Entrepreneurship, or, Enabling the Innovation Economy

I've been giving innovation and entrepreneurship a lot of thought - particularly since we are having a whole day on this at the Polytechnics Canada conference on 5 and 6 May. Part of the conference will be working sessions designed to articulate solutions that leverages all aspects of the education and innovation system and the innovation skills needed for Canadian productivity.

One thing that I came across recently that is of interest to anyone in this space: Skills for Innovation and Research (2011) OECD Publishing. There is a good definition of entrepreneurship, including the summation: "creativity seems to be a necessary but not sufficient precondition of entrepreneurship." To this I would add the ability to analyze, think critically, and focus on human-centred product or process development and what I have called "adoptation"--the ability to adopt and adapt: precepts central to innovation literacy.

I've written before on the double helix nature of the multiplier effect needed for our "innovation DNA": the need for both graduate/undergraduate trained innovators with complementary STEM/nonSTEM skills as essential for productive innovation. A mixture of skills is needed for innovation, but this mixture is always in flux. There is no static model for what constitutes the optimal mix of skills as these are variable and according to the need of innovation-in-context. This is a very important point as it means there is no magic bullet solution for fixing innovation. Rather, we need a constant commitment to reinvention and an additive ability to learn, to translate (user needs to design specifications, for example), to embrace change and adoptation. These skills are additive both in terms of what it means to an individual and in terms of the multiplier effect in work groups or teams, but also in the ongoing iterative nature of innovation that builds on histories of innovation and invention.

OECD's Skills for Innovation and Research tells us that there are several influencers of what innovation skill sets are required. These include: "the stage of innovation, the type of innovation, and the industry structure," to which I would add industry context vis-à-vis other industries. This last point refers to concepts such as open innovation, participatory innovation, and the ability for firms to collaborate across industries. Here again, the OECD Innovation Strategy skills show the value of nonSTEM skills as a complement to STEM skills in providing ways to develop business ideas based on science. Technical skills are the substrate on which innovation is based. We must assume this "ground", and look at the ancillary skills we associate with innovation literacy as being the "figure" of innovation. This figure is the entrepreneur, set against the backdrop of innovation-in-context.

One thing this OECD document states is that "More evidence is needed on the relationship between specific skill groups and innovation" (12). I've not mentioned this in this space before, but GBC is leading a large scale study on Measuring Innovation Literacy that will do this - the first of its kind in Canada. I'll post more on this study later, but our hypothesis is that we will show the value of the double multiplier, particularly the STEM/nonSTEM mix aspect - to be crucial to improving our innovative capacity as a country. In the Skills for Innovation section (p31 ff) we see the difficulty of coming up with a taxonomy of sorts to define what is needed to foster innovation. This is our collective opportunity to define the genre of innovation in Canada. That is, a complementary mix of skills is needed, including a solid grounding in STEM disciplines. But innovation leadership requires more than this. STEM grads need business training in order to fully realize their place in the innovation economy. Managerial and entrepreneurial talent are the purview of nonSTEM disciplines. This does not get enough discussion. Pundits typically decry the lack of STEM skills in North American society - and to be sure we need scientific literacy firmly grounded in our educational psyche. But we must not ignore the nonSTEM disciplines as adding a lot of value to the mix. Again, this is not a zero-sum game. (As an aside, here are two Twitter posts on both sides of this equation: People-Centred Innovation: WSJ.com - Vint Cerf's Opinion: How to Fire Up U.S. Innovation and Want Innovative Thinking? Hire from the Humanities. My opinion: neither is right; neither is wrong.)

Education is the single biggest element of innovation here - providing it, encouraging it, and supporting it life-long, and life-wide. What I am arguing for here is an "entrepreneurial upskilling" of STEM/nonSTEM talent alike, as well as the need for innovation literacy at all levels of the workforce. Complementarity of education systems - university, polytechnic and college - is essential. Here the OECD tells us that universities are adept at disruptive innovation and basic research, whereas the vocational college/polytechnic is adept at incremental innovation - the applied research and experimental development parts of the innovation value chain. Both are necessary. This complementary linkage of differentiated actors in the educational/innovation system was nicely highlighted in the discussion that followed my appearance, alongside Queen's University's John Molloy at the R&D Review Panel last December.

The Public Policy Forum recently published Innovation Next: Leading Canada to Greater Productivity, Competitiveness and Resilience, which further underscores the need for bold leadership across and within sectors and silos. We are all oriented to the same goal of increasing and improving our productivity. Our discussion in May will be drawing on these insights and leveraging the group convened to push this agenda forward. Entrepreneurship is key to enabling the innovation economy. The responsibility for improving innovation does not rest on any one system actor, group, or set of disciplines. Rather, it is in the mix of a people-centred, participatory innovation.

Open Access and the Difference Makers

Minister of State for Science and Technology the Honourable Ed Holder today addressed the Economic Club on the federal government's Science, Technology and Innovation Strategy. The biggest news of the day was the announcement of the new Open Access Publishing policy for federally funded research. This is a Big Deal. What it means is that Canadians will have access to all published data of publicly funded research. The Tri-Council agencies have been working on this for some time and this is very good for the Canadian research community and the general public. Breaking down barriers between research and the public is a good thing to do. As a member of the SSHRC Programs and Quality Committee I am very pleased to see this reach fruition; SSHRC has been a strong supporter of this initiative. Congratulations are in order for all concerned.

