Dick Bourgeois-Doyle

Contact bourgeoisdoyle(at)gmail.com

is a Canadian writer and science administrator with an interest in innovation history, research ethics, and gender issues in technology. His works include the celebrated biographies George J. Klein: The Great Inventor and Her Daughter the Engineer: The Life of Elsie Gregory MacGill as well as contributions to several best-selling histories of Canadian invention. 

He is currently a Board member and Communications Committee Chair for the Long Point World Biosphere Region.  Previously, Dick served as Chair of the International Expert Advisory Board for the EU Horizon 2020 Path2Integrity Project (2018-2022).

A three-time recipient of the NRC Canada Outstanding Achievement Award for public awareness of science and other national recognitions, he has served on a number science outreach bodies, recently as a member of the International Council for Science – Committee on Freedom and Responsibility in the Conduct of  Science (ICSU CFRS), the Human, Social and Natural Sciences Sectoral Commission of the Canadian Commission for UNESCO, the Organizing Committee of the 3rd World Conference on Research Integrity,  and as Coordinating Chair of the Universality of Science Thematic Session at the World Science Forum (Jordan) 2017, Chair of the NRC Centennial: 100 Years of Innovation for Canada, and Chair of the Canadian Council on Animal Care (CCAC) Public Affairs and Communications Committee. 

His thirty-five-years in government concluded with a four-year term as Secretary General of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) (2014- 2018). In this role, he acted as corporate secretary and as NRC's senior officer for values and ethics. Previously, he served as the NRC Director of Corporate Governance and acted as Director General of Communications and Corporate Relations.  He was NRC Project Manager for the Millennium Conferences on Creativity and Innovation and Editor of Renaissance II, the book recounting the conference series.

Before joining NRC in 1987, Mr. Bourgeois-Doyle was Chief of Staff and Director of Communications to the Minister of Science and Technology and Chief of Staff to the Minister of Fisheries and Oceans. He also served as Legislative Assistant, Press Secretary, and Speechwriter for other Members of Parliament as well as the elected chair of the PC Parliamentary Assistants Assembly.  He helped found and manage two public relations firms in Ottawa and a resource inventory company (Timberline) in British Columbia. A former broadcaster and journalist, he has written a number of books on science and innovation and contributed to many conferences, TV features, articles, and radio programs on the history of science and technology in Canada. 


Currently, he contributes as a podcaster and columnist with Canadian Science Publishing, an award-winning publisher of scholarly journals, and is author the Science Mutters blog for Science.gc.ca, the official source for science and technology information from the Government of Canada.

Bourgeois-Doyle is also author of Burnstown Publishing’s What’s So Funny? Lessons from Canada’s Leacock Medal, the first comprehensive review of winners of Canada’s leading humour writing award and the General Store Publishing House biography Stubborn: Big Ed Caswell and the Line from the Valley to the Northland. He has also written and published a political satire series in the form of parodies of classic literature.  

His awards and recognitions for humour include local writing and public speaking contests in French and English and won the 2011 CBC Literary Awards Great Canadian Post Card Contest.  He is an Honorary Life Member of the Leacock Associates, the organization that awards the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour.