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.

Complementarity, coopetition, and clusters

While we in Ontario await news from the Ontario Budget as to how it will affect research funding - in particular the scaling back of Commercialization and Innovation Network Support - there is the Federal Budget coming today that promises a focus on innovation and productivity. Meanwhile, two articles from yesterday offer relevant insights as we retool Canada to support more innovation, from business investment in R&D to skills development for the innovation economy. The first, encouraging Canadians to take more economic risks, offers good insights on collaboration as one key way to capitalize on our inventiveness. Another article on the MITACS program, featuring Arvind Gupta, a member of the Jenkins Panel along with Polytechnics Canada CEO Nobina Robinson, shows the value of applied research while engaging graduate students in industry focused innovation. It's too bad the article did not also focus on the applied research colleges and polytechnics do, as this is our model of education. Anything that makes it easier for firms to tap into the talent in our post secondary system is of value to the country's productivity and innovative capacity.

The idea of collaboration and the relationship of clusters is being taken up today in the Toronto Board of Trade's Economic Summit. The article is an interview with Ted Lyman from Silicon Valley's IHS Global Insight, speaking at today's summit, who rightly points out that a public-private partnership approach to R&D and innovation (P3RD). On the linkages to education he says

There are flagship universities that produce the PhDs and the applied research. But the other universities, and community colleges, where the journeyman engineers and technicians come from, are all key to this. A lot of clusters actually sponsor training [programs] at community colleges. They pay to put in place a curriculum [and] everybody wins. The community college has their bills paid, the companies have people trained exactly for what they need and the people looking for employment have jobs delivered on a platter.

This is a sensible approach to complementarity, coopetition, and clusters supporting the geography of innovation.

Polytechnics Canada releases Solutions Report

Polytechnics Canada released the Solutions Report early in February. Subtitled "how industry-driven research at polytechnics helps Canada compete," the Solutions Report provides an overview of how polytechnics - and all colleges engaged in applied research - fit into the R&D continuum. The need to build the infrastructure of complementarity is reflected in federal and provincial funding programs that are increasing applied research capacity in Canadian colleges. This capacity building is essential to Canada's social and economic productivity.

The Innovation Equation

The OCE Discovery 2009 is on now - drop by to see the GBC Research Labs' booth and learn more about the innovation equation:

Public-Private Partnerships + Research and Development = P3RD

Investing in industry-facing applied research and commercialization activities and fostering "open innovation" and complementarity across the R&D value chain will result in improved social and economic productivity in Canada.

Participatory Innovation

Here's a link to a good article by Todd Hirsch on the need for a more extensible funding model for education. It relates very well to an integrated, participatory approach to open innovation. And while we are on the topic of complementarity, here is a piece that further debunks the myth of the individual inventor that posits an additive approach to innovation. A participatory, people-centred innovation assumes a collaborative and collective approach to furthering common innovation needs. As noted in my last post, this is a strong theme for the coming year.

"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.

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.

Budget 2011 has strong support for applied research, complementarity

Budget 2011 includes many measures that will strengthen Canada's capacity to compete by leveraging the college and polytechnic applied research layer of the Canadian innovation system. I'll post details and analysis later, but for now here is a highlight:

• Strong focus on investments in education and R&D, following leading OECD indicators
• $80M in new funding for IRAP to link businesses with colleges
• $37M each year ongoing for the Tri-Council
• $10M for Indirect Costs
• Most significantly: Supporting 30 new Industrial Research Chairs at colleges with $3 million in 2011–12 and $5 million a year on a permanent basis starting in 2012–13.
• Allocating $12 million over five years, starting in 2011–12, through the Idea to Innovation program to support joint college-university commercialization projects.
• Good support for international applied research through a Canada-India Research Centre of Excellence, linked to an international education strategy
• Digital Economy strategy supports, including for business innovation and content creation

Credit Transfer in Ontario

George Brown College today hosts MTCU Minister John Molloy who will make an announcement of credit transfer in Ontario. An article in today's (or yesterday's if online) Globe provides some details and context about credit transfer and educational articulation. This is an absolutely necessary step for modernizing the post-secondary education system. The article notes BC, Alberta and Quebec as having strong, centralized credit transfer systems. The point of these modern education systems is that they enable the province to compete as a larger jurisdiction, enabling learners to progress through education and into the job market much more easily, thereby focusing on social and economic productivity over and above any single actor in the system. Educational complementarity thus executed will foster a better set of outputs for the economy generally, mirroring the "any point of entry" innovation system that, while inchoate, is streamlining business innovation for Ontario firms.