Minister Holder gave a good overview of the government's new ST&I Strategy, outlining the investments in basic and applied research, from universities to colleges and industry-academic partnerships. He also spoke about the need to encourage more STEM education - I know Canada has a deficit here (as it does in industry investment in R&D, but that's coincidence not correlation or causation). Calling young people in STEM fields "the difference makers" Minister Holder outlined how youth today growing into STEM disciplines and careers are very much part of the foundation for the country's future. Making a difference is what counts, and entrepreneurship - a key tenet of the Strategy - is also a foundation of making a difference. On that note, check out StartGBC - our new gateway to entrepreneurship at George Brown College.

Innovation, entrepreneurship and future-proofing Canadian productivity

I've just returned from the ACCC Applied Research Symposium, which featured excellent discussions, dialog and debate on the state of college applied research, our collaborative efforts at building our capacity, and how we can work together - and with other actors in the Canadian innovation system - to ensure growth in Canadian productivity. This is the third year I've attended the symposium, and I am very impressed with how we've come together. Innovation support continues to evolve across the college sector.

Panelists and presenters gave delegates a good overview of policy needs as well as practical measures that will build system capacity and let us show our strengths in supporting business innovation. The Symposium was nicely foregrounded against the Budget backdrop, which recognizes the key role colleges play in supporting the diffusion of innovation across the country. As the highlights in my last post show, the recognition achieved in the Budget is a strong signal of the applied research advantage offered by colleges and polytechnics. As I've noted earlier, our advantage is our ability to integrate and link workforce education and innovation literacy. The ACCC and Polytechnics Canada press releases show the value proposition we offer to Canadian innovation.

The ACCC Symposium featured speakers from NSERC, SSHRC and CFI, all of whom spoke about the crucial support these granting councils give to the college applied research sector. The Innovation Enhancement Program (formerly CCIP) administered by NSERC on behalf of the Tri-Council is a key vehicle for developing the applied research capacity in Canada. The CFI's new College Industry Innovation Program, launched last December, is helping us to collectively modernize the Canadian college system while building industry innovation support linked closely with education. SSHRC is a key vehicle for linking applied research and business innovation with downstream social and economic productivity improvement. Innovation is a social act, and it is the human sciences that enable us to bridge technical disciplines with business and entrepreneurship--and to develop "user-oriented" participatory innovation with wide applicability.

The Budget shows we all have a role in ensuring that Canada remains competitive and productivity increases. Key here is the development of innovation and entrepreneurship skills - people-centred innovation and the balancing of STEM and non-STEM skills and attributes essential to building a healthy and robust innovation economy in Canada. More on this in the days and weeks to come: the development of an entire workforce with innovation literacy requires an "and" approach - not a zero-sum this-or-that approach, but rather this and that--complementary research capacity working to build complementary skill-sets to future-proof Canadian productivity.

Polytechnics and skills for the innovation economy

The last couple of days have seen some interesting articles in the Globe and Mail about postsecondary education and the rise of college and polytechnic credentials. The latest one refers to polytechnics and colleges and our role as finishing schools for those graduating university with BAs in need of work related context. The debate here is about the relative utility of a BA, and while an interesting argument, the focus on how polytechnics and colleges can offer post-graduate programs to give graduates practical job skills on top of these BAs is most relevant. As Rick Miner puts it in today's article, if we had a fully articulated postsecondary education system with full transferability, then we would better be able to give students more seamless education in less time, and for less money invested overall.

These points were made very clearly at the Polytechnics Canada Annual Meeting last week hosted by BCIT. As I noted in my brief summation, our focus on innovation and entrepreneurial skills, labour market mobility and credential laddering is pushing forward a necessary conversation in Canadian postsecondary education. A lot of the discussion focused on the "context skills" commensurate with working in teams and for greater workplace productivity. We know these as a group of skills we call innovation literacy, and it was good to see so many of our industry speakers calling for the integration of these skills. The Plenary Panel: "Start-up Canada: Building entrepreneurs through polytechnic education" featured a group of speakers (myself included) who had a very engaging discussion on the opportunity we have as a country to chart a course of differentiated education that is "outside in" focused, rather than "inside out." By this I mean we can offer laddered credentials, integrated within applied workplace projects (such as we do with applied research and capstone projects), that are focused on what employers need, and the needs of those seeking skills, training and education to become full participants in the knowledge economy. We can make a bold statement with education delivery in this regard, and help transform Canadian education for the 21st century. This transformation integrates science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) skills with nonSTEM skills, realizing that a people-centred innovation and the innovation economy requires us to remain flexible and nimble in our approach to innovation and entrepreneurship more generally.

