Budget 2016 and the incipient Innovation Agenda

Yesterday's federal budget offered the new government's prescription for the economy. Many pundits are offering cogent analyses - see Alex Usher's here, and the Polytechnics Canada reaction here, and that of Colleges and Institutes Canada here.

Above all this budget shows strong investment in education, research, and the clean/green economy. Directionally this is good for the country. On the clean economy side, the government is her not picking winners, but showing leadership for any and all of Canadian industry to find a place in this global reality. This is right thinking, and an essential element in Generation Renew.

Increased funding to the granting councils is also excellent. Even better is the language outlining the new Innovation Agenda that will be crafted over the coming months.

The language in Budget 2016 regarding investments in research supports colleges, polytechnics and universities as all being key component of the R&D and innovation ecosystem. 

STRENGTHENING SCIENCE AND RESEARCH The Government understands the central role of science in a thriving, clean economy and in providing evidence for sound policy decisions. Canada’s universities, colleges and other research institutions play a fundamental role in Canadian society by developing highly skilled and creative workers. They are also the engines of discovery, and collaborate on innovations that help companies compete and grow. Budget 2016 takes action to reinvigorate Canada’s research and science base by investing in infrastructure at postsecondary institutions and federal laboratories, fostering research excellence, and accelerating the diffusion and commercialization of knowledge into applications that benefit industry and society as a whole.

This language is intentionally inclusive. While Usher points out that no specific earmark for college research is indicated, this is a positive step forward in that the country recognizes there are many complementary actors in the R&D scene. It is unclear if the granting councils will be left to allocate funds to either basic or applied research (read: university or college); the granting councils have an opportunity to continue to grow the entire ecosystem and I am hopeful that they will continue on the complementary path rather than regress to the politics of the past. The budget makes clear that this kind of divisive thinking is not the target audience.

The infrastructure spending in the $2B Post-Secondary Institutions Strategic Investment Fund (PSISIF) is good for all post-secondary and there are examples in the budget of what it can mean for colleges in terms of training and applied research:

• A college could modernize or create sector-specific training facilities, including capacity for advanced areas such as Red Seal trades;• College and university facilities that support prototype development or proof-of-principle assessment could receive investments in order to better serve the needs of industry partners;

Our role as a demand driven innovation enabler is central to locating our place within the education and R&D ecosystem in the country. 

The really good news is with the Innovation Agenda that Minister Bains will be crafting in the coming months, as he outlined in a recent Toronto Region Board of Trade speech. There is mention of supporting clusters and incubators in colleges and universities. The focus on clean tech and sustainability is significant in that the government is clearly signally that this is an opportunity for Canada to step onto the world stage and craft a role for multiple industries to play in this important global imperative. This is in addition to key investments in skills training and apprenticeships, aboriginal education and skills, and arts and culture. I look forward to learning more in the days and months to come.

Government of Canada announces new Canada First Research Excellence Fund

The Honourable Greg Rickford, Minister of State for Science and Technology was at UofT today to announce the new Canada First Research Excellence Fund, as outlines in last week's Budget 2014. The fund is open to all post-secondary institutions, and will go a long way to leveraging and amplifying the government's S&T investments made over the years. The CFRE Fund represents a key vehicle for the country's leading basic and applied research organizations to leverage this work into greater productivity - better productivity of our basic research, linked to applied research and to industry and economic development, for improved productivity in the economy as a whole.

There was good discussion by the Minister and other speakers about the importance not only of investing in the entire spectrum of research - from basic to applied - but also of linking this to education and talent. Following successive expert panels and reports, we are finally arriving at a place where all players in the research to innovation ecosystem recognize the need for complementarity, as well as decisions about investments and priorities. In short, this was good news for all involved in the research continuum.

The CFRE Fund will be administered by SSHRC, and SSHRC President Chad Gaffield spoke at the event, outlining the importance of the funding to the research enterprise in Canada. SSHRC puts the business in innovation, reflecting a people-centred innovation approach that SSHRC's President Gaffield has promoted for some time now.

