Innovation, competitiveness, productivity: who is responsible for research outcomes?

The ACCT Canada conference concluded this week, and as indicated in my last post, featured many good speakers discussing the role of technology transfer and commercialization of research in Canada. Highlights included a Debate on Commercialization Systems & Supports, in which John Molloy, President & CEO, PARTEQ Innovations, asked rhetorically: given that Canada spends $6B per year on R&D, who is responsible for commercialization of research? The notion of responsibility resonated with me, as it foregrounds a very useful discussion relating to Canada's poor record on innovation and productivity.

I've noted here before that not all research need be oriented to a commercial outcome. That said, all research has a purpose, be it discovery or applied. The difference is in the time horizon of this application. It is disingenuous of us to say that we conduct research for its own sake, for even curiosity driven research has an outcome rooted in an unspecified future.

The panel I moderated on the role of colleges, polytechnics and CCTTs featured an excellent discussion by the panelists on these issues. Nobina Robinson, Chief Executive Officer, Polytechnics Canada, Michel Trepanier, Professor, INRS UCS and Institut de recherche sur les PME/UQTR, Niall Wallace, CEO, Infonaut, Inc., and Vanessa Williamson, Executive Director, Colleges Ontario Network for Industry Innovation engaged ideas such as the role incremental innovation, increasing productivity in low technology areas of the economy, the need to facilitate partnerships between academic and industry where the client is the focus and fostering risk and responsibility in our approach to innovation. This perspective on applied research foregrounds the difference between push versus pull research, and a good point was made that in the Canadian R&D scene there is no real voice for the industry partner, particularly small to medium enterprises (SMEs). Bringing this voice to bear is something Polytechnics Canada has been a particularly strong advocate for, and underscores the college applied research mandate of linking the training of highly qualified and skilled personnel (HQSO) to the applied research endeavour as one way to foster greater innovation literacy in the economy writ large.

The audience engagement was interesting given the scope of the questions. We are at a unique juncture in Canada with respect to the engagement of the college applied research layer of the R&D ecosystem, and working together in complementary ways to link basic and applied research with industry and commercial outcomes is an entirely appropriate thing to do given our need to increase innovation, competitiveness, and productivity. To shy away from this is to abrogate our responsibility to the future as entrusted to all of us who receive public money to engage in our work.

Other interesting discussions included an overview of Canada’s Commercialization Challenges by Sorin Cohn, Chief Program Officer, i-Canada, and an excellent review of Trends in Industrial Research: Implications for tech transfer by Ron Freedman, Co-founder, The Impact Group in a luncheon keynote. Freedman's slide deck is online here, and is well worth a read.


Chad Gaffield, President of SSHRC, convened a panel on People Centered Innovations, that sparked interesting discussions relevant to the notion of responsibility and the ability of the education system to respond to the needs of the labour market. I've written before on Gaffield's notion of people centred innovation particularly as this relates to supply and demand for talent in the innovation economy. This is a very important point and highly relevant to what Gaffield termed customer-centric innovation, which is a good link to the recent Roger Martin article on this topic.

The preparation of human capital for the workforce, what Prof Jean Charest of Université de Montréal on the People Centered Innovations panel termed "human capability, is vital to the national economy. To dislocate the academic enterprise from the economy is to endanger the future of our productivity. People are the basis of innovation and entrepreneurship, and innovation is inherently a social activity. The responsibility - or response-ability - that all publicly funded people have is to help prepare the talent for the economy of the future. This includes integrating what I've termed  innovation literacy across academic programs as we engage all HQSP in the R&D enterprise, whether basic or applied.

On the subject of talent and HQSP, SSHRC is currently engaged in a renewal of their Talent Program. The discussion document outlines SSHRC's approach to this renewal, and contains a call to action for all of us engaged in education and research. I encourage everyone so engaged to review the Talent Program Renewal discussion guide and to respond to the questions posed therein. This represents a key moment to influence the future of our innovative capacity, particularly as it relates to people at the centre of the innovation economy. Key elements of the discussion include adopting a more consistent approach to research training across all of SSHRC programs, provisions for multi-institutional (and cross-sectoral) partnerships to support research training, and a range of further modifications and improvements to existing programs of direct support. The deadline for feedback is 15 December. As noted above, we have a responsibility - and an ability to respond - to this call to action. It is important that we do so.

College applied research and the diffusion of innovation

I had the opportunity yesterday to address the Expert Panel on Review of Federal Business Research and Development Programs on the role of college applied research in the Canadian innovation system. My slide deck with notes is available here.

Appearing on the same time slot was John Molloy, president and CEO or Parteq Innovations, who was representing the university technology transfer side of the equation. Molloy led with an overview of the need for "aggressive commercialization," which boils down to the need to properly fund industry liaison activities external to, but which are cognizant of, the academic environment. Their focus is on disruptive innovation, not incremental innovation, seeking to take the big science finds and get these to market with as much alacrity and capital as possible.

The college applied research piece of the innovation system focuses on the incremental innovation space and the diffusion of innovation. We were highly aligned on the need for a complementary approach to industry R&D. We are also aligned on the need for integrating students from all levels of education into innovation activities. I've made the point earlier that fostering innovation literacy has a multiplier effect on industry innovation capacity.

Of particular importance to colleges and universities is how well we prepare the next generation of talent for entrepreneurial and innovation activities. Typically in Canada we measure the effects of student engagement in R&D by counting Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP), which refers primarily to graduate students. We need to expand this to include undergraduate college students and count Highly Qualified and Skilled Personnel (HQSP) to capture the larger potential of engaging our entire work force in innovation capacity development. Those with graduate degrees represent a small percentage of our population (less than 5%). HQSP embraces the role of advanced skills and education and reinforces a multiplier effect that innovation literacy can have on the wider population. When we expose our students in colleges to applied research problem solving they gain innovation literacy, as noted above. Colleges offer diplomas through to undergraduate degrees. Students so equipped with innovation literacy are more amenable to working with those with advanced degrees on innovation activities. We need innovation literacy at all levels of the work force. Our productivity and innovation challenges demand of us a consolidated approach to improving the innovation capacity of all workers in all sectors of the economy. Doing so will enhance the diffusion of innovation at all levels of the economy.

The key for college applied research is instrumentality, or the intentional application of applied research and innovation services to industry needs and contexts. This means that we are focused on addressing the industry problems faced by firms who are seeking to innovate and create new value in their sectors. We are an explicit instrument for addressing these industry problems, meaning that we respond to what is needed, fitting into the R&D continuum for latter stage innovation support.

George Brown College Response to the CFI 2009 Consultations

The Canada Foundation for Innovation has embarked upon a consultation process in advance of distributing the $600M in new funds received from the recent federal budget. As part of this consultation process, all institutions wishing to participate in the funding programs were asked to send in their thoughts as to how best to structure any new funding programs. Below is the response from George Brown College.


This response to the CFI consultation discussion paper offers several ways in which better support for Colleges and Polytechnics will aid Canada’s innovation strategy and the federal Science and Technology Strategy. Colleges address the four areas that CFI is interested in exploring, some directly, some indirectly. While CFI has historically focused on the capabilities of individual investigators within institutions, we need to make the case that, while we do conduct some discovery based research that meets the excellence criteria for individual investigators, Colleges are more institutionally focused. That is, we offer industry-facing applied research capabilities that are institutional, not individual, as applied research centres marshal resources (people, materiel) from across our Colleges to fill gaps in the R&D pipelines in Canada. Our focus on applied research, innovation and commercialization activities supports industry problem-solving in ways that are complementary to established, discovery-based research institutions. This is a strength, and a necessary facet of the R&D continuum. Supporting College applied esearch capacity thus is in line with the federal Science and Technology Strategy (most notably through the College and Community Innovation Program administered by NSERC), and provincially in Ontario through MRI’s continued support of the Colleges Ontario Network for Industry Innovation (CONII). George Brown College has received first round NSERC CCIP funding, and is also a founding member of CONII.

