Genome Canada’s latest mission-driven initiative will build foundations for world-leading, data-driven natural resources systems and environmental resilience.
Overview
Canada’s natural resources, and the vast genetic diversity that underpins them, are central to the country’s economic prosperity, environmental resilience and long-term competitiveness. Natural resources systems, including forestry, wild fisheries, mining and critical minerals, energy, freshwater systems and biodiversity-based sectors, are facing unprecedented pressure from climate change, biodiversity loss, accelerating global competition and economic volatility. At the same time, decision-makers across these sectors are being asked to act faster, manage greater uncertainty and deliver better outcomes with less margin for error.
The opportunity: We are in the midst of a bio-revolution, fuelled by rapid advances in genomic sequencing speed and scale, alongside artificial intelligence (AI) technologies that make it possible to analyze and train on vast volumes of genomic data. High-quality, standardized genomic and natural resources data enable earlier detection of ecological change and more adaptive, evidence-based management. Countries and industries that can integrate these capabilities into natural resources management and biodiversity protection will set the global standard, growing their economies while building environmental resilience for the long-term. They will also be best positioned to protect their populations and ecosystems from emerging biological threats, turning natural resources investments into sovereign and reliable national security assets.
The challenge: These 21st century capabilities remain severely underused across Canada. The country’s natural resources-based genomics data landscape is fragmented, inconsistently governed and often inaccessible, limiting advanced analysis and constraining impact at scale. These challenges are further compounded by historical inequities and the longstanding under-recognition of Indigenous rights over Indigenous data, resulting in gaps in governance and oversight that are necessary to support Indigenous data sovereignty and enable responsible, equitable, and trusted data use.
Genome Canada has heard clearly from partners and stakeholders across sectors and regions that several key barriers prevent the country from maximizing the value of its vast and diverse natural resources while supporting environmental resilience (explore the key insights that shaped the initiative):
- non-standardized genomic data and associated metadata
- the absence or lack of clear governance frameworks
- barriers to responsible data sharing
- the absence of coordinated national infrastructure
Our solution: Genome Canada’s latest mission-driven research initiative will lay the foundations for a generational transformation in Canadian natural resources systems and biodiversity management. Through a coordinated portfolio of research investments, new governance infrastructure and national collaborations, the natural resources initiative will help Canada harness the cutting-edge technologies and high-value, sovereign and responsibly managed data needed to address urgent economic and environmental challenges, and to build long-term prosperity and competitiveness.
The initiative will enable earlier detection of ecological change, more adaptive resource management and more effective regulatory and stewardship decisions. It will grow a coordinated, interoperable and responsibly governed natural resources genomics data ecosystem that supports next generation resource management and environmental protection while respecting and investing in Indigenous data governance and sovereignty. And it will intentionally align targeted investments in research and data generation with infrastructure-building and governance to transform disparate datasets into trusted, accessible, interoperable, AI-ready large-scale assets that can be used by communities, regulators, researchers, industry and technology developers from coast-to-coast-to-coast in ways that respect data sovereignty and community authority.
The foundations established through the natural resources initiative are intended to unlock future waves of data generation, coordination and collaboration—creating the conditions for sustained productivity, economic growth and environmental resilience across Canada’s natural resource sectors.