Research projects and grants

Innovative entrepreneurship is spreading throughout the entire province of Quebec, but the challenges faced by entrepreneurs in rural areas differ from those encountered by their counterparts in metropolitan areas. Indeed, the labor shortage is particularly concerning in some regions, and generally, these regions have more limited infrastructure and are more remote from markets and suppliers. Given this context, attracting and retaining innovative entrepreneurs in rural areas of Quebec can be more challenging. This project aims to address this issue with the following objective: to understand how to tackle these challenges and create an ecosystem that promotes the attractiveness and retention of innovative entrepreneurs in rural areas to enhance innovative entrepreneurship in Quebec.

We propose a methodological approach aligned with the principles of action research to meet our research objective. Our approach is divided into three phases. We will start with focus groups, followed by a self-administered survey, and finally, case studies will be conducted in the third phase. Our research efforts will focus on the 8 regions where the AIE partners of this project are located: Outaouais, Mauricie, Côte-Nord, Laurentides, Estrie, Bas-Saint-Laurent, Chaudières-Appalaches, and Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine. Additionally, in collaboration with the AIEs, we have identified 5 sectors with high potential for innovative entrepreneurship in the regions under study: technology, culture, agriculture, social economy, and green technologies.

At the end of the project, we hope to have created a network of AIEs in rural areas that will endure for many years. We are focusing on sharing best practices between regions while emphasizing the unique regional characteristics of each. Our project proposes an annual meeting between academic researchers and practitioners, where various learnings can be shared, strengthening collaboration between different sectors and regions. With an action research approach, the potential for the adoption of outcomes in practical settings is very high. This unifying project brings together a team of 10 AIEs from 8 regions of Quebec and 7 professors from 5 Quebec universities. This project holds great potential for several regions, and the enthusiasm of the AIEs for this project is strong because the expected practical outcomes are significant.