CFI should recognize and support the unique contribution that colleges are already making to strengthening Canada’s capacity for research, innovation and commercialization. To do so, CFI needs to structure its strategy and its application and granting process in order to leverage the institutional versus individual applied research focus that Colleges bring to the equation. In saying this, we are not asking for special consideration in our applications to the CFI for funding of infrastructure. We expect to be judged based on the excellence of our proposals and our ability to complement the R&D continuum, as noted above.

The impact of CFI’s work will be extended considerably by drawing more intentionally and more fully on the capacity of Canada’s community colleges. Investing in the applied research layer of Canada will enhance our overall social and economic productivity. Colleges represent a key vehicle for attracting business expenditures on research and development (BERD), matching the higher education expenditures on R&D (HERD).1 Colleges work with established basic research centres and industry partners to enhance competitiveness overall in the sectors we serve. Generally speaking, firms are not making effective use of the postsecondary research facilities we currently have. The goal of College applied research centres is to enable firms to make more effective use of public applied research facilities in support of increased BERD, which will result in increased productivity.

CFI should take a proactive approach to supporting R&D complementarities, and the institution-based applied research strengths of Canada’s Colleges. For George Brown College, the intentional application of applied research and innovation services supports industry needs and contexts, thereby facilitating the design of innovation - how to test the practicality of new products or services (adoption and adaptation). Colleges most ably speak to the need documented by CFI to enhance the role of Canadian institutions in knowledge translation and commercialization that is of benefit to Canada. Our participation in the R&D continuum fosters social and economic productivity across the fabric of industry sectors we serve. Our impact is not as much based on discoveries by individuals in individual laboratories. Rather, our impact is more environmental, in that we support the whole by filling in the parts that are not currently well supported in Canada – the applied research, commercialization-focused "last mile" services industry needs in order to test market practicality assumptions. CFI should build on the initiatives started by the CCI Program, and encourage industry sector partnerships that go beyond providing deep discounts to infrastructure. Industry should be supported in seeing themselves as equal participants in the applied research facilities, with ongoing investments in their use.

Supporting applied research in Colleges, particularly those (like George Brown College) that work well with established university partners, will strengthen regional innovation clusters, and create more value for industry-facing research and development activities. Broadening the potential outputs for all R&D in a given area by supporting applied research inputs will foster increased productivity, thereby enabling Canada to realign R&D expenditure imbalances, and correct the long-standing poor record we have on innovation generally, as understood by the OECD and the Conference Board of Canada.

We know from various national and international studies that Canada lags in innovation compared to similar developed countries. The Conference Board of Canada, in its 11th annual snapshot of Canada’s socio-economic performance entitled How Canada Performs: A Report Card on Canada, assessed Canada's ranking as 13th out of 17 countries in innovation and gave this component its worse grade — a "D".2 The OECD and Global Insight have drawn similar conclusions regarding Canada's weak position in terms of innovation capacity and performance. Global Insight assigned a rating of "C- ", its lowest rating among eight factors reviewed, for Canada's 'Capacity to innovate'.3 The Conference Board of Canada called for action from educational institutions to support the innovation agenda in another report entitled, 'Solving Canada's Innovation Conundrum: How Public Education Can Help'.4 The authors note that "how students develop their innovation skills depends on the nature of their educational experience... Ultimately innovative processes, tools, and techniques generate students with higher levels of skills for innovation". One of the three strategic approaches identified to make innovation a priority is the development of relevant institutional capacity. The Conference Board's call to action consists of four 'pillars':

1. Develop a pan-Canadian framework for promoting innovation skills;
2. Recognize and credential innovation skills;
3. Strengthen links among education, business and communities; and,
4. Increase innovation training in pre-service and in-service programs for educators.

Our proposed work will contribute to several facets of this call to action.

College applied research supports the development of highly qualified and skilled personnel (HQSP). Our students working on applied research projects gain innovation literacy: the ability to think creatively, evaluate, and apply problem-solving skills to diverse and intangible issues within industrial problems and multidisciplinary contexts. Fostering innovation literacy in our highly qualified and skilled graduates is a key differentiator of the College and Polytechnic advantage, particularly as regards applied research conducted in close concert with industry and community needs. In this way, College applied research supports the call for better deployment of public funds in the R&D sector, supporting the applied research capabilities of Colleges working in concert with regional networks in support of innovation. In recognizing the unique capabilities of the applied research layer the Colleges bring to the equation, CFI can support HQSP graduating from College programs: this represents 70% of the Canadian workforce. In so doing, CFI has a unique opportunity to support what is called open innovation in Canada: "the use of purposive inflows and outflows of knowledge to accelerate internal innovation, and expand the markets for external use of innovation, respectively" (Chesbrough). This is the central facet of R&D complementarities, whereby all R&D organizations, working together with firms, can foster an open approach to innovation and capacity building for improved social and economic productivity in Canada.

1 Canada is second in the OECD for HERD; 12th for BERD. Realigning this imbalance and encouraging more private R&D investment is seen by many as one way to increase productivity.
2 http://sso.conferenceboard.ca/HCP
3 Global Insight Canada on Canada's Fundamentals
4 Solving Canada's Innovation Conundrum: How Public Education Can Help, July 2003, The Conference Board of Canada

Polytechnics Showcase: Students show their innovation and entrepreneurship skills

The annual Polytechnics Canada Applied Research Showcase was held at Humber College last week, sponsored jointly by BDC. The event featured great presentations from students from each of the member institutes. This is a highlight whereby students from each polytechnic showcase their work with an industry partner and compete for a prize for the best presentation. This year George Brown College student Alecsander Granger took the first prize - congratulations Alecsander!

New this year was a panel discussion of three employers who have hired a polytechnic graduate. Each pair spoke about the role of innovation and entrepreneurship and how the innovation literacy skills learned as part of applied research project work added value to the partner organization. GBC Chef School graduate Geremy Capone, now resident chef at the Electronic Living Lab for Interdisciplinary Survivorship Research, appeared with ELLICSR scientist Dr Sara Urowitz, spoke about the BRUNCH project.

Human Resources and Skills Development Canada Minister Diane Finley attended the conference both days, and presented the students with the awards in addition to giving a lunch time key note address. The text from her speech are available on the HRSDC website.

Day two of the conference featured an SME Summit, whereby industry partners worked with Polytechnics Canada members to shape the coming advocacy agenda.  Michel Bergeron, Vice President, Corporate Relations, Business Development Bank of Canada (BDC), kicked off the day outlining the business innovation support that BDC offers. Bergeron in particular discussed how BDC adapted their approach to focus on incremental innovation, versus disruptive innovation, as this was the need expressed by industry. (Also well supported by OECD publications.)

Clair Gartley, Vice President, Business, Innovation and Community Development, Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario (FedDev Ontario), Bert van den Berg, Director, Knowledge and Technology Transfer Division, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and Tom Matulis, Acting Executive Director, Ontario Region, Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) also presented on the various supports their respective programs ofer SMEs. In short, it was an excellent SME survival guide that links the preparation of HQSP with the demands of the innovation economy.

Innovation Followership

Here's an interesting report on innovation measurement out of the EU earlier this year. The EU report uses standard metrics for innovation excellence (R&D included in this), things like percentage of populations with doctoral degrees, but also percentage of those age 30-34 with tertiary education completed. As I've noted many times, Canada is number one for tertiary education attainment when you include Type A (university) and Type B (vocational, or college). The EU is also tracking growth rates in education, which gives a hint at a future performance potential. Publications, R&D expenditures in public and private sectors and migration of HQSP all figure prominently here. It will be very interesting to read this against the Council of Canadian Academies' Expert Panel report on the State of Science and Technology in Canada (of which I am a member) and the sister Expert Panel on the State of Industrial Research and Development in Canada. Taken together, these two reports will provide a good snapshot of where Canada is in terms of international R&D performance.

What interests me in the EU Report is the concept of innovation followers. Business schools abound with courses on leadership, and some teach the concept of followership. It would be interesting to apply this concept of followership to Canada's innovation performance. Perhaps if we think of Canada's innovation performance in terms of followership we will have a better picture of a more suitable role for a country who, while outspending most other OECD countries on R&D, does very poorly at innovation (translating R&D into goods and services - social and economic). After all, it's the second mouse that gets the cheese.

Looking back, Looking ahead: Investing in Applied Research

Properly speaking a post so titled should come in January, but as we close out the year I thought it would be useful to summarize some key points from the past year, but more importantly, what I see as some key themes that I will be focusing on in the year ahead.

The past year has been a good one for applied research, for polytechnics, and for colleges engaged in instigating industry innovation. The Federal R&D Review is one of the more significant policy opportunities that emerged, with its focus on business innovation and what public policy measures can be taken to foster this. There can be no debate that we need to increase productivity and our national capacity to innovate. Polytechnics and colleges involved in industry applied research are working toward this and have made strong gains in the past year. Government sponsorship is helping us to help industry innovate. The increased funding we have received is not part of a zero sum game that pits colleges, polytechnics and universities against one another. The internecine reflex that encourages such thinking prevents us from moving forward.

For the year ahead I have three themes:

1. The diffusion of innovation: to my point above, our ability to be responsive to the innovation and productivity challenges that beset us is contingent on complementarity and cooperation. This doesn't mean less of a focus on excellence. Rather, it means focusing on excellence while promoting a national, participatory and unified perspective on fostering greater business innovation. 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 and diffusion of incremental innovation. Our focus is not on us, but on what we can do downstream by enabling industry innovation.
2. People-centred innovation is a grounded way to promote participatory innovation - our way of engaging students, faculty and our partners, using the principles of human-centred design. This approach, contiguous with open innovation, fosters innovation literacy in our graduates while being focused on the downstream results of our work, as noted above, while being mindful of stakeholder needs. This is an outside-in, versus an inside-out approach, meaning we need to adopt the perspective of those we are working with and for. This is a basic precept of participatory design that lets us see our responsibility (to improving innovation and productivity for example) against any perceived right (to obtain funding for research). People-centred innovation acknowledges that innovation is a social activity.
3. Using our imagination. It is time to modernize the Canadian postsecondary environment and create a national innovation system that clearly articulates universities, polytechnics and colleges. This new national system will be receptive to industry engagement, and will foster innovation literacy at all levels of HQSP. Doing this requires a collective will to imagine the future where we can compete in the global innovation economy. To do this we need to take research from ideas to invoice: we must craft an Innovation Policy that encourages firms to invest in R&D and provides an "any point of contact" entry to link industry with our postsecondary institutions (PSIs). Doing so will achieve a threefold ROI:
• A Return on Interest from basic research that provokes thought and ideas, leading to disruptive innovations through long term research investment;
• A Return on Innovation from applied research that increases industry R&D spending and our collective capacity to innovate, leading to improved productivity; and
• A Return on Investment from experimental development through the creation of new products and processes and through the training of students, who enter the workforce ready to innovate.

 All of us implicated in the Canadian innovation system have a responsibility - a response-ability - to step up and continue to work together with each other and other players in the system. We need to think past the immediate and see the longer term goals of improving social and economic prosperity. In these tumultuous and kinetic times, our productivity challenges demand this of us.

CCA releases the State of Industrial R&D report

The Council of Canadian Academies has released its report on the State of Industrial R&D (IR&D). The report is a complement to the CCA's State of S&T in Canada, 2012, of which I was a member of the expert panel, and as such I've been awaiting this report. Along with other reports such as the Jenkins Panel report and the CCA's Innovation Impacts (among other excellent reports on S&T and related phenomena), these two taken together provide a good picture of all that is working well and not in Canadian research, development and innovation.

There are very few surprises in the report on IR&D. We see more evidence that Canadian industry does not perform much R&D compared to our international counterparts, and compared to our public R&D. This is old news. George Brown' College's report Toronto Next: Return on Innovation provided a snapshot of industry's lackluster approach to R&D and innovation, namely that over half of those businesses we surveyed said it is the responsibility of government for innovation. Coupled with the overall weak investment in new technologies and training for employees, it is not surprising that the State of IR&D is dismal.

I was pleased to see the expert panel on IR&D conduct an analysis of the alignment between public S&T (HERD), industrial R&D (BERD), and economic strength. No surprise here either: there isn't much. There is a good discussion on the different incentives inherent in the public and private sectors. For a look at the stark difference between the US and Canada, turn to page 143, where we see two juxtaposed quotations. The first, from the US, states: "the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (2012) argued that university research can 'benefit the Nation only insofar as these accomplishments are effectively coupled to the needs of a strong private sector.'" Second, we hear from Marcel Côté and Roger Miller, who say that "Universities are generally concerned by the lack of connections between professional research and economic development in the surrounding region. They should not be." The value of universities is in preparing HQSP and creating new knowledge. Both true. But when the production of new knowledge is dislocated from the mean of production in the economy, then we have the kind of innovation malaise that Canada is plagued by.

There is no easy fix here, and I am not suggesting that all basic research be tied to economic imperatives. But the State of IR&D is a wake up call for all of us involved in promoting better productivity through research - both basic and applied -  to do a better job of linking our world leading S&T capacity to what Canadian industry can capitalize on. Or, we continue to be complacent with our role as hewers of wood, drawers of water, and producers of ideas for others to commercialize. Either way, let's get serious about connecting public policy, S&T capacity, and firm productivity and innovation.

Innovation, Partnerships, Productivity

The ACCT Canada conference Innovation Partnerships 2012 was held this week in Ottawa, and featured  excellent discussion on fixing Canada's lagging innovation and R&D productivity record and how innovation intermediaries can do more to foster and enhance Canadian R&D competitiveness.

I convened a panel on P3RD, on which the panelists provided some excellent discussion not only on what works in linking industry and academic R&D partnerships, but how best to measure performance over time. More on this in a minute. The P3RD panel members were as follows:

• Drew de Kergommeaux, Director, Industrial Research Assistance Program, National Research Council Canada 
• John Fielding, Regional Director, Business Development, Ontario Centres of Excellence 
• Marc Nantel, Associate Vice-President - Research & Innovation, Niagara College 
• Bert van den Berg, Director, Knowledge & Technology Transfer, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada

The issues the panelists discussed focused on how R&D funding programs encourage public-private partnerships, wherein academic and industry work together toward innovation outcomes. The packed audience heard about NRC IRAP's planned concierge service, OCE's funding programs, examples from Niagara College's leading work on college applied research, and some notes on how best to manage performance from Bert van den Berg. The presentation file is online here.