Here are some links to news items about the announcement:

Province makes it easier to move from college to university – or back. parentcentral.ca Greg Evans started to study film at Ryerson University, but had a change of heart and switched to social work at George Brown College in second year. ...

New credit-transfer system for Ontario students CTV.ca Anne Sado, president of George Brown College and a spokeswoman for Colleges Ontario, says she is eager for the program's implementation, but notes that ...

Colleges applaud credit transfer system Canada NewsWire "We look forward to this system becoming operational as soon as possible," said Anne Sado, president of George Brown College and member of the credit ...

Province aims to make transfering easier Metro Canada - Ottawa Anne Sado, president of George Brown College, said she is eager for the program's implementation, but notes that willing partners will be needed to make it ...

Public Policy Forum, the innovation system, productivity

The Public Policy Forum convened a workshop on Monday regarding the linking of industry and academic communities. The session was well attended and had a very good focus on complementarity, and providing industry with an "any point of entry" solutions-oriented approach to improving R&D in Ontario. Relevant to this ongoing discussion is an article in today`s Report on Business: Canada's productivity trap: Recovery running on 'sweat and toil ... not brains and innovation'. It is yet another wake up call for Canadian industries to invest in new technology, one of the surest ways to increase productivity.

Drawers of ideas and the privilege of the a priori

The Public Policy Forum today hosted a Leadership Roundtable on Canada's Global Science, Technology and Innovation Priorities, sponsored by DFAIT, which I was fortunate to attend. The discussion was excellent and focused on how Canada can better position itself internationally to enable soft landings - both outbound and in coming - for Canadian business to realize international markets as well as to link international businesses to Canadian contexts, linking to our world-leading S&T capacity. This capacity is reflected in our leading university research facilities, our college and  polytechnic applied research capacity, and the conjoint post-secondary training ground that makes us the world leader in producing highly qualified and skilled personnel (i.e. graduates) for the innovation economy.

Greater integration of our capabilities as a country will enable us to better sell Canada as an investment destination. This is the notion of complementarity and the need to better connect the academic enterprise with industry. We can call this P3RD - the public+private partnership model for R&D. In my last post on this, P3RD: Public Private Partnerships in Research and Development, I outlined the notion of what in my title today I refer to as the privilege of the a priori:

the privileging of basic research over applied research in Canada - of the theoretical over the practical or commercialization aspects of R&D - can be read as a symptom of our collective historical identity as "hewers of wood and drawers of water". Basic research sans commercialization is just one more example of how Canada exports raw commodities (ideas) without adding value (commercialization of these ideas). To move past raw commodity exports and adding value through product design is key to Canada's future productivity, and P3RD - which the recent budget explicitly promotes - is a positive path to follow in this regard.

In this sense Canada is also a drawer of ideas - we come up with good ideas but leave it to others to commercialize. Ideas are just another basic resource that we draw from the land and export without adding value.

[Aside]I am reminded of the Roman poet Horace who, among other  things, said that the poet should put a poem away in a drawer for nine years before bringing it back to see if it is still good. Perhaps we have been too focused on the idea of putting things away (in publications) - drawing ideas, putting them away in drawers.You get the idea. Another thing Horace said is instructive to our discussion about instrumentality: "Mix pleasure and profit, and you are safe." This relates well to the need to mix the academic and industry communities - where applicable - for Canadian productivity and innovation capacity. [/Aside]

The timing of this roundtable was excellent, particularly given the OECD's release yesterday of Canada's country report. The report says that "Canada needs to boost innovation and human capital to sustain living standards," and offers more fodder to the need for Canada to increase our innovation quotient. The Economic Survey of Canada 2012 makes many good points relating to Canada's innovation capacity and economic growth, including the advice that "Greater integration of technical, business, communications and industry training within tertiary programmes could contribute to innovation and improving graduate skills." This integration exemplifies the notion of people centred innovation, and is what George Brown College and other colleges and polytechnics are doing with regards to the integration of applied research in course curricula. This leads to students acquiring innovation literacy skills that are our hedge against future innovation capacity and potential for the economy. The OECD's Canada report and the idea of better integration of these components coincides with the recent launch of the OECD Skills Strategy. This is a good resource for anyone with an interest in innovation.

