Integrated with the industrial and technical drivers of the economy, Canada's colleges, institutes, polytechnics and cegeps offer the advanced skills of faculty and staff to support the private sector's need for applied research, product and process innovation, commercialization and technology transfer. Federal investments in research over the past decade were overwhelmingly directed to pure or discovery research, with little support to applied research tied to commercialization. This reality is increasingly cited as a barrier to a strong culture of innovation and to the diffusion of new technologies in Canada. It should come as no surprise that even as Canada invests increasing sums in discovery research, its productivity gap grows. Investments in pure or discovery research may contribute to the economy in the long-term. However, in Canada's relentless support for the exploration of the extreme limits of knowledge, it has dropped the ball on the "here and now." The practical side of business processes and continuous improvement, the very root of productivity, has been neglected. For more than a decade, the Association of Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC) has advocated the creation of innovation and technology transfer centres at colleges across Canada. Some have been established with excellent results. It is time for Canada to review its enormous investment in research from the perspective of the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) community. SMEs are at the heart of Canada's competitiveness and productivity, as well as the principal source of job creation. Canada must balance its investments more equitably between discovery research and college-industry partnerships in applied research. This paper offers recommendations for federal contributions. (Contains 2 footnotes.)