SSHRC's prominence in Budget 2014 includes the College Social Innovation Fund, an approach that Polytechnics Canada has advocated for. Polytechnics Canada CEO Nobina Robinson, in a recent Globe and Mail op-ed, calls these movements a "turn from a purely knowledge-based economy to a know-how economy." That's a good thought for this day as we look to all actors in the Canadian R&D space to collaborate to compete together as a nation. Minister Rickford reminded the crowd that, as we look to the current Olympics, we recall the government's investments in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics and the drive to "own the podium." The current funding, and the S&T (and now I) strategy, reflect Canada's capacity to own the Research and Innovation podium.

Board of Trade cluster strategy launched

Last week I had the good fortune to attend the launch of the Toronto Region Board of Trade (TRBOT) cluster strategy. Over two days, two clusters were launched - one on the food and beverage industry and the other on life sciences.

The TRBOT's cluster strategy was kicked off last year when Michael Porter came to speak about the value of clusters. The focus of clusters is to collaborate to compete as a region  and the two events brought together leaders from business, academia and government to really put some shape around what actions and next steps are necessary in order to move the region's cluster development forward.

Both the food and beverage and the life sciences clusters are large economic development engines in the region, and we have the elements to make these even more successful in terms of industry, academic/skills training, and support from a range of state and nonstate actors. The Toronto Region Board of Trade's leadership in formulating cluster strategies and action plans to move the region forward is significant, and well timed. A more proactive linking of business R&D, skills training and education and new technology adoption in industry are the key drivers of productivity and innovation  By getting all the players together to work together, the TRBOT has opened up a conversation that dovetails with the focus on the recent federal budget - to encourage more public-private R&D partnerships, a better linkage of skills training with industry, and the value of new technology to drive innovation and productivity.  I am looking forward to learning more - and participating - in growing the region's clusters, and I encourage all to contact the TRBOT to learn how you can get involved in this exciting and worthwhile initiative.

Conspicuous contribution and the policy and practice of enabling innovation

The Ontario Chamber of Commerce released their Emerging Stronger 2013 report recently, and it has some notable elements for enabling the innovation economy. These include closing skills gaps, notably in apprenticeship training, and ensuring there are strong links between education and industry (a core mandate for colleges), including for applied R&D. On the R&D side, here is an interesting take on tech transfer that links well to the notion of open source development communities and giving back more than you take. This is the value espoused by Tim O'Reilly; read about it here. Conspicuous contribution will be the norm going forward, and as we reorient the Canadian innovation system to a "collaborate to compete together" model, we will see more of this kind of thinking permeate the policy and practice of enabling both invention and innovation. This is an open, participatory, and people-centred innovation, and it is coming soon to an organization near you.

On the topic of better linking education to the needs of industry  I was interviewed for a MacLean's piece recently that discusses "the missing link": the disconnect between student expectations and finding a job. Unfortunately, the writer told only half the story here in terms of quoting me as saying that the university system does not teach about jobs, whereas the college system does. And there is a good reason for this. Universities have always prided themselves as being outside the purview of the reality of explicit job training (with the exception of professional programs). The college system on the other hand is an instrument of the state created to ensure there is an adequate work force. Both are necessary; neither alone is sufficient.

Innovation literacy, skilled trades, and the economy

Happy new year!

The Ontario Jobs and Prosperity Council last month released "Advantage Ontario," a comprehensive report outlining how Ontario can "become more competitive and seize opportunities in the new global economy or our prosperity will decline, " according to the press release, which goes on to say that "The report identifies five key areas for action: going global; driving productivity growth; unleashing innovation and entrepreneurship; capitalizing on strength in talent and delivering smart, efficient government."