All told, the roundtable ended on a very optimistic note. Canada is in a much better place now than it was five years ago with respect to the capacity we have to leverage our basic and applied R&D capacity. We are much better now at linking with industry for common goals. And we have a much more refined sense of the innovation ecosystem and the complementary roles universities, colleges and industry play in improving Canada's innovation and productivity.

Polytechnics Know How

Saskatchewan Polytechnic hosted the Polytechnics Canada Annual Conference on 7 May, and featured some great speakers and discussion about highly relevant issues pertaining to education and its relationship to productivity in the economy. On 6 May there were internal group meetings kicked off by a talk by Ken Coates, who engaged the group with questions regarding "the polytechnic moment." Fundamentally this is about our ability to respond to labour market needs with effective balancing of supply and demand with skills training and education. This recurrent theme is of great importance given the lack of growth in education funding and the need to ensure that the labour market has effective inputs (i.e. graduates) for social and economic outputs.

The agenda featured good speakers and an industry panel that discussed the political context of education and differentiation and how to articulate the value of polytechnic education. This includes our focus on applied research and the conjoint outcome of helping industry increase innovation and productivity while giving our students valuable innovation skills. These intangible skills were a strong focus of the discussions, in that these are often overlooked and add value to any social or economic enterprise.  That is, with demographics being what they are, with the work force essentially shrinking and the expenses of those retiring increasing, we have a very real need to increase productivity across the economy.  The kinds of skills and education that polytechnic education provides offer an excellent avenue for realizing this goal. This include the transferable skills and training people to assume managerial responsibilities as areas in need of development.

Adaptive thinking is required in our graduates - a core competency of innovation literacy - as well as in our approach to education. This is not an either or argument - it is clear form our discussions that situating one form of education against others is not a winning proposition. Rather, our focus on complementarity, in education and applied research, acknowledges a perspectival multiplicity that is also a multiplier effect on the economy. This kind of thought leadership is important in the post-secondary education landscape.

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.

Report from the ACCT Annual Conference

The Alliance for Commercialization of Canadian Technologies held their annual conference in Ottawa on 24 and 25 November. The agenda offered many interesting sessions on three tracks: educational, operational and strategic. It was interesting to note in several sessions where metrics were discussed that there is a general feeling that, while metrics are useful, success stories are even more so, as these give life to the data. Both Polytechnics Canada and CONII have made success stories a core facet of how we transmit metrics and the impact(s) of applied research. (Success stories from the GBC Research Labs can be found on our Research Archive).

A session by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada featured data from their publication "Momentum: The 2008 report on university research and knowledge mobilization." This report calls for better collaboration models across the R&D spectrum (a favourite topic of mine) and better mobilization of highly qualified (and skilled) personnel, in particular "the development of skills conducive to entrepreneur sip" and fostering "responsiveness and adaptability of the workforce." This is commensurate with GBC's Research Commercialization and Innovation program and our focus on innovation literacy.

Day 2 of the conference featured an entire track devoted to College and Polytechnic research, innovation and commercialization. In these sessions there were many good presentations on how to engage students in industry research projects, and the general need for and move toward complementarity.

Productivity, research, standard of living

I've been remiss in commenting on the recent announcement of the $190M Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC) Program, particularly in light of a couple of opinion pieces in the Globe and Mail. The first by Sumitra Rajagopalan ("When science gets political, long-term knowledge is lost") raises the question of why there were no women candidates in the pool of CERC researchers. However, she also laments the federal government's focus on applied research and the setting of national research objectives and priorities. This is flawed thinking. As I've noted many times before, Canada is first in the G8 (second in all of OECD) for Higher Education R&D (HERD) spending. We lag in Business Expenditures on R&D (BERD). Failure to reorient this imbalance will continue to skew our overall productivity. Jeffrey Simpson offers praise for the CERC program, but also points out that such a focus on research at the university level may be a detriment to teaching undergraduates.

The College focus on applied research sees undergraduate teaching and learning as core to our applied research mandate. That is, we integrate students in all of our applied research projects because it gives them innovation literacy - key problem solving skills relevant to their future jobs.

I was reminded of the importance of these issues when I read an editorial in today's Globe. "Wealthy, healthy and wise" points to the recent report by TD Economics that details the need for further post-secondary education spending in Canada as a key way to arrest falling productivity. The TD report is excellent; however, the Globe gets it wrong by focusing only on university education. Canada may be 11th in OECD university participation rates, but we are first in tertiary education when Colleges are included in the mix. We need to realize that a focus on complementarity for both research and education is necessary - where all facets of the PSE system are combined in a single, focused innovation system that links the provision of advanced education at the college and university level matched to both applied and fundamental research capabilities. Both inquiry based research and the support of industrial applied R&D needs are essential to resolving Canada's overall innovation and productivity malaise.

Report on Canada's innovation gap

A very good article in yesterday's Report on Business details Canada's innovation gap and our worsening productivity, specifically focusing on the role of R&D spending by firms in Canada. Konrad Yakabuski outlines our woeful productivity performance as measured against Business Expenditures in Research and Development (BERD). It's a good read. The comparison to Finland is a good lesson for all of us involved in the R&D continuum in this country. Focusing on how we can move past being mere "hewers of wood and drawers of water" - beyond simple commodity exports - is a key lesson that reinforces the value-add design can bring to applied research and innovation activities.

Yakabuski refers to the Council of Canadian Academies' recent Report on state of management and business research in Canada: Expert panel calls for more contact between researchers and managers. This report outlines the disconnect between our research institutions and the application of research outputs into practice. The realignment of the HERD|BERD imbalance requires the setting of national research priorities and a focus on applied research and technology transfer - where applicable - across all research areas.

Innovation is not invention; it is the new application of an existing technology, or the application of a new technology to new contexts. Complementarity means supporting research from discovery to application and design, where Canadian firms, universities and colleges work together for common innovation goals. Idealistic, perhaps, but necessary nonetheless.

Education for the Innovation Economy

I've been to several events recently that have all focused broadly on the innovation economy. The ACCC Metropolitan Colleges Symposium held in Montreal at the beginning of October offered was billed as the first of future opportunities to surface issues common to metro colleges. Common themes emerged commensurate with the conference agenda: (in no particular order) immigration and workforce integration, student services, teaching and learning, relationships with industry/external partners, and consensus that collaboration is key to collective success.

Innovation: Ideas to Action, an "unconference" sponsored by Helix Commerce International, brought together people from various industries to talk about how we can spark and improve innovation in the GTA, Ontario and Canada. It offered an excellent opportunity to hear from key innovation instigators. The next Helix Innovation Hive event, themed “Applied Innovation for Value Realization”, is scheduled for April 20th, 2010 in Toronto. Visit Applied Innovation for Value Realization. Additional information will be posted as it becomes available.

The Technical Workshop on Estimates of Research and Development in the Higher Education Sector (HERD) sponsored by Statistics Canada was held in Ottawa on Friday October 16, 2009. This was a very unique opportunity to participate in the review of how HERD is calculated (the last time this was done was in 1999 or so). Colleges were not included in the last version, largely because our applied research efforts were likely limited at the time. Now, however, we are playing an increasing role - $110M per year according to the ACCC. This figure does not represent all of the hidden unsponsored applied R&D we do. Of particular note is that the Frascati Manual (the OECD's outline for how HERD is calculated) outlines three forms of research. These are basic research, applied research and experimental development:

Basic research is experimental or theoretical work undertaken primarily to acquire new knowledge of the underlying foundation of phenomena and observable facts, without any particular application or use in view. Applied research is also original investigation undertaken in order to acquire new knowledge. It is, however, directed primarily towards a specific practical aim or objective. Experimental development is systematic work, drawing on existing knowledge gained from research and/or practical experience, which is directed to producing new materials, products or devices, to installing new processes, systems and services, or to improving substantially those already produced or installed. (2.1.64)

College applied research encompasses the last two of these, and is it worth noting that our focus on complementarity with other R&D organizations enables us to have a significant impact on the innovation economy.

The innovation economy is both a driver and an outgrowth of a knowledge- based society that requires us to ensure our graduates are not only content experts in their fields of choice, but also expert learners, able to adapt to our changing world. By directly involving our students in applied research we promote innovation literacy, producing graduates who have research, problem solving, leadership and entrepreneurial skills, along with the ability to recognize innovation in their work contexts. This is in addition to the job-ready skills our graduates already possess.

College graduates are vital to the national economy. Canada ranks first in the OECD attainment of tertiary education only when College education is factored in. GBC has an important role in addressing both the skills shortage and the skills gap within Ontario and across Canada. Our role in promoting innovation literacy makes us ideal participants in an "ecology of innovation" that promotes partnership, entrepreneurship, and educational pathways for students, industry and community partners alike.

