regions of the country and are the result of consultations with stakeholders across Canada’s skills ecosystem. They were selected after an extensive review of hundreds of submissions to a call for proposals we established last year.

With a strong focus on how we can provide meaningful action for Canada’s disadvantaged and underrepresented groups, the projects cover four major themes. 

They range from leveraging people and AI technology, to training, reskilling, and adapting within industries facing chronic skills shortages, to radical new approaches to training and learning in order to build capacity to creating an inclusive workforce for the future by not leaving anyone behind. By applying a rigorous evaluation strategy to all our projects, the Future Skills Centre is keen to work with these partners to help every Canadian succeed in a changing workplace.