Measuring performance is important for the community in order to adequately and effectively assess what works and what does not. Since we are stewards of public investments in increasing industry innovation capacity, we need to make sure that these investments have a return on innovation, so to speak. As such, it is important to measure the effectiveness of the many actors in the system: the funders, the innovation intermediaries, the faculty and students  and the firms we are serving with industry academic partnership program support. Key here is a logic model approach to understanding all of these actors, the inputs and outputs, and importantly the outcomes of these investments. Bert van den Berg articulated these as impacts:

• Ultimate: economic & social benefits for citizens 
• Intermediate: increased sales, profit, employment at firms 
• Immediate: increased R&D, commercialization, innovation focus by firms, training of HQSP 

These are interesting to note as they are proxies in a way for the work that academic innovation intermediaries do. Our value proposition is that we give industry access to talent, facilities, markets and funding. There are two primary benefits here: students gain crucial innovation literacy skills, and firms get assistance with innovation and market entry for new products and services. Thus a good way to measure the success of George Brown College's support of industry innovation (and by extension any intermediary providing this innovation support) is through the downstream effects we have on the companies we help. This is not to say that we do not measure our own performance, but rather to see our performance and its effect through the main proxy we are here to help: students and industry. To put another way, if we do our job well, we are in the background of greater industry innovation and productivity.

At the P3RD panel we also launched the P3RD site and the mapping innovation application we have developed to assist firms in finding an academic innovation provider. Under the tagline of Putting the S&T in Start Up, the P3RD site lets firms  indicate where they are located, what kind of innovation service they are looking for, and what industry they are from. They are then taken to a map which displays providers, partners and past projects. These past projects are an online resume of past work a provider has done, giving firms an idea of the kind of projects the college, polytechnics or university has done before. We are working with Tenet Computer Group on the technology, specifically their GreenRack cloud service, with plans to further leverage their Augmundo augmented reality technology. Read more about Tenet's leading innovative technology here.

We built this as a marketing vehicle for George Brown College, but have included the ability to add any innovation provider as a way to promote the idea of a concierge service. Think of it as LavaLife for creating public-private R&D partnerships. As I mentioned earlier this year, place matters to productivity. We need to encourage innovation in firms and enable these firms to find a provider of choice, be this down the street or across the country. The P3RD application enables this. 

At the conference we demonstrated the map, including an easy to use tablet interface for adding people. Minister of State for Science and Technology the Honourable Gary Goodyear stopped by to review the P3RD Mapping Innovation application, and to learn how this can aid industry in finding an innovation service provider.

Minister of State for Science and Technology the Honourable Gary Goodyear reviews P3RD Mapping Innovation

We will continue to work on refining the P3RD application with our partners. Check back as we continue to develop the site in partnership with others.

The P3RD panelists discussed how enabling technology innovation is relatively straight forward. What is needed most by firms is business expertise. This was reflected in an excellent panel I attended on social innovation convened by SSHRC president Chad Gaffield.  The social sciences and humanities are key to fostering what Dr Gaffield calls people centred innovation. Specialists in human thought and behaviour are key to enabling the innovation economy. The panel discussed concepts related to public-private partnerships, including not for profits, that are working together to bridge academic and industry sectors. Gaffield spoke about promoting "cultures of innovation" and panelists talked about how building partnerships involves having difficult conversations to link academics with firms when the latter needs to understand how these will help them earn money. Pam Laughland of the Network for Business Sustainability (a SSHRC funded organization that and has since raised $2M in investment) works to connect research and practice to convene and shape and transform ideas to make them usable by both audiences: businesses and academics. She spoke about the need to make partners part of the problem so that there is upstream affective investment in the issues under development, particularly regarding embedding sustainability in corporate culture. This involves converting outcomes into economic language as way to translate value so that industry sees themselves as part of the picture. This is a necessary instrumentality that translates to students, who learn about how their skills translate into innovation no matter the sector they work in (private, public or not for profit). As panelist Susanne Lajoie of McGill University put it, we need to teach the skills for 21st century education. Innovation requires ability to learn in new contexts, problem solving, communication, and ability to self regulate and be self directed. These are the skills of innovation literacy.

I attended many great sessions at the Innovation Partnerships 2012 conference, and I encourage all to check out the files online, and to attend next year's event.

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.