And this leads nicely into the summation of the innovation and entrepreneurship session I moderated at the conference. The group landed on the following three priorities:

1. Integration
- of innovation and entrepreneurship skills in all PolyCan programs - start early, not just capstone, but foundation of programs
- ensure graduates understand the importance and relevance of I.E. skills
- of STEM/nonSTEM skills across curricula (inclusion of technical, soft, and context skills
- of benefits to industry in core messaging

2. Harmonization
- of messaging with sector councils and industry, government and community audiences, and other PSE advocacy organizations to jointly advocate for innovation and entrepreneurship skills, importance, and retraining/ongoing education needs of workforce

3. Differentiation
- between innovation and entrepreneurship
- in our focus on applied research - switch from outputs to outcomes - benefits to industry, other audiences
- in PolyCan programs - make a bold shift to lead the way in redefining innovation, entrepreneurship and links to education

These are good thoughts for this day, or for any day, as we work together to redefine education for the innovation economy.

Research Money Conference promotes "CMEs as the next SMEs"

The 13th annual Research Money conference was convened this week in Ottawa, and as in past years featured excellent discussion on the sate of research and innovation in the country. Following on the heels of Budget 2014 the conference theme was Budget 2014: Re-balancing Innovation Support Programs. What was interesting was the a major emergent theme of the conference was the need to expand our thinking in terms of embracing innovation far past the confines of discovery. This means ensuring that R&D is applied, as innovation, not the same as invention, means translating the fruits of basic R&D (in which Canada excels) into business outputs (where Canada lags).

An industry panel was among the many highlights, on which Vicki Saunders, Founder, SheEO, said "CMEs are the next SMEs." By this she refers to ‎Creators, Makers, and Entrepreneurs, reflecting a significant focus of the conference: the importance of the humanities and social sciences in effective business innovation. To this end, Vicki Saunders talked about adding Arts to STEM (STEAM), reinforcing that effective business innovation and entrepreneurship requires people who understand human behavior and psychology, particularly as this relates to selling inventions to make them into innovations. 

John Baker, Desire2Learn CEO, spoke eloquently about the need for innovation in the economy and his company's pursuit of it in the learning technology space. He also linked his speech into two of SSHRC"s Future Challenge Areas, further showcasing the relevance of humanities and social science disciplines in the effective R&D translation enterprise in Canada. To this end, innovation literacy requires a broad set of skills that are complementary to each other, much like disciplines working together are. This discussion bodes well for the future of R&D, and its translation into innovation for social and economic productivity. 

On education

Today's Globe and Mail has an interesting article on graduate employment that links well to relevant discussions on education. Why are we training our arts grads to be baristas? asks why arts and humanities students are struggling to find meaningful places in the economy. This represents a key failure of the imagination, but also points to a systemic failure of the post secondary education (PSE) system to function as a system. Regrettably, this is par for the course in a country that does not view PSE as a system but rather as two solitudes. Where we lead the OECD in tertiary attainment when we take a combinant approach (college+university combined), we do not acknowledge key variables here:

• people go to both college and university for a variety of designations (apprenticeship, diplomas, degrees, graduate certificates, graduate degrees);
• all of these are useful and usable for the economy;
• there are compounding variables of credential laddering and pathways across all kinds of PSE institutions;
• university education is not focused on outcomes, which disadvantages learners.

The lack of  articulated outcomes means it is left to the imagination of students to figure out the utility of their education. Regarding the Globe article, it is somewhat ironic that we leave outcomes (and so potential employment areas) to the imagination of arts graduates, who then in turn do not have the imagination to figure this out. This compounds our collective failure to view education as a system, which in turn puts us at a disadvantage internationally. It also relates strongly to our performance in research, and reminds me anew of  the very excellent overview in the HESA blog on the false dichotomy of the bifurcation of basic and applied  research. Our general allergy to thinking about utility (in education and research) is a key reason why our innovation and productivity continue to be below par.

And speaking of below par, I read recently the AUCC Pre-Budget 2013 submission. Regrettably, the AUCC have chosen a rather retrograde path to advocating for greater research funding and more focus on graduate education. While these are certainly worthy goals in and of themselves, the AUCC's refusal to see education as a system is not in keeping with the need to work together across the variety of PSE available. It is sad that they have chosen this tack.

The Pre-Budget 2013 submissions from Polytechnics Canada and the ACCC focus on the entire system. There is certainly commonality among the Polytechnics Canada, the ACCC, the AUCC, and CAGS submissions - notably in supporting immigrant integration and education and research. Polytechnics are advocating for more focus on apprenticeships, and the ACC and AUCC on Aboriginal education. But the latter two stick out for maintaining a siloed view of the world on both of these last two points. Perhaps this is inevitable, but the real value in any national attempts to promote greater innovation and productivity, as related to the key inputs and outputs of education and research, is found in the networked coopetition model. Call me naive, but with this thing called the Internet making in-roads in all aspects of life, things are changing. For the better. And with greater international mobility of people, and this in turn linked to the international struggles for greater economic and social productivity and outcomes, it strikes me that we would be far better off working together.

Which brings me back to education. I certainly support the need to adequately fund graduate education, and arts and humanities and social sciences included as these are complementary to STEM skills. And while CAGS focuses on graduate education (it is their mandate, after all), I am left wondering why we do not recognize the kinds of graduate certificate credentials offered by colleges and polytechnics as part of the continuum of education available to our population. The latest issue of the Queen's University Alumni newsletter has a very good piece on college post-graduate credentials being excellent pathways for university graduates who seek employment credentials. This is a viable option for many people across the country. The market has clearly decided that these kinds of pathways are relevant and valued. Perhaps it is time our education system listens.

ACCC Applied Research Symposium highlights growth, skills for innovation

The annual ACCC Applied Research Symposium held last week in Ottawa featured excellent discussion of capacity building and the continued evolution of college/polytechnic applied research as a key enabler of the innovation economy. Seneca President David Agnew reminded the college community that we are in a lengthy development phase--and of the importance of our unflagging commitment as we chart a future path in developing the applied research layer of the Canadian innovation system. Also productive was recognition of the various tiers of  applied research taking place across the system, highlighting as it did the ways in which the college community can work together as innovation enablers--while teaching graduates essential innovation skills.

A panel on Social Science and Humanities research at Canadian colleges featured the report by Marti Jurmain and offered much that was helpful. This environmental scan shows a wealth of Humanities and Social Science (HASS) research is underway in the Canadian college system. Key here is colleges' ability to recognize where HASS exists and articulate how HASS fits into the S&T Strategy. I've made this point before in noting SSHRC President Chad Gaffield's focus on people centred innovation. It is vital for all of us engaged in research--applied or otherwise--to recognize that STEM skills alone are not enough to ensure innovation and productivity. As Christine Trauttmansdorff, Director, Policy, Planning, Governance and International at SSHRC, outlined in her address to the ACCC Symposium, understanding human thought and behaviour is essential to understanding how people innovate and how economies function, both socially and economically.

Polytechnics Canada's CEO Nobina Robinson, in a recent Research Money editorial, rightly posits that "companies commercialize; people innovate". The development of talent for the innovation economy demands a full and complete perspective on a mix of skills. A piece in today's Globe has some very good insights on this issue. The essential skills outlined by Janet Lane and Todd Hirsch are central to a fully functioning innovation economy. There is another article on skills--Business leaders cite skilled-labour shortage as priority--focusing on the shortage of skilled workers across the country. To put these two perspectives together is to gain a fuller picture of social and economic productivity in Canada.

George Brown College's strategic emphasis on "understanding employment" and our emphasis on soft skills as necessary to employment success reflect our recognition of the need for a skills-combinant approach. To understand employment is to understand the difference between what employers want and what employers need. Research GBC conducted last year emphasizes this differential (employers want higher productivity but do not value innovation; however, innovation is the surest way to achieve productivity gains). This result is in keeping with research by the OECD, Conference Board, STIC, et al., who all call for a complex mix of skills to drive innovation and productivity. The Conference Board has done some good work on the relationship of advanced skills and innovation, though its argument focuses only on university graduates and ignores the fact that Canada is first in the OECD for tertiary (post secondary) education only when colleges are included (they do point out a Japanese college connection). This is the signal opportunity of college applied research and our emphasis on innovation literacy.

Key here is understanding how to integrate essential skills most effectively in curriculum while ensuring our students graduate with the ability to articulate how essential skills/soft skills/people skills relate to their employment. That is, how best can we teach what I would call the language of innovation in order to ensure our graduates can future-proof the economy? Innovation literacy is a term that refers to the bundling of essential skills that represent the recombinant mix of skills essential for enabling the innovation economy. The skills needed for the innovation economy will be a defining feature of the years ahead.

Budget 2015 support Business Innovation

Yesterday's federal budget contains some significant advances for the R&D capacity of the country. More specifically, Budget 2015 is one that promotes business innovation, something that has long been lacking in Canada. By business innovation we can include a host of measures, from promoting industry-academic partnerships for R&D right through to skills development and labour market information.

Budget 2015 R&D funding will further support research in our universities, colleges and polytechnics. The granting councils have been given modest increases focused on enhancing R&D from basic to applied research right through to experimental development. This includes $1.33B over six years for the CFI, $15M to NSERC - $5M of which will increase the College and Community Innovation Program (CCIP) starting in 2016-17, and $7M to SSHRC to increase partnerships between the public and private sector. As the budget notes Canada is at the top of the G7 in Higher Education R&D (HERD) spending (see page 93). Promoting greater capacity to engage in public-private R&D partnerships (P3RD) will help Canada leverage our world-leading basic research capacity and our polytechnic and college applied research strengths in support of experimental development and business innovation.

Most significant is the introduction of a key recommendation of the Jenkins Panel - a consolidation of industry facing R&D programs. This is a very positive move that will enable the full exercising of the public R&D system (universities, colleges and polytechnics) and orient these to industry partnerships when and where applicable. As I noted in my last post this was raised by industry participants in the NSERC Strategy Town Hall George Brown College hosted last week. The effort by NSERC is to align with the NRC's Concierge service, a nascent effort by the NRC to provide a portal into the secondary R&D supports. The Concierge service is right-headed, but adding NSERC to the mix will enable it to better serve the needs of industry by matching need to specific innovation support offered by universities, polytechnics and colleges. NSERC is well positioned to access the public R&D system.

