Our Background

The Productivity Project builds on more than a decade of research, policy development, and cross-sector collaboration focused on a central question: how can Canada better develop, recognize, mobilize, and renew human capital?

The roots of the project trace back to 2012, when a national team of researchers began examining how to improve the outcomes and public value of postsecondary education. This work produced a wide range of studies exploring the relationship between higher education, employers, communities, and the broader systems that shape learning, work, and opportunity.

That research agenda evolved into a larger effort to bridge the legacy silos that define Canada’s human capital ecosystem. In 2019, this work helped launch the LearningCITY Collective as a cross-sector forum for researchers, employers, educators, community leaders, and policy partners committed to strengthening how people learn, adapt, and contribute across a changing economy.

Since then, the project team has continued to grow, publishing policy reports, academic studies, and applied frameworks on skills development, open learning, workforce adaptation, recognition systems, and the mobilization of human capital.

In fall 2024, in partnership with the Alberta Centre for Labour Market Research, Mount Royal University, the Canada West Foundation, and the LearningCITY Collective, this work became The Productivity Project: a multi-year research and policy initiative examining how human capital can help address Canada’s productivity challenge.

The premise is straightforward: productivity is not only a matter of capital investment, technology, or business conditions. It is also a human capital challenge. Canada’s long-term prosperity depends on whether people can develop, apply, demonstrate, and renew their capabilities as work, technology, and economic conditions change.

The Productivity Project is now expanding as a national research and policy platform, with growing partnerships that include the Alberta Chambers of Commerce and Canada’s Productivity Initiative, led by the University of Calgary’s School of Public Policy.

Since its launch, The Productivity Project has published twenty full policy reports and accompanying policy briefs across four research series, translating evidence into practical insights for policymakers, employers, education leaders, researchers, and community partners.