Today's Academica outlines the report's focus on the skilled trades and experiential learning. Both of these are important facets of our economy. Canada currently faces a real need for more skilled trades, and ensuring we can produce the trades we need, along with other knowledge workers, is key to our future prosperity. The Ontario Jobs and Prosperity Council report contains some good recommendations, key among these are "Introducing a business-led commercialization voucher to better link research to business needs." The SME voucher system has been proposed by Polytechnics Canada in their Statement to the House of Commons Industry, Science and Technology Committee and Statement to the Standing Committee on Finance's 2012 Pre-Budget Consultation. Such vouchers work well in other provinces, and implementing these here in Ontario will go a long way to encouraging firms to innovate. The vouchers let the market decide where to get help with applied research needs. polytechnics, colleges, universities  even private R&D labs, can all collaborate to compete together to serve the needs of innovative firms looking to get new products and services to market. Letting firms decide who can best serve their needs is a good way to ensure that the needs of firms are put first in the applied research endeavour.

At George Brown College, we are focused on preparing students for employment success. When we engage students in applied research, they gain innovation literacy skills while helping firms innovate. Our focus is on firm success, who can then hire our graduates to further their innovation goals. A key area of applied research for us is the Green Building Centre, funding for which was announced last year. FEDDEV Ontario has provided funding for the Green Building Centre which will enable us to link the training of the skilled trades to applied research in the green building area. Linking innovation  innovation literacy, and applied research with the skilled trades is a signal advantage of George Brown College and the Green Building Centre. We will be posting more information on this innovative and unique approach to education and applied research throughout the year as we continue to build the physical infrastructure we are using to support our partner firms.

On this note, it is important to point out the Polytechnics Canada Statement to the House of Commons Committee on Human Resources, Skills and Social Development and the Status of Persons with Disabilities, in which Polytechnics Canada Director of Policy Ken Doyle outlines key ideas for addressing Canada's skilled trades and apprenticeship needs. This is required reading for anyone interested in Canada's future prosperity. As he points out, the skilled trades have literally built the knowledge economy. It's time we focused on building on our foundation of basic science excellence, and capitalizing on the trend emergent of making stuff. I've written here before about this trend - and the latest issue of Wired Magazine has an excellent article (about robots) on how the future of manufacturing will be focused on proximity; this is the re-shoring of manufacturing. It's coming, and our graduates are at the forefront of this change.

Innovation, clusters

Here is some good news from Canada's manufacturing companies. The story has some good examples of innovation in practice, and bodes well for those companies that put innovation as a business strategy front and centre. The story is a bit of a contrast from one I read earlier in the summer that paints a gloomy picture of the Canadian technology market. While some say RIM should not be counted out, I did note that there is no Blackberry app for the Canadian Olympic app, an unfortunate coincidence.

And while we are on the topic of summer reading, here is a good report from the Toronto Board of Trade:
Business Takes the Lead: Collaborate to Compete is a report from the Toronto Region Economic
Summit, held on 29 March 2012. My report on this is here, and this call to action is a good reminder why the Toronto area is one of the world's leading economic regions, and has the capacity for more. I look forward to supporting the further development of the innovation clusters as outlined in this report.

ONE Way to Work Together in Support of Innovation

John Wilkinson, outgoing Minister of the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation (MRI), yesterday launched the Ontario Network of Excellence (ONE) during a speech at the Economic Club of Canada. The announcement is an update on the Ontario innovation system, and outlines how MRI is leveraging the considerable, collective assets supporting R&D in the province. Central here is the idea of an innovation ecosystem that MRI has been promoting for some time. This is the collaborate to compete model whereby all aspects of the system function in a complementary fashion in support of research, development and innovation. All of us involved in the innovation equation are oriented toward the same goal of increasing social and economic productivity in Canada.

Features of ONE include a client-focused and collaborative approach to the Ontario Commercialization Network whereby the parts are better integrated and coordinated, in order to make it easier for industry to access the intellectual and financial capital needed to create and improve new products and services. This is a transformation of the Ontario innovation system, said Wilkinson, calling it a "reboot" whereby industry can "access, understand, navigate and collaborate" with any part of the whole. This any point of access philosophy is in keeping with the kinds of systems approach many jurisdictions have constructed, from the EU, to the Boston Corridor and Singapore. A virtual, distributed research cluster built on the principles of a mesh network will offer seamless service delivery in support of R&D and innovation.

Four pillars will define ONE:

1. The Ontario Centres of Excellence will lead the academic/industry partnership development portfolio, something OCE is already excelling at.
2. Bringing new technologies to market will be led by MaRS, primarily through their Business Accelerator Program.
3. Regional Innovation Networks across the province will provide points of presence and contact for industry for the network.
4. Strategic financing will be provided by MRI.

All of these will be conjoined and oriented toward common metrics. These metrics, perhaps the most significant aspect of ONE, will ensure accountability and delivery on results. The metrics will be consistent across the network. ONE will "make geography irrelevant," as the focus will be on common innovation service delivery where the quality of ideas, depth of commitment, and the drive to succeed will be defining factors in the overall success of all, working together.

George Brown College, and our partners in the Colleges Ontario Network for Industry Innovation (CONII), are a core part of this network. Funding received in the last provincial budget has supported the continuation and expansion of CONII. GBC's own innovation support services are founded on this model of articulation and complementarity, and the ability to work within the innovation ecosystem in support of our common productivity goals.

Education is the foundation of the innovation economy, Wilkinson reminded the audience. Bringing talent into the innovation system is a key differentiator of the global economy where capital and labour are increasing mobile. The Ontario education and innovation systems will be well placed to integrate as the new MRI minister. John Milloy, is also Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities. Our focus on fostering innovation literacy in our graduates commensurate with work on industry-facing applied research projects is fully aligned with the direction MTCU and MRI are headed. This is a significant step forward in ensuring that Ontario can regain its competitive edge and be a global player in research, development and innovation.

Applied Research: Innovation, Productivity and the R&D Continuum

The ACCC 2009 Applied Research Symposium: What does success look like? was held in Ottawa on 25-26 February, and featured interesting and informative presentations about the role of colleges in the R&D innovation chain. The conference focused mainly on some of the issues involved in establishing college applied research: building a research culture, intellectual property, metrics, and community-focused versus industry focused research. Walter Stewart, from the Toronto Region Research Alliance, gave the opening keynote, and challenged the audience to focus our efforts in applied research capacity development on how we can serve our mandate to students and industry. In so doing, we must not try to be all and do all, but rather focus our efforts according to our strengths. This fits well with the notion of complementarity.

My own talk - from which I took the title of this post - was intended to illustrate the role of Polytechnic applied research. My focus was on topics I have written about here, and the shared challenge we all have to work within our areas (geographic, specialization): complementarity.

Here are my speaking notes:

Innovation

• Canada’s Innovation Capacity
• 13th out of 17 countries (OECD)
• “D” for innovation: “it’s been a D for decades”
  Conference Board of Canada, How Canada Performs: A Report Card on Canada
  
  Canada seems very good at inventing things, but not so good at capitalizing on inventions.

Productivity

• Canada is second in OECD for HERD; 12th in BERD
  HERD: Higher Education Expenditures on R&D
  BERD: Business Expenditures on R&D
• Firms are not making effective use of postsecondary applied R&D capabilities
  “We’ve gone too far in subsidizing R&D, and not far enough in subsidizing diffusion of innovation.” (Sharpe 2009)
  
  Our goal is to help firms make better use of applied R&D capabilities.

Role of the applied research office

• We focus on Regional R&D Capacity and Innovation Transfer and
• Complementarity in the R&D Continuum
  
  We are not trying to replicate what any of the university, government or industry research labs do. Rather, we do what they cannot do: fabrication of prototypes, for example.

Startup.edu

• We are a startup, and we help startups
• We offer “Last Mile” R&D services
• The Stages of technology development provide a useful framework for how we fit into the R&D continuum

How we’re different

• We respond to industry needs
• We have industry governance through the GBC Research Innovation Advisory Board
• The IAB is a multi-sectoral SME and entrepreneurial stakeholder group whose primary role is to provide a current and effective link between the Research and Innovation office at George Brown College and the key sectors it serves

Innovation Support Services

• We offer innovation support services to sector partners, using a validate/simulate/adaption model to
• Validate practicality and usability of new technologies/products/processes
• Simulate impact of their use
• Adapt those technologies for deployment under diverse conditions
  
• Testing practicality and market/user/practice adoption and adaptation lets us focus on the implementation of innovation
  
  This is the Diffusion of Innovation

From discovery to design

• Our Multidisciplinary Collaborative Problem Solving model mobilizes college disciplines in support of industry needs
• The intentional application of applied research and innovation services to industry needs and contexts means we focus less on discovery, and more on the design of innovation - how to test the practicality of new products or services (adoption and adaptation)
• Our model uses college verticals in a horizontal integration strategy
  This is a matrix for understanding our innovation intentionality:
  College disciplines are verticals of expertise. A project is a horizontal that accesses expertise as needed/required from each vertical.
• Move from idea to invoice

Innovation Literacy

• This is a cornerstone of what our students gain from participating in applied research projects: the ability to think creatively and apply problem-solving skills to diverse and intangible issues within industrial problems and contexts.
• Innovation literacy is a transferable skill that enables our students to be flexible innovators in the workforce.
• Our students are Highly Qualified and Skilled Personnel
  Innovation literacy is the creativity called for by Martin and Florida

Open Innovation

• “…the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation, respectively.” (Chesbrough)
• All colleges, working together, can foster an open source approach to innovation and capacity building for improved social and economic productivity in Canada

Open Innovation Network

• Polytechnics are a de facto Applied Research Cluster (PARC)
  A distributed research cluster or open innovation network.
• AutoPARC
• EcoPARC
• EnviroPARC
• HealthPARC
• Etc.
  
• Fostering what the EU calls “Regions of knowledge” means that colleges can collaborate to compete together. We form an open innovation network that is more than the sum of its parts.

College and Community Innovation Program

• The NSERC CCIP represents a significant investment and awareness of the importance of colleges in the innovation chain in Canada.
• Relating back to HERD and BERD (see Productivity, above), the CCIP is a P3RD
  A Public Private Partnership R&D investment
• This is a public R&D subsidy that is specifically designed to increase BERD commensurate with HERD

We must take this opportunity, and, in recognizing it as P3RD, deploy these funds strategically to foster social and economic productivity. We have an important role to play in the R&D continuum in Canada, and that role should also focus on how colleges can work together - like the Polytechnic Applied Research Cluster model - to ensure that this capacity can realize its potential and contribute meaningfully to improving Canada's innovation capabilities. Canada's college are key to improving community economic and social development.

My challenge to us all is to make this collaboration work, to find ways to work together in a complementary fashion. It is important to celebrate our successes, but it is even more important now to look ahead to the future and chart where we are going. This future-forward orientation will be the focus of a panel I will be convening for the ACCC Annual Conference.

Darwinian R&D or, the ecology of innovation

On this the 200th anniversary of Darwin's birth, articles about a Darwinian approach to the economic meltdown are appearing as part of a capitalization on the event itself commensurate with a need to find ways to explain how best to fix the economy. A good example in today's Report on Business is an article about "The Natural Selector" and Darwin's approach to business. It echoes the oft-reported sentiment that businesses and banks should be left to fail as these are part of the natural order of things.

The set-up is trenchant:

What would Darwin have done?

If Charles Darwin were alive today, the scientific genius who gave the world the theory of natural selection would be on the prowl for businesses that make themselves fit for survival by adapting nimbly to change.*

Adapting to change in the current economic climate means focusing R&D efforts, already articulated in the federal Science and Technology Strategy. It also means paying attention to the environment of innovation where multiple facets of the R&D innovation chain can articulate social and economic productivity by working together. This "ecology of innovation" is the collaborate to compete or open source model that has emerged along with the Internet as a viable way of fostering what Chesbrough has called open innovation.

Speaking of which, Internet pioneer Mark Cuban has announced his own personal stimulus plan which he calls Open Source Funding. Call this an adaptive approach to start-up development.

As Darwin said, "It is not the strongest of the species who survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change."

Happy Darwin Day.

Budget 2009 notes

With the federal budget released this week we are seeing that the government plans to invest in post-secondary education infrastructure, though perhaps not as much in the human resources needed to staff these spaces. The Tri-Council has received "an additional $87.5 million over three years," but Genome Canada was omitted from mention altogether, to great consternation. The new Clean Energy Fund should be promising for anyone working in this area. This fund represents a good way for all R&D players to work together on innovations in this sector. The Canada Foundation for Innovation received additional funds, as did the National Research Council's Industrial Research Assistance Program.

While pundits are split on the relative merits of the budget, it does continue much of what was initiated in the Science and Technology Strategy. With the current economic situation, it is incumbent on all of us who are working in R&D in Canada to use this as an opportunity to work together to increase social and economic productivity. A radical thought, this collaborate to compete model, but distributed or virtual research clusters with complementary centres of expertise/excellence has worked in other jurisdictions (c.f. the EU's 7th Research Framework Programme; see in particular their Regions of Knowledge concept).

The economic crisis is Canada's call to action. Let's answer the call together.

Infrastructure or, The City We Want

In catching up on the past couple of weeks, I've been reviewing my notes from the Toronto Forum for Global Cities, held 8-9 December. A key focus of this event was public infrastructure spending, certainly a hot topic in these dire economic times, but also relevant to GBC's new campus plans. Against the backdrop of economic gloom, infrastructure spending creates jobs and the necessary physical space for future productivity. Commensurate with the need to update and prepare our physical resources for the future is the need to prepare what I earlier called the infrastructure of the mind: readying the future workforce for an active role as "demanders of innovation" within the Innovation Agenda.

Toronto Mayor David Miller spoke about the importance of the public library as a place for incidental education, and an important locus for immigrant populations to learn and access information resources. I was reminded of Manual Castells's work on the "space of flows" and the role of information and communications technology (ICT) in essentially shrinking and linking the globally networked world. The public library system, as a basic public infrastructure, enables the formation of social capital and the integration of new immigrant populations into the local body politic. This social capital is translated into economic productivity as these new populations integrate within the local environment while simultaneously changing the local environment to reflect new perspectives. This is an important driver of innovation - incremental social change which has economic implications. This environment of social capital formation emerges from the physical infrastructure of the public library - the basis for 21st century social and economic productivity. I'm filling in much of the subtext to Miller's speech, though he did end by saying "Cities are our future - the creative economy, research, immigrants - all come together in the city." The creative economy, an allusion to Richard Florida's work, is the purview of GBC's role in preparing graduates for future workplace demands. As I have said earlier, Innovation literacy forms the cornerstone of this demand.

Gary Doer, Premier of Manitoba, also spoke at the Forum of the need to invest in education and training infrastructure, particularly in colleges where there is more capability to fill the demand for highly qualified and skilled people. Sandra Pupatello, Ontario Minister of International Trade and Investment, echoed this, and reiterated the Innovation Agenda that the Ontario government is "moving at the speed of business." This means mobilizing all government levels and departments to be responsive to industry.

I liken this to the concept of a virtual research cluster and the "collaborate to compete model." Regionally focused innovation strategies work because they pool resources from disparate sources so that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Balkanization is not the answer, especially in a recession. This is an opportunity for all of us engaged in the R&D value or innovation chain to foster improved social and economic productivity by helping industries avoid market failure while we reposition our infrastructure to advance things like the green economy and sustainability.

"The Topography of Innovation"

University of Toronto president David Naylor has an interesting article in this month's UofT Magazine, called "The Topography of Innovation." In the article, Naylor addresses Canada's poor performance in the OECD ranking and the need for the federal granting councils to focus on funding basic research without having to worry about downstream economic and industrial benefits. While I disagree that the granting councils should be solely concerned with "upstream . . . knowledge generation" as he puts it, Naylor does rightly say that "we need dedicated commercialization agencies and infrastructure" that can turn work within the R&D landscape to ensure we can exploit Canadian research that has potential economic benefits.

College applied research centres can fill this role. While there is perhaps a false distinction between basic and applied research at times, there are complementary roles that each kind of institution (university+college) can play in the innovation spectrum. Colleges are relatively new to research, and universities have been worried that this is just more competition for scarce research funding. This is wrong thinking. If we can, as a nation, promote the notion of complementarity (the oft-cited collaborate to compete model), then we can see the university and college research labs as articulated within one long value chain aimed at creating new knowledge and applying this into industrial contexts. Such distributed research networks have the potential to lift Canada out of our innovation doldrums.

Toronto unveils Prosperity Agenda

The City of Toronto today unveiled their "Agenda for Prosperity," a plan for the city to lead the region in cultivating creativity for the benefit of our prosperity index. Mayor David Miller created the Mayor’s Economic Competitiveness Advisory Committee to come up with a plan to "position Toronto as a leading global city of the 21st century." George Brown College President Anne Sado is a member of this committee.

The report fits well with building a regional innovation economy, along the lines of federal and provincial research and development sponsorship (S&T Strategy; Ontario's Ministry of Research and Innovation), and the Toronto Region Research Alliance's recent Toronto Region Innovation Gauge. This report is interesting for its comprehensive look at the GTA and our capacity to engage in innovation. The TRRA looked at innovation inputs, process, and outputs, and tells us that in the GTA the "innovation engine that is not performing up to its considerable potential."

A couple of articles on the Agenda for Prosperity (from the Globe and Eye Weekly) offer some good analysis of the potential - both economic and social - that the GTA innovation index has for the surrounding region, if not Canada. Ontario's movement toward harmonizing the research and innovation conduits within an integrated education system (one in which greater academic mobility is leveraged for the benefit of students, community and industry alike) will strengthen our overall social and economic competitiveness. This is the "collaborate to compete" model: working together to build a better social and economic climate.

News items on education and innovation

Recent news items about the role of education and innovation make interesting points on the relationship(s) between education, innovation and prosperity. As Canada slips in its OECD productivity rankings, these stories tell us about ways in which we can fill gaps in our productivity indexes with innovation and, of course, applied research.

The Canadian Council on Learning's recent report on Post-secondary Education in Canada: Strategies for Success "calls for the development of a road map that will provide strategic direction for post-secondary education—by setting goals and measuring progress—and makes specific recommendations on how Canada could achieve this in order to remain a “force to be reckoned with” on the international stage." A national post-secondary education system that is coordinated can better respond to present and future demands on the education, training and research needs of a knowledge-based economy workforce.

The Conference Board of Canada released this week an index on the attractiveness of Canadian cities, with Calgary leading the pack. The Globe and Mail's report on this item highlights the problem that "The credentials of highly educated immigrants are not being recognized, and their failure to achieve earning parity with their Canadian-born colleagues is 'a collective failure of business and all levels of government, not the cities' alone,' the report states." Getting internationally trained immigrants (ITIs) integrated into the workforce is essential if we are to climb the productivity ladder.

These stories together reflect the need for integrated education systems that link industrial needs with applied research capabilities that draw on regional strengths. In a global economy, competing with the school down the street is not the way to build a better national identity that links education, training and research closely with industrial and community needs. As I've said in this space in the past, we need to collaborate together to compete as a region, or even country. Doing so will foster improved Canadian innovation; prosperity will follow.

More on college+university transfer

Here's another article on the impending post-secondary enrolment crunch facing the GTA, and the suggested solution of articulating college+university programs to increase capacity throughout the system. The article suggests looking west for models - specifically Alberta and British Columbia - that show how an articulated system can work to students' advantage. As I've noted twice before, this is how I completed my undergraduate education.

As today's article says, smaller class sizes is among one of the reasons students opt for this choice, which may aid in the transition from high school to advanced education. Colleges Ontario President Linda Franklin advocates for increased articulation of post-secondary programs such as that in the west. Alberta's and BC's approach is to create provincial blocs of post secondary education providers that competes together. In fact, Alberta and BC earlier this year signed a Credit Transfer Protocol (part of the Alberta-BC Protocol of Cooperation) that is signed by individual institutions and "improves opportunities for students to receive appropriate transfer credit when moving between the two provinces' post-secondary institutions." While some have said that this would never work in Ontario's larger system, there is much to be learned from the collaborate to compete model that is open sourcing education.