The real value here is in the sector-agnostic approach to linking industry to innovation ecosystem supports:"While maintaining existing support for research activities at colleges and universities, this integration of similar programming will offer companies a single window through which they can undertake research collaborations with a university, a college, or both depending on project needs" (111). I would submit that this is one of the more forward-thinking initiatives to come to the R&D sector, in that we are finally moving forward on providing a seamless bridge for public-private R&D support, free of the angst of funding direction (as in: who gets the money - universities or colleges). This is positive evolution.

There are other elements of the budget that are of significance - new labour market information (much needed in Canada) through to programs that will focus on "'soft' skills, such as the ability to communicate clearly, think strategically and work in teams" (149). This is the essence of innovation literacy, and promoting Blue Seal certification for example (a key recommendation from Polytechnics Canada), as well as youth employment, aboriginal employment and entrepreneurship and support for persons with disabilities will help ensure Canada has the right skills - including STEM skills - that a modern innovation economy requires. We can add to this experiential learning - a core facet of George Brown College's Strategy 2020 - as key to ensuring graduates of post secondary education have the skills employers need. Here we have another very positive development that acknowledges the specific strengths of the college and polytechnic sector.

Economic Action Plan 2015 proposes to provide a one-time investment of $65 million over four years, starting in 2016–17, to business and industry associations to support partnerships between employers and willing educational institutions. Through these partnerships, groups of employers and industry organizations will work with willing post-secondary institutions to develop curricula and programs that are aligned with the specific skills needs of the labour market.

It is worth noting that the Ontario Colleges of Applied Arts and Technology Act, 2002, compels Colleges in Ontario "to offer a comprehensive program of career-oriented, post-secondary education and training to assist individuals in finding and keeping employment, to meet the needs of employers and the changing work environment and to support the economic and social development of their local and diverse communities." Colleges are specifically set up to serve the labour market needs with our educational programming, and this applies to our focus on applied research. Budget 2015 supports the further refinement and development of how best our educational systems can respond to labour market needs for skills development and the orientation of R&D capacity - for technology transfer out of our leading basic research institutions and firm-friendly conduits into the applied research capacity. Canada is on the cusp of becoming world class in our orientation to the innovation economy.

One highlight is the funding of the Canadian Centre for Aging and Brain Health Innovation (CC-ABHI), which is led by Baycrest Hospital, and includes a host of private and public sector partners working together to create "a national hub and network dedicated to the development, validation, commercialization, dissemination and adoption of brain health and seniors care products and services." George Brown College is very pleased to be a founding academic partner in CC-ABHI. Our Advanced Prototyping Lab will be supporting product development, in addition to clinical simulation and testing.

Read the Colleges and Institutes Canada press release and the Polytechnics Canada press release on Budget 2015.

Literacy, Science: cornerstones of the innovation economy

Craig Alexander, senior vice-president and chief economist at TD Bank Group, reminds us that tomorrow is UNESCO's  International Literacy Day in a Globe op-ed Don’t take literacy for granted. This is important; as Alexander points out, literacy and numeracy are fundamental to productivity and prosperity. On a related note, the Globe Editorial says that we must step up our efforts in Selling science to students, in relating how Canadian students are behind our peer countries in pursuing - and even understanding - science. Science and literacy are fundamental to ensuring that we have a well educated and high functioning work force. I've noted in the past how we need a combination of STEM/nonSTEM skills, and that these form the basis for innovation literacy. It is worthwhile to pause on International Literacy Day and reflect on our need to ensure the education systems we have can truly meet the needs of the economy now and in the future. As the Globe points out, because education is a provincial issue, we don`t have a national focus that would enable us to be on par with our international peers. These topics are of relevance on any day, and not just  International Literacy Day. They are important context for the release on 27 September of the Council of Canadian Academies' report on The State of Science and Technology in Canada.

SSHRC launches new Strategic Plan

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) has recently launched an updated Strategic Plan: Advancing Knowledge for Canada’s Future. Three objectives are outlined:

• To enable excellence in a changing research landscape
• To create opportunities for research and training through collaborative initiatives
• To connect social sciences and humanities research with Canadians 

The document is well worth a read - the social and human sciences are increasingly important to realizing the value of innovation and the Strategic Plan shows why. I am a proud supporter of SSHRC and a member  of their Programs and Quality Committee.  This has given me a front row seat to the excellent work SSHRC sponsors across universities and colleges.

While the important of science, technology engineering and math (STEM) are well touted in the media, perhaps less understood is the role of design, business, and social innovation in the overall innovation discussion. SSHRC President Ted Hewitt, states in the document that "The humanities and social sciences have contributed much to our understanding and appreciation of Canada’s rich history, ethnic and cultural diversity and dynamic rural and urban economies." Here at GBC to prove this we need look no further than four recently awarded social innovation research awards from SSHRC - read about our four research teams here.

As the government works on a new Innovation Agenda, SSHRC's updated Strategic Plan offers a key road map for investment and increasing social and economic productivity and prosperity in Canada. A participatory, people-centred innovation agenda will maximize input from the humanities and social sciences and ensure that Canada continues to lead in research excellence and its application into areas of national importance.