All of us involved in the innovation economy are oriented toward the same goal of increasing social and economic productivity in Canada. The college applied research system will play a lead role in strengthening national and regional capacity to innovate, working with research centres, industry and community partners to enhance competitiveness in the sectors we serve.

On this note, it was somewhat interesting to see that Willard Boyle, recent Nobel Laureate, lamented government's intrusion into research by requiring business plans. While curiosity based research is a necessity, Boyle gets it wrong by reinforcing a false dichotomy between basic and applied research. After all, someone at Bell - where Boyle did his Nobel-winning work - wrote a business plan to pay his salary, a fact conveniently ignored by those who have been writing in the press about the state of research funding in Canada. As I've noted previously, Canada spends more than most countries on HERD; where we do poorly is on Business Expenditures on R&D (BERD), and the relation of HERD and BERD to Gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD).

An article in Saturday's globe picked up this duality. Unfortunately there is too much polarizing discussion about the relative merits of basic versus applied research. Suffice to say we need both, but we also need to turn our brightest minds to work on the problems of the day: sustainability and the green economy, climate change and productivity, for example. Steve Balmer's recent article on R&D and innovation underscores the need to foster more of this directed R&D in the IT field, one area in which Canada can compete internationally.

Funding for both basic and applied research that leads to innovation, advancement of knowledge, and commercialization is critical to improving community economic and social development. Call it a return on innovation.

Open Innovation, Collaboration

The start of a new year is always a good time to reflect Janus-like, back on the year past, and that which is to come. Last year was good for GBC applied research - we initiated our NSERC CCI program of research, launching many exciting projects in concert with our industry, academic and community partners. The year ahead promises more of the same. We are getting set to launch several new projects and initiatives, the newly expanded CONII is coming online, and there is strong federal and provincial support for the kind of R&D partnerships that will help Canada rise from our innovation doldrums. Announcements such as that by NSERC at the recent Polytechnics Canada Showcase about the value of industry+academic partnerships hold strong promise that the innovation system in Canada - and notably in Ontario with the Ontario Network of Excellence - can increasingly work together to foster greater social and economic productivity.

Here's an article that speaks about Proctor and Gamble's move into an organization that partners with others in the pursuit of bringing innovations to market. The value of open innovation to companies that embrace this concept is evident by P&G's successes. And a recent article in the Globe and Mail about a new academic search engine - Yaffle - shows how academic institutions are getting engaged with finding ways to partner with industry to ensure that, where relevant, research can be put to use. As the Globe article says, Yaffle is like "an online dating service for the academic set, matching research needs with expertise," echoing the purpose of sites like InnoCentive and CONII, which I've elsewhere called the lava life for the R&I set. These kinds of collaboration will be the way forward, as the innovation system in Canada articulates greater value to our publics for the work we do, whether in basic, applied, or experimental research. As I've noted earlier, our approach to applied research and innovation encompasses both applied and experimental research, and our focus on complementarity with other R&D organizations enables us to have a significant impact on the innovation economy.

Polytechnics Canada Research Showcase a Success

The Third Annual Polytechnics Canada Science and Technology Showcase was held last Friday at Sheridan. The theme of this year's conference was "Creating and Maintaining Sustainable Environments". Presentations from all seven Polytechnics outlined important work in the green economy, and student poster presentations showcased innovations in curricula. GBC students in the School of Design won an award for their poster on Road Ecology. The Proceedings are available online.

Common themes from all speakers included capacity development for sustainable development, and innovation literacy - fostering an innovation mindset in our graduates to participate proactively in the emergence of the green economy. For example, where SAIT is working on innovative building envelopes as part of sustainable construction practices, their students gain valuable experience in working not just on emergent technologies and building practices, but in (re)thinking how we build in the first place.

Other common themes included customization - of power grids, landfills, homes and human interfaces, and how incremental innovation leads to the adaptation and adoption of new technologies and practices commensurate with the development of new ideas.

Bill Mantel, Director, Commercialization Branch of the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation gave a closing address on open innovation, and how Ontario is fostering an "innovation ecosystem." The ecology of innovation is an important concept that supports the notion of complementarity, and the role of college and polytechnic applied research has in the overall R&D continuum. The ecosystem metaphor is very apