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Public funding disclosures in Canada

Canada’s National Research Council tested publishing funding disclosures on Ethereum through its Industrial Research Assistance Program. The aim was to improve transparency in public funding by publishing information more promptly and allowing people to independently review disclosures and subsequent amendments.

162k+ unique visitors to the public disclosure application

Public funding transparency · Canada

Institutional context

Public funding requires accessible records of recipients, intended purposes, and changes to funding commitments. Canada’s National Research Council (NRC) explored whether Ethereum could make this information easier to inspect through its Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP).

The trial used Bitaccess’s Catena software to publish new and amended funding disclosures alongside existing quarterly releases on the Open Government website.

System design

NRC used Catena to publish details such as the recipient, amount, purpose, and funding period. Members of the public could search the disclosures through a website and, where needed, view the corresponding record on Ethereum, including when it was published and how it related to earlier versions.

Publication rules were managed by a smart contract, a program on Ethereum that allowed only authorized accounts to add or amend disclosures. When a disclosure was amended, the new record was linked to the previous version, preserving a traceable history of changes.

In August 2018, the website used to browse the disclosures was also made available through IPFS, a distributed system for storing and serving files. This provided another way to make the interface available, while the disclosure records themselves remained on Ethereum. Later software added a way to link agreement documents to disclosures using cryptographic hashes. A cryptographic hash is a short code calculated from a document’s contents; if the document changes, the code changes too. The system could also record approvals by authorized accounts.

Ethereum’s role

Ethereum’s public network provided a shared record of funding disclosures and their amendments. The original application stored disclosure details directly on Ethereum, so readers could independently review the published information and its amendment history.

Public access did not mean anyone could change an official disclosure. NRC retained control over publication through the application’s rules.

Status and milestones

  1. 26 February 2020

    NRC’s 2018–19 results report recorded more than 162,000 unique visitors from over 200 countries.

  2. 1 March 2019

    The experiment concluded.

  3. 11 October 2018

    The project’s code repository shows that an additional agreement-tracking program was deployed on Ethereum’s public network. It linked agreement documents to disclosures using cryptographic hashes and recorded approvals from authorized accounts.

  4. 20 August 2018

    Bitaccess announced IPFS hosting for the public explorer and published instructions for others to save a copy of the application and host it, so other people could access it.

  5. January 2018

    NRC IRAP launched its public Ethereum disclosure trial using Catena, complementing existing quarterly government disclosures.

Implementation considerations

Institutions considering this approach would need to check information before publication, protect the access controls used to authorize updates, and decide what is appropriate to disclose publicly. Retaining earlier versions makes corrections traceable, but also means sensitive information needs careful handling.

Public access alone is not sufficient. Readers need understandable records, usable search tools, and channels for requesting explanations. Institutions would also need arrangements to maintain access to the records and the software used to read them after a pilot ends.

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