Catherine Beaudry

A graduate in electrical engineering from Polytechnique Montreal and a graduate in economics from the University of Oxford (master’s and doctorate), Catherine Beaudry is currently a full professor in the Department of Mathematics and Industrial Engineering at Polytechnique Montreal. Professor Beaudry also holds a Canada Research Chair (CRC) level 1 (senior) in management and economics of innovation in addition to leading the Partnership for the Organization of Innovation and New Technologies (4POINT0). She is a member of the Centre interuniversitaire de recherche sur la science et la technologie (interuniversity centre for research on science and technology – CIRST), a fellow and main researcher of the Center for Interuniversity Research and Analysis of Organizations (CIRANO), an associate professor at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) and a founding member of the Global Young Academy. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences of the Royal Society of Canada and has been awarded the Prix Acfas Jacques-Rousseau 2022.

Professor Beaudry specialises in the economics of innovation and its impact on business performance, as well as in the evaluation of research and the science and technology system. The first mandate of the CRC (on creation, development and commercialisation of innovation) focused on the steps leading to innovation as well as those allowing it to create value on the market, i.e. the development of science and technology until their realisation in the form of innovative products and services. The second mandate of the CRC that she currently holds aims to create multiple-level (organizations-ecosystem-society) models and indicators on which governance and public policies specific to innovation ecosystems can to lean on. This multidisciplinary work aims to consider the science, technology and innovation system as a whole, and thus to breakdown the silos inherent to the innovation process.

Her main research interests are collaboration and support mechanisms for public and private organisations involved in knowledge and innovation ecosystems. In particular, her research focuses on the interaction between science and technology networks and industrial clusters, and how they influence the performance and survival of innovative organisations. 4POINT0 aims to develop new innovation indicators (derived from web mining) adapted to these ecosystems, so as to provide decision-makers with near-real time decision-making tools.