More on the Multiplier Effect

As per recent posts on the multiplier effect, an entire workforce with innovation literacy puts complementary skills to work on common innovation issues. Students develop innovation skills  through applied research project work as linked to workforce skills and education. The articulation of workforce skills development and innovation literacy is made in the OECD report on Workforce Skills and Innovation referenced here in earlier posts (this report is a must-read for anyone engaged in education and innovation). The Globe and Mail today published the Report on Campus Research 2011, which includes many good stories on applied research at Canadian colleges, and basic research from our universities. The online version has a few other stories, including an interview I did in "How Canada can get more R&D bang for its buck." I refer to the multiplier effect of using granting council funding for the development of HQSP to more broadly spur the diffusion of innovation. The point here is that we need STEM and nonSTEM working together. We can expand the idea of the multiplier effect - which I've previously used this to refer to graduate and undergraduate students with innovation literacy working together for improved productivity - to include the idea of adding value to work teams via multidisciplinary collaborative problem solving. This point is alluded to in Budget 2011, where funding for both NSERC and SSHRC can work together to promote the college research chairs through a mixture of business and technical skill-sets oriented to applied research problem solving.

It's time to move from diagnosis to treatment for our innovation ills

Gordon Nixon and Kevin Lynch have a good article in today's Globe that discusses what ails Canada's innovation and productivity. There are no surprises here in their treatise on What's holding Ontario back? The article is worth the read, but we really need to move past saying what is wrong - diagnosing the problem - and move on to taking action. It is nice that the writers say that "Ontario is well-positioned for success, starting with one of the best-educated, most diverse work forces in the world." It would be nice if they were to acknowledge that this includes both college and university graduates - a fact sorely lacking from the Globe's Our Time to Lead feature on education. Even better would be to outline how we can better align our world leading R&D and education capacity to the needs of the economy. I won't belabour the point I made on this earlier, except to say that we need some straight talk on the alignment of skills - STEM and nonSTEM, including and importantly the contribution social sciences and humanities make to social and economic productivity. It really is time for us to realize that we need to work together to capitalize on this potential. It is much more difficult to build than it is to tear down. So here is my prescription for better productivity health: think not of ourselves but of what we are doing for the economy, work together to realize complementarity, and focus on downstream innovation and productivity. A people-centred innovation requires a deep understanding of human potential and capacity, and the willingness to learn and work together.

Canadian Chamber of Commerce convenes roundtable on Talent for Innovation

Yesterday the Honourable Perrin Beatty convened the Toronto roundtable in this series, examining the important topic of what talent Canada needs for the innovation economy. Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship the Honourable John McCallum opened the session with remarks on the importance of immigration to the supply-side of talent for Canada - this is particularly important for a country where we need people to fill the growing demographic gap due to retirements. I made the point that international students - important to the national economy - are prevented from participating in entrepreneurship programs - let's hope this can be changed.

I joined Cisco's Rick Huijbregts, VP Innovation and Digital Transformation Lead, Cisco, Americas, Wendy Cukier, Vice President, Research and Innovation, Ryerson University, and Alex Parizeau, Managing Director, Ubisoft Toronto in providing remarks for the roundtable discussion.

The Chamber set the stage thus:
Talent for Innovation is our topic. Through this project, our central question is: How can Canada cultivate talent for innovation? We are preoccupied with business innovation (i.e. innovation within companies) and innovation that comes to market (and not on pure “science and technology”). During our project, we will explore three key sub-questions:

• What are the skills that foster innovation?
• Where and how do we cultivate innovation skills and talent?
• What can the federal government do?

We discussed many important topics, from the importance of generational change, to digital literacy, and main street entrepreneurship - fostering growth companies in all sectors of the economy, not just new technology. Diversity was an important theme - building on the initial discussion about the importance of immigration, but also encouraging women in STEM and other fields.

My remarks used Technology Readiness Levels as an example of the need for diversity and complementarity in skills, competencies and credentials. That is, if you are going from TRL 1 - where I have an idea to build a rocket - to TRL 9 - where I am actually launching that rocket - you require a team of multidisciplinary people who are educated at different level - from PhDs, to engineers, to technicians, marketers and beyond. When people from varied competencies/credentials work together there is a multiplier effect. This is the principle of ensuring that everyone - from across the credential spectrum - has innovation literacy. 

We need to focus on the skills Canada needs, but also the skills Canada wants - both transactional and transformative skills for the economy and civil society. A focus on Work Integrated Learning is essential here - both as a component of all undergraduate programming, but also as a model for integrating and socializing youth into careers. This latter point fits well into the federal government's initiative to reboot a Katimavik 2.0 - a kind of youth internship for a gap year between secondary and tertiary education. The government could offer tax incentives to businesses who participate, pay a stipend to youth to participate in social and economic nation building while trying out a potential career. This could be a way to avoid the $500-600M in student loan defaults per year, by enabling students to find a career, and so educational path, that suits their interests and aptitudes well.

Above all an integrated approach to fostering education for innovation is required. The Chamber should be applauded for adding its voice to this Canadian imperative.

The future of innovation is bright: Business Innovation Summit recap

The Conference Board of Canada convened the Business Innovation Summit these past two days, which featured a lot of great discussion on how Canada can step up its game in terms of encouraging firms to invest in productivity and innovation. The Honourable Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology and the Federal Economic Development Agency of Ontario (FEDDEV) opened the conference with a keynote address that focused on skills development and encouraging students from K-12 through to college and university to embrace innovation in their skills and entrepreneurship. This was an important theme of the conference.

Doug Watt and Dan Munro of the Conference Board picked up the theme of skills with an overview of their updated Innovation Skills Profile and the newly created Commercialization Skills Profile. These are important tools that can aid educators and firms alike to assess and develop the innovation and commercialization skills people need in order to enhance and engage in innovation and commercialization. A couple of years ago I put together a study to measure innovation literacy in students engaged in applied research; Doug and Dan and the Conference Board were partners in this. Our plan was to use the Conference Board's General Innovation Skills Aptitude Test (GISAT) to assess the innovation skills in order to start unpacking outcomes associated with how we foster innovation literacy in our programs and applied research with industry. I am pleased to say that we will relaunch this effort. Part of George Brown College's commitment to Enabling the innovation economy in our Strategy 2020 Balanced Score Card is to create an impact measure that will enable us to asses the downstream effects of our programs and applied research projects. Our Innovation Advisory Board has been very instrumental in helping to move this work along, and we are ready to relaunch the Measuring Innovation Literacy study. Stay tuned for more details.

Another notable element of the conference was a talk about Deloitte's study on The Future of Productivity. This contains prescriptions for industry, government and academia. For the latter, this includes the need to "Align curricula with business and industrial needs for scientists, engineers and leaders" and "Develop, protect and exploit intellectual properties developed at the post-secondary level." Colleges and polytechnics, as well as professional programs in universities, are well attuned to the first point. Canada does a deplorable job on the second. As I've said before, ideas emerging from Canadian basic research seem to be just another raw resource we extract and give away without adding value (i.e. commercializing). It's time to rethink the ways in which we promote basic research and university tenure to foster greater value-added R&D.

Latent in the first point about aligning business needs to curricula is the idea of public-private partnerships for R&D, or what I call P3RD. Taken together - fostering innovation skills throughout the education systems, linking industry needs to curricula, and taking an instrumental approach to aligning R&D outputs and input - are all part of taking a managed approach to innovation and outcomes. On the topic of P3RD, NSERC president Suzanne Fortier announced the results of their mid-term evaluation of their partnerships program at the Summit. The news is good: Sixty Percent Increase in Businesses Doing Partnered Research and Innovation with Universities and Colleges, an increase that can be strongly attributed to the success of the College and Community Innovation Program that funds colleges and polytechnics to work with firms on applied research.

The future of innovation is bright when you see the kinds of outcomes associated with applied research we conduct with industry partners. I convened a session at the Summit on How Colleges Support Business Innovation and Commercialization, featuring Carlos Paz-Soldan, president of Tenet Computer Group and a GBC Research partner, and John-Allan Ellingson, a student in our Mechanical Engineering program. Carlos, who also chairs our Innovation Advisory Board, told the audience about Tenet's Pandemic Planning Toolkit for Mobile Devices product that GBC Research worked on, and outlined Tenet's new Green Rack Service (coming soon to a conference near you) that we are now supporting through applied research engagement. Carlos talked about the value of engaging in collaborative applied research as it enabled him to extend his own R&D and commercialization capacity while being a conduit for recruitment of full time and co-op students.

A real highlight for me was our student, John-Allan Ellingson, who spoke about applied research work he is doing on industry partner SOS Customer Service's crane project. The project is being led by Professor Jamie McIntrye of the Centre for Construction and Engineering Technologies, who is also the innovation lead for our Advanced Prototyping Lab. SOS Customer Service Inc. (SOS) is an Ontario SME that specializes in the design, development, sales and services of cranes, hoists, process automation and handling devices. SOS is collaborating with the George Brown College and Jamie McIntryre’s group to design, prototype and test a novel, lightweight and portable crane to lift windows into place for installation during construction of low-rise commercial and residential buildings. SOS has developed an innovative and simple design concept for the prototype. The new crane is expected to have significant advantages over technologies and approaches and has potential to significantly impact the return on investment (ROI) at building worksites. John-Allan is part of the team that is working with SOS to develop, prototype, test and commercialize their innovative design.

John-Allan spoke about the kinds of skills he is learning as a result of this applied research project, and how the project is giving him cumulative experience encompassing not just the engineering skills, but also design skills. This is an important point, as it relates to the need for both STEM and nonSTEM skills, and that innovation literacy and adoptation - the ability to adopt and adapt - demand a combined skillset. Chad Gaffield, President of SSHRC, put this well during another session on partnerships when he said that firms have the opportunity to partner with the whole campus when we engage all relevant fields, from the natural sciences and engineering to the social sciences and humanities. Not every faculty member in every department at universities or colleges wants to or is interested in engaging with firms on innovation challenges. But for those that do there is a lot of value: for the firms, the faculty members, and most of all, the students who, like John-Allan, demonstrate the kinds of innovation skills that will drive Canada's future productivity. Discussion on these important issues such as was enabled by the Business Innovation Summit gives me optimism about our future.

Envisioning the Future for Humanities and Social Science Research

Two weeks ago I had the pleasure to attend the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) Imagining Canada's Future workshop. As a member of SSHRC's Programs and Quality Committee, I joined  60 or so academic leaders from across the country and from a variety of disciplines to engage in strategic planning for SSHRC to 2030. The event was an excellent exercise in seeking understanding of the present and how SSHRC can best respond to – and shape - future challenges. Over the course of two days the group went through a variety of discussion exercises designed to identify future challenges, articulate plausible scenarios (both positive and negative) congruent with these challenges, and then posit possible responses the SSHRC community can enable.

Discussion over the course of the event was representative of the multiple disciplines present, and was a very positive articulation of future scenarios and how the SSHRC community can play an active role in helping to shape the future of Canada in a global context.

The event was as much a validation of the recent changes to the overall program architecture mix SSHRC enacted over the past year or so, showing that there is strong consonance in the streamlined program architecture with future directions and needs, and that this new approach is an effective architecture of the future. That is, the course SSHRC is on represents an enabling strategy that will let the SSHRC community provide leadership on areas of concern for all Canadians. Some of these issues will be topical - the environment, for example - in the sense that we are currently grappling with them and will continue to need to do so for some time to come. Other topics, such as the role and impact of technology, gender, race, aboriginal issues, the role of research – all resonate strongly with what is important in the world, and how Canada relates to the world. Above all, what struck me as most interesting was the balance the conversation had around what our society needs in terms of social and economic productivity and innovation, but also what we want: a well balanced approach to the integration of arts, culture, and ideas to underpin our social infrastructure.

And this is precisely what the SSHRC community offers Canada. Understanding the human condition is the hallmark of the Humanities and Social Science (HASS) disciplines. Ensuring that our understanding is strong and vibrant, and can contribute to a strong and vibrant culture, is essential to our long term social and economic well being. This ethos pervaded the discussion and conclusions, though these conclusions are a prelude to the work that lies ahead. This includes the further engagement with the SSHRC community around the implications for these scenarios, and a discussion about how the HASS disciplines can continue to enable Canada to lead and to further develop the human capital potential latent in our future. We have an excellent foundation to work on, and an even better blueprint, or compass, for building and charting the future.

This foundational discussion was rendered even more relevant with the release last week of the CCA Expert Panel Report on the State of Science and Technology in Canada. Of the six disciplines in which Canada leads the world, the majority are HASS disciplines. This is excellent news for the SSHRC community, and represents a key step forward in recognizing the excellence that SSHRC is known for. Of particular importance is the fact that the 2006 report was not able to squarely cover the HASS disciplines. Now, however, with a very rigorous and robust methodology, we can clearly see evidence for what many of us have known for some time, that SSHRC research in Canada is world leading in many fields, and represents some of the country's greatest strengths.

There is work to be done, however. The CCA report outlines some gaps in covering the HASS disciplines. While effort was made to work around these gaps, there are limitations that can be addressed by the SSHRC community. This includes harmonizing definitions and language and coming to a common understanding of how to measure excellence in HASS disciplines. SSHRC should lead this effort, working with the Federation of Social Sciences to set the standards for how we want to be measured for excellence. There is an excellent foundation for this in the report. Now is the time for us to seize the opportunity to lead the HASS community in defining our standards of excellence.

On the role of colleges and polytechnics, there is work to be done both in terms of ensuring that the applied research in this sector is quantifiable (we have a start in the report) in terms of outputs. There is also work to connect the fact that the colleges represent key HASS disciplines in their work with Canadian industry. This is a key driver of business innovation.

There are many high points in the report: SSHRC is highly valued as an organization contributing to Canada’s research infrastructure according to S&T experts in the country. The single most important thing industry needs to innovate is access to innovative talent, and in this area the HASS disciplines are very strong. HASS disciplines make up a significant percentage of the country’s production of graduates – both undergraduates (as inputs to robust S&T) and graduate students (as outputs, or contributors). Digital media and ICT are fast emerging clusters of importance.

A really strong success story for us at SSHRC is the emerging disciplines area of the report. Health and personalized medicine was top of the list, which includes digital media. Digital media is an interesting discipline as it is a combination in of arts and engineering. This interdisciplinary approach is indicative of a future trend in many areas, and exemplifies the boundary crossing capacity of HASS disciplines. That is, the integration of divergent thinking is a key strength of arts based education, for example, and this emergent area in particular shows the value that HASS disciplines bring to emergent areas of science and technology. To put this another way, gaming, to use the example cited in the CCA S&T Report, requires programming, but importantly also storytelling, art direction, and design skills. It is these HASS disciplines that arguably create the greatest advantage in this mix. To that end, personalized medicine, while certainly refers to genetics, also refers to technology to enable this. This infers design skills, meaning there are interdisciplinary strengths the HASS disciplines bring to many other S&T areas.

Another world leading area of excellence is in business and management, another SSHRC area. Given the country’s focus on entrepreneurship and innovation, this is another significant good news item and opportunity for us to show the core value of HASS disciplines to the well being - social and economic - of the country. While STEM skills are certainly important, they are clearly one component of a robust S&T infrastructure. What is clear from the report is that the HASS disciplines, and SSHRC, are an essential strand in the double helix of our science and technology capacity and innovation potential.