About
Grounded in Practice. Designed for the Ecosystem.
ACRL is grounded in years of hands-on experience advancing research commercialization across Canada’s academic ecosystem.
Our Story
How ACRL came to be
ACRL was born from years of hands-on experience advancing research commercialization across Canada’s academic ecosystem. Working alongside researchers, universities, funders, industry partners, and commercialization organizations, we identified a fundamental challenge: there was no common way to measure how academic innovations progress toward commercialization.
Without a shared framework, resources are harder to allocate, programs are harder to design and evaluate, and funding decisions can become disconnected from the actual needs of emerging technologies.
ACRL was created to change that. By providing a common language and evidence-based framework for assessing academic commercial readiness, ACRL helps the ecosystem understand where an innovation is today, what it needs next, and how best to support its journey from research to impact.
The Team
Who built it
AUTHOR
Dr. Tarek Sadek
Dr. Tarek Sadek is an innovation strategist and deep-tech ecosystem builder with 20 years of experience advancing research commercialization and venture development across Canada. He has supported the development of more than 300 startups that have collectively raised over $400 million and has led initiatives advancing emerging technologies from early-stage research toward commercialization. He holds a Ph.D. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from McMaster University, with executive education from MIT Sloan and Harvard Business School.
CO-AUTHOR
Wesley Kosiba
Wesley Kosiba has spent his career at the intersection of entrepreneurship, deep-tech commercialization, and education. As a leading architect of innovation ecosystems, he has designed and scaled world-class entrepreneurship and commercialization programs across dozens of academic institutions — supporting thousands of research teams and helping catalyse high-growth, venture-backed companies from the lab to the market.
A former founder, graduate-level instructor, and global speaker, Wesley brings together academic rigour and founder agility to bridge one of the most persistent gaps in innovation: the distance between breakthrough research and real-world market impact.
Partners
Our partners