Education in formation

An article today discusses the issue of college+university transfer in order to solve a looming post-secondary education enrollment boom. The idea of "a system-wide change that would allow students to more easily transfer credits between colleges and universities" would be good for Ontario and certainly the GTA. As I noted earlier, the education system where I did my undergraduate studies was fully articulated. I recall being very surprised when I came to Ontario for grad school and found out that it wasn't the same here. Of course, I've since learned of the many challenges faced by the Ontario system. But, in keeping with the collaborate to compete model, York's president (Mamdouh Shoukri) reminds us that "'There are incredible opportunities hidden in big challenges.'"

On collaboration

Recently I wrote about the collaborate to compete model of conspicuous contribution. I've been thinking a lot more about this lately as I've been working on building new partnerships around an existing project. I support the principles of open source learning and sharing information, methodologies, study designs etc. Often it's a balancing act between the desire to take credit for original work and the inclination to share freely the "academic source code" of our research designs. We can extend this thought to the development of technology and other intellectual property that arises from research. Having participated in the creation of many technologies over the past 10 years that have been taken to market to varying levels, I realize this is an issue that requires much forethought.

PEPTalk is one such technology. My colleague from Centennial College, Lynda Atack, and I have been awarded several grants to research and develop this technology that are enabling us to situate the use of PEPTalk within clinical environments over the next several years. This project is top of mind as we are now launching the second clinical deployment in a Family Health Team at the Toronto Western Hospital, after a successful usability trial there and in other clinics over the past year.

This past March I received a Standard Research Grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) for the Advanced Patient Education for Cancer Survivors (APECS) project. Lynda and I have designed a study building on our earlier work that will integrate PEPTalk within the Cancer Survivorship program at Princess Margaret Hospital. We will work with colleagues at the University of Toronto to move the technology to the next level. We are engaged in a research design project for health informatics that combines our earlier work on usability with attempts to measure changes in self-efficacy.

We are using a quasi-experimental, pre-test post-test, mixed methods design that will measure the impact of the designated websites on five primary outcomes: 1) patient and clinician website usage, 2) patient and clinician satisfaction, 3) patient self-efficacy regarding disease management, empowerment and health behaviour activities, 4) site maintainability and 5) organizational support and uptake.

Our data collection instruments include a series of surveys we designed in combination with other surveys and evaluation metrics. I am looking forward to this study, which is being initiated and administered from George Brown College. I am particularly interested in testing our study design, which is also being used by colleagues in Princess Margaret Hospital to test other health informatics products.

Sharing our academic source code in this way helps us advance the science of health informatics. It also helps us learn from others.

Collaborate to Compete

Also the title of a recent book, the phrase Collaborate to Compete aptly describes the philosophy of CONII, and the move of Ontario Colleges to work together to provide a virtual research cluster or network model to facilitate application of applied research into industrial contexts. I heard about this book from a former colleague, and the core idea is a good one. The basic idea is that we can be stronger if we work together.

I thought of this book and the concept this morning while at the CONII Industry Strategy Board. This was my first attendance at this meeting, and I was impressed by the commitment of representatives from industry to the College applied research agenda. The discussion about collaboration was predicated on the application of the CONII model into industrial contexts. That is, CONII is a consortium of colleges that are collaborating on applied research. Each college either leads or is a part of a particular node on the network. If a potential industrial research partner contacts a college, and that college does not have the expertise in that area, the idea is that this college would forward the potential partner to one of the CONII member colleges that specialize in the area of concern. This is an ideal application of the virtual research cluster: an emergent phenomenon that is gaining traction with the spread of ubiquitous broadband and the ancillary network effects.

This model of collaboration and conspicuous contribution is counter to the historical competitive model that all colleges have grown in to (indeed, it is the hallmark of business in general). The idea that we can collaborate to compete has its roots in the strengths of network thinking and the kind of transparency encouraged by open source, and perhaps even the credo of hiding in plain site.

It was pointed out at the meeting that to make CONII work will require a lot of trust. The first steps have already been taken.