• The Innovation Demonstration Fund (IDF) is a discretionary, non-entitlement funding program administered by the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation that focuses on the commercialization and initial technical demonstration of globally competitive, innovative Green technologies, processes and/or products.
• The objective of the IDF is to help companies in their efforts to commercialize innovative technologies in Ontario by mitigating the risk of projects with significant pilot-scale technical hurdles. The IDF is not aimed at routine engineering, upgrading, or improvements to existing processes, designs or products.
• In 2006 Ron McCullough, led the IDF team in developing the decision framework and the work flow processes and protocols for IDF which received a renewal of funding in 2010. IDF has two parallel review processes, the first for Government Staff from up to six other Ontario Ministries in support of MRI. The decision framework for this element is shown below.
Examples of two of the Language LaddersTM used during the proposal submission, review and decision processes for IDF are as below: