FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
VANCOUVER, BC, June 8, 2026 — PositionScale, the research services and software company helping Canadian university labs operate smarter and mentor better, has been named to ScaleUp Canada's Vancouver50 list for 2026. The recognition arrives just over a year after the company's launch, which was anchored by a national report exposing widespread mentorship gaps, training deficits, and toxic lab cultures across Canadian academic research.
That report, the 2025 National Research Experience Report, found that nearly 28% of Canadian researchers operate in unsupportive or toxic lab environments, over one-third experience insufficient mentorship, and nearly half identified substantial gaps in training across experimental methods, data analysis, and scientific writing. The survey drew submissions from researchers at Harvard, UBC, the University of Toronto, the University of Calgary, and other institutions across North America. The findings landed during a period of growing global scrutiny of academic working conditions, following a widely circulated DW Documentary and emerging stories of burnout and systemic dysfunction in university labs worldwide.
In the year since, PositionScale has built and completed a software platform for Principal Investigators, graduate researchers, and institutions. The platform delivers AI-enabled research operations, mentorship, and training support, addressing the same gaps the company's 2025 report brought to light. With the platform now ready, PositionScale is reaching out to secure its first institutional pilots, and selection to Vancouver50 positions the company for that next phase, with its focus on developing institutional partnerships and investment to follow as that traction builds.
Vancouver50 is run by ScaleUp Canada, a national initiative working to position Canada as a world-class source of innovation. The program serves as an investor showcase designed to connect high-potential ventures with the capital and strategic partners needed to scale globally, with a stated goal of raising $100 million for the region's most promising companies. Selection is stage and sector agnostic, with criteria centered on Canadian-made innovation, environmental or health impact, and economic contribution to the region.
"Being named to Vancouver50 affirms our mission. The 2025 report confirmed what many researchers already know: too many capable people are working in labs without the mentorship, structure, and support they need to do their best work. That is a real problem, and it is a solvable one. We built PositionScale to solve it, and this recognition tells us the wider innovation community is ready to back that work," said Dr. Negin Kazemian, Founder and Director of Research at PositionScale.
"Anyone who has run a lab knows how much of a researcher's success comes down to mentorship and environment, not just funding or talent. The gaps this report documents are real, and they quietly hold good people back. Tools that help labs support their researchers properly are exactly what the sector needs," said Dr. Nazanin Sedaghatkish, Assistant Professor at Sam Houston State University in Texas.
About Dr. Negin Kazemian
Dr. Negin Kazemian is the Founder and Director of Research at PositionScale and a UBC Okanagan PhD. Her research has been cited more than 1,000 times across over 15 peer-reviewed papers, and she is a recipient of the NSERC Alexander Graham Bell Canada Graduate Scholarship, one of Canada's most competitive graduate research awards. She built PositionScale to give labs the operational and mentorship tools she found missing in research training.
About PositionScale
PositionScale is a research services and software company helping university labs operate smarter, mentor better, and achieve more. Built by researchers, for researchers, the company's AI-enabled platform supports Principal Investigators, graduate researchers, and institutions in managing people, projects, mentorship, and compliance more effectively. PositionScale empowers academic teams to improve culture, reduce inefficiencies, and unlock the full potential of their research environments.
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