UNU-MERIT mourns the passing of Professor Fred Gault, a longstanding member of our academic community and an internationally respected scholar whose work helped shape the way innovation is measured, understood and connected to public policy.
Fred passed away in Ottawa on 21 August 2026 at the age of 84. Over a remarkable career spanning physics, official statistics, innovation studies and international development, he became a leading global authority on science, technology and innovation indicators. At UNU-MERIT, however, Fred was also a valued colleague, teacher and collaborator whose intellectual curiosity, generosity and dry sense of humour left a lasting impression on those who worked with him.
Fred’s academic career began far from the field with which he would later become most closely associated. Trained as a theoretical physicist, he spent 15 years as a Senior Lecturer in Physics at Durham University before returning to Canada in 1984 to join Statistics Canada. While working full-time, he also studied economics and became Director of the Science and Technology Statistics Division.
It was there that Fred became an influential figure in the international development of innovation measurement. His work extended beyond the production of statistics themselves. He was particularly interested in what indicators could tell us about innovation systems, how researchers could make better use of the underlying data, and, crucially, how better evidence could inform policy.
That commitment also characterised his work at UNU-MERIT. Following his career at Statistics Canada, Fred joined the Institute as a Professorial Fellow and became deeply involved in research and capacity development on innovation measurement and policy, particularly in Africa.
His work on the African Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators initiative (ASTII) reflected a longstanding commitment to strengthening countries’ own capacities to collect, interpret and use evidence on science, technology and innovation. Fred also contributed to UNU-MERIT’s Design and Evaluation of Innovation Policy (DEIP) programme, through which researchers worked directly with policymakers and practitioners in different countries.
For Anthony Arundel,Fred’s generosity as a researcher was evident from the beginning. Anthony first met him at the OECD's first Blue Sky conference on innovation indicators in Paris in 1996, when Fred was leading work on innovation indicators at Statistics Canada.Their collaboration subsequently grew from a chance encounter in an airport lounge:
“I had the good fortune to bump into Fred in 1997 at the Air Canada lounge at Heathrow airport. He had a new survey on biotechnology, an interest of mine, and asked if I might be interested in coming to Ottawa to analyse it.”
That invitation led to several research visits and collaborations analysing Canadian surveys on biotechnology, advanced manufacturing, user-driven innovation and innovation more broadly. For Anthony, it also reflected something characteristic of Fred’s approach to scholarship: a willingness to give academic researchers access to survey microdata and creating opportunities for others to work with new forms of innovation evidence.
Years later, their paths continued to cross through UNU-MERIT. Both taught on DEIP programmes in Côte d’Ivoire and Morocco, where Fred focused on the collection and use of innovation indicators.
“He covered how to collect innovation indicators and how they could be used to inform policy,” Anthony recalls, “an essential use of innovation data.”
Fred’s influence was also captured in the two editions of the Handbook of Innovation Indicators and Measurement, which he edited and which brought together scholars and practitioners from around the world to examine how innovation could be measured and how those measurements could better serve decision-making.
For Hugo Hollanders, the handbooks were also representative of Fred’s ability to create intellectual communities.
“I will remember Fred not only for his important contributions to the field of innovation studies and measurement, but also for his generosity, collegiality, and willingness to bring people together,” Hugo writes.
Fred invited Hugo to contribute chapters to both editions of the handbook and to join meetings of the Advisory Board of South Africa’s Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators (CeSTII) in Cape Town.
For Hugo, Fred represented “the very best of the international research community: intellectually curious, open to new ideas, committed to good measurement, and always interested in connecting research with real policy needs.”
That ability to connect people was perhaps as significant as any particular publication or indicator. Fred operated naturally across the worlds of academia, national statistical offices and international organisations. His career included extensive engagement with the OECD and with science, technology and innovation policy communities in Africa, while his work at UNU-MERIT helped ensure that questions of measurement remained closely connected to questions of development and policy.
Those who knew Fred will also remember the person behind the scholarship.
Anthony also remembers Fred as a particularly effective chair when proceedings threatened to overrun: a long-winded speaker might be gently reminded that they were now standing between Fred and his beer.
It is a small memory, but an important one. Behind an extensive body of scholarship was a colleague who valued conversation, friendship and the communities that grow around academic work.
Fred’s legacy at UNU-MERITcan be found not only in publications or indicators, but also in the collaborations he initiated, the researchers he encouraged, the policymakers and students he taught, and the colleagues who became friends along the way.
As Hugo reflects:
“Fred leaves behind not only an important intellectual legacy in the field of innovation indicators and measurement, but also a deeply personal legacy among the many colleagues and friends whose careers and lives he touched.”
UNU-MERIT extends its sincere condolences to Fred’s wife Helen, his children and grandchildren, and to his many friends, colleagues and collaborators around the world.
He will be greatly missed.
