Glossary

These ten sectors are identified by the Government of Canada as essential to the health, safety, security or economic well-being of Canadians and the effective functioning of the Canadian government. Disruptions of critical infrastructure could result in catastrophic loss of life, adverse economic effects and significant harm to public confidence.

See the Government of Canada’s National Strategy for Critical Infrastructure for more details.

A list of natural resources identified by the Government of Canada as being central to Canada’s sustainable economic success that position Canada as a leading mining nation. Due to their importance, additional security considerations are required when working with these minerals.

See the Government of Canada’s National Critical Minerals Strategy for more details.

Research areas or technologies that have application in both civilian and military or intelligence contexts. 

Conducting thorough research to identify and evaluate potential risks to Canada’s national security posed by the potential research partner or collaboration to the best of your knowledge. You can use open-source research to verify that your partner is who they claim to be, to confirm that their motivations to conduct research with you are in line with the your goals, and to identify any other associations or activities in the partner's business network that may present conflicts of interest or may introduce outside control or influence to the collaboration. 

For guidance on conducting due diligence using open sources, the course Safeguarding Research Partnerships with Open Source Due Diligence is available via the Government of Canada to introduce you to methods and techniques. You can also consult a summary of this information or the text version of the course.

Actions aimed to decrease the likelihood of a specific risk occurring or to reduce the potential impact of a risk. The measures should be commensurate with the risks you have identified. 

These are a category of risks where there may be potential disruptions to the development of Canadian research and innovation, weaken the resiliency of critical infrastructure, or jeopardize the protection of sensitive data of Canadians. These risks also include instances of foreign interference, espionage, intellectual property theft or unauthorized knowledge transfer that contribute to the advancement of military, security, and intelligence capabilities of states or groups that pose a threat to Canada. 

Conducting research using tools and resources that are readily available or accessible to you, including databases accessible via UBC subscriptions such as Elsevier, Scopus, Scival, Web of Science, Pitchbook, and other publications platforms. In addition to a typical web search (i.e., via Google, DuckDuckGo etc.) these tools may provide additional data in assessing risks in your RAF. 

For the purposes of the implementation of the NSGRP by the federal granting agencies, private-sector partner organizations subject to the RAF include for-profit organizations (excluding any Canadian Crown Corporations) and organizations that assist, support, connect and/or represent the common interests of a group of for-profit organizations, such as an industry association or a formal or informal consortium, but excluding producer groups.

Within the context of the NSGRP, sensitive personal data is data that could reveal information about an individual and could be leveraged by hostile state actors to harm Canada’s national and economic security through its exploitation. Examples of sensitive personal data include:

• Personally identifiable health or genetic (e.g., health conditions or genetic test results);
• Biometric (e.g., fingerprints);
• Financial (e.g., confidential account information, including expenditures and debt);
• Communications (e.g., private communications);
• Geolocation;
• Personal data concerning government officials; including members of the military or intelligence community;
• Ethnic and racial origins; and
• Political opinions.

Eleven broad research areas, with specific subcategories, comprised of both fundamental and emerging applications of research and technologies that are important to Canadian research and development. These areas may also be of interest to foreign states, state-sponsored actors, and non-state actors seeking to misappropriate Canada’s technological advantages to our detriment. Some of these may be dual-use (see above for definition).

See the full list on the Government of Canada website of sensitive technology research areas.