Terms of use & privacy

Materials on this website were produced, collected, selected, arranged, and/or compiled, and are displayed by the CFI for the purposes of showcasing research excellence in Canada and demonstrating the benefits of this research to Canadians.

The materials on this site are or may be subject to the Copyright Act, other Canadian laws, regulations, international agreements and CFI policies.

Subject to some restrictions on third-party materials, material on this site has been posted with the intent that it be readily available for personal and public, non-commercial use and may be reproduced, in part or in whole and by any means, without charge or further permission from the CFI, on the following terms and conditions:

• Users exercise due diligence in ensuring the accuracy of the materials reproduced;
• Users attribute CFI as the source of the material, and reference the name of the author if it is given in the material or on the site; 
• With respect to all materials subject to copyright owned by CFI, users should include the notice "© Canada Foundation for Innovation, [year material was first published]. Used with permission.";
• The reproduction is not represented as an official version of the materials reproduced, nor as having been made, in affiliation with or with the endorsement of the CFI;
• The material must be used and/or reproduced only for lawful purposes and in a manner that does not violate the law or constitute an academic offence (e.g. plagiarism); and,
• Users shall respect the rights in any third-party materials (e.g. users should seek permission from the rights holder(s) of any third-party materials prior to reproducing same).

Your use and/or reproduction of any such material constitutes your acceptance of these terms and conditions.

Reproduction of materials on this site, in whole or in part, for the purposes of commercial redistribution is prohibited except with written permission from, and on terms satisfactory to, the CFI, subject to some restrictions on third-party materials.

To request permission to reproduce materials on this site for commercial purposes, please contact info [at] innovation.ca (CFI’s communications team).

Some of the materials found on Innovation.ca are subject to copyrights and related rights held by other organizations and/or the authors of those materials. In such cases, some restrictions on the reproduction of materials may apply and it may be necessary to seek permission from the rights holder(s) prior to reproducing the material.

To obtain information concerning copyright ownership and restrictions on reproduction of third-party materials on this site, please contact info [at] innovation.ca (CFI’s communications team).

Links to websites not under the control of the CFI are provided solely for the convenience of users. The CFI is not responsible for the accuracy, currency, or the reliability of the content. The CFI does not offer any guarantee in that regard and is not responsible for the information found through these links, nor does it endorse the sites and their content.

Users should also be aware that information offered by non-CFI websites to which Innovation.ca links is not necessarily subject to the Privacy Act and the Official Languages Act and may be available only in the language(s) used by the sites in question.

Criteria for hyperlinking to and from CFI websites

CFI websites are aimed at delivering to users information and services that are relevant and applicable to its mandate.

General parameters governing linking

When linking to or from CFI websites:

• CFI reserves the right to refuse to post a link, to refuse to renew a link, or to terminate an existing link without prior notice due to non-compliance with the criteria mentioned below, or for any other appropriate reason which may include, but is not restricted to, site navigation, content problems, or frequent client complaints;
• The CFI does not sell advertising or benefit financially from any links that appear on Innovation.ca;
• Links may not work as we do not control the availability of externally linked pages; and,
• The CFI does not display third party logos, images or icons on its website unless a collaborative arrangement exists.

Links from Innovation.ca

If you would like to request that Innovation.ca link to an external website, please review the criteria that follow before submitting your request. Decisions to post links on this site will be subject to these criteria:

• The creation of a link does not provide unfair competitive advantage through online endorsements of third-party interests. Links are provided for convenience purposes only and are not an endorsement or rating of the content of the sites to which they are made;
• Links created within the context of a collaborative arrangement are not considered an endorsement or providing an unfair competitive advantage;
• The site is not considered inappropriate due to its content or its affiliations;
• The content of the site complies with the laws of Canada, which includes such items as copyright, privacy, etc.;
• The content of the site is kept current and accurate;
• The site must allow users to navigate back to the present site; they cannot block the user's return to this site by using embedded code or other techniques within the linked page that prevent the use of the browser "back" button; and,
• The site provides contact information that includes, as a minimum, two of the following: email, mailing address, and/or phone number.

In addition, please note that preference may be given to sites that make their information available in both official languages and provide uninterrupted, free access to users.

Links to Innovation.ca

Sites wishing to link to Innovation.ca do not need to request permission to do so. We do, however, ask that you follow these linking practices:

• Use only text links for linking to Innovation.ca;
• Do not use the official logos of the CFI and Innovation.ca as navigational aids;
• The creation of a link does not confuse the user as to the source of the information through practices such as framing and deep linking; and,
• Links respect the Copyright Notice that governs materials published on Innovation.ca.

The CFI is committed to respecting your privacy. This section summarizes the privacy practices on Innovation.ca.

Innovation.ca does not automatically gather any specific personal information from you, such as your name, phone number or email address. We would only obtain this type of information if you supply it by sending us feedback (through the feedback form) or by subscribing to receive email or other electronic communications from Innovation.ca.

All personal information created, held, or collected by the CFI is protected under the federal Privacy Act. This means that at any point of collection you will be asked for consent to collect your information and you will be informed of the purpose for which it is being collected and how to exercise your right of access to that information.

Visitors' personal information is used by the CFI's employees who need the information to respond to a request. We do not use the information to create individual profiles, nor do we usually disclose the information to anyone other than to those at the CFI who need to provide you with a response. Any disclosure of the personal information you give us would be in accordance with the federal Privacy Act.

We will only disclose your personal information for purposes identified in this Privacy Notice, or if required by law. To the best of our ability, the information will be stored, handled and distributed in a secure manner at all times. The information that we collect and store is primarily used for the following purposes:

• To respond to your questions, comments and suggestions;
• To provide you with information relating to our services;
• To perform quality assurance activities (e.g., client satisfaction surveys);
• To develop promotional materials related to User experience of the Site and its services, using information in aggregate or anonymous form (promotional use of information with attribution will be used only with the specific consent of the User); and
• To monitor our website analytics, using data in aggregate form.

We may share your personal information with third-party service providers who help us with specialized services, including but not limited to website hosting, analytics, mail and email distribution, surveys and archival services.  We provide these third parties only with the information they need to perform their services.

Note: Unless specifically noted otherwise, neither electronic systems nor emails are secure information transmission methods. Therefore, it is not recommended that you send sensitive personal information electronically.

The CFI employs software programs to monitor network traffic and identify unauthorized attempts to upload or change information, or otherwise cause damage. When you visit our website, these software programs automatically receive, and temporarily store in our web server logs, information that is supplied by your browser (e.g. Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox). Information automatically collected by our server when you browse our websites includes the following:

• Network location and the Internet Protocol (IP) address of the computer you are using to contact our websites;
• Name of the domain you are using to access the Internet (e.g. .com, .org, .net, and .ca);
• Type of browser you are using;
• Type of operating system you are using (e.g. Windows and Mac OS);
• Date and time you accessed the site;
• Pages you have accessed and the documents you have downloaded; and,
• Internet address of the website from which you linked directly to our site, if applicable.

In most circumstances, this is anonymous statistical data, and we make no attempt to link this data, or the IP addresses of the computers that have contacted our websites, with the identity of individuals visiting our site unless an attempt to damage the site has been detected or it is required by law. The programs are never used to gather specific personal information such as your name, your telephone number or your email address.

Cookies are small files that may be placed on your hard drive by a website without your knowledge in order to monitor your use of the site. The CFI uses “persistent” and “session” cookies to monitor usage of its websites. The cookies we use do not allow us to identify individuals. They are compiled into statistical information on traffic patterns and are used to assess and improve the efficiency of the site.

Session cookies are cookies that are used on some portions of the CFI’s website to store information within a session. During your visit to our site, your browser exchanges information with our web server. Session cookies facilitate this exchange by reminding the server which computer is making the request. No personal information is kept in session cookies and they are stored only in your browser’s temporary (i.e. cache) memory. When you log out of your session, the cookie is no longer valid; it is discarded when you close your browser.

Persistent cookies are more permanent cookies that can be reread when you return to the site. The information in them is written onto your hard drive and remains there until the expiry date of the cookie or until you delete the file. They are used for tracking traffic patterns to and from our websites and can also be used on some portions to find out how visitors access, navigate and use the site. More information on tracking can be found in the next section.

The CFI uses Google Analytics, a web analytics service provided by Google Inc. to help measure traffic patterns to, from, and within its public websites. This analytics measurement tool uses “session” and “persistent” cookies (persistent cookies are stored on your computer and expire two years after your last visit to the website) to collect standard Internet log information and to track visitor behaviour information in an anonymous form. The information generated by the cookies about your use of the website (including your truncated IP address) will be transmitted to Google. No personally identifying information is recorded or provided to Google. This anonymous information is then used to evaluate visitors' use of the website and to compile statistical reports on website activity for the CFI. The aggregate data and statistical reports are only used to help us make our site more useful to visitors and are only made available to web managers and other designated staff who require this information to perform their duties.

We DO NOT use this Google Analytics measurement tool on any secure sites.

For further information, consult Google Analytics and its privacy policy.

If you wish, you may opt out of being tracked by Google Analytics by disabling or refusing the cookies, by disabling JavaScript within your browser or by using the Google Analytics Opt-Out Browser Add-On. Disabling Google Analytics or JavaScript will still permit you to access comparable information or services from our websites. However, if you change the settings on your browser so that cookies will be denied or so that you will be warned before a cookie is saved on your computer, moving around on the websites may be a much slower process. To disable cookies or JavaScript, please refer to your vendor’s browser instruction guide.

The CFI employs a fully automated anti-spam filter to protect its employees and networks from spam. Incoming email messages that are flagged by the software as spam are deleted automatically by the technology without notification. The program is set to block emails that are considered obvious spam because of their content (e.g. pornographic, racist, get-rich-quick schemes and junk commercial solicitations) as determined by general industry best practice.

Questions or comments regarding this policy or the administration of the Privacy Act at the CFI may be directed to the Access to Information and Privacy office as follows:

Telephone: 613.947.3208
Fax: 613.943.0923
atip-aiprp [at] innovation.ca (atip-aiprp[at]innovation[dot]ca)

Canada Foundation for Innovation
55 Metcalfe Street
Suite 1100
Ottawa, ON
K1P 6L5
Canada

If you are not satisfied with our response to your privacy concern, you may wish to contact the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada by info [at] privcom.gc.ca (email), by telephone at 1.800.282.1376 or by visiting their website.

Visit the federal Privacy Commissioner's website for a summary of your rights under the Privacy Act.

Visit the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada's website for information on your rights under the Access to Information Act.

The CFI website respects the Official Languages Act and we are committed to ensuring information on this site is available in both French and English. However, users should be aware that some information from external sources is available as a courtesy and will only be available in the language in which it was provided. Some hyperlinks direct users to sites of organizations or other entities that are not subject to the Official Languages Act.

The CFI is committed to equitable access to information, regardless of the technologies used. We are continually striving to make our site accessible to all, including persons with disabilities and to those who use assistive devices.

If you have any questions about the accessibility of this site or if you are having trouble accessing information, you can contact us at:

Telephone: 613.996.3115
Facsimile : 613.943.0923
hr [at] innovation.ca (hr[at]innovation[dot]ca)

Canada Foundation for Innovation
55 Metcalfe Street
Suite 1100
Ottawa, ON
K1P 6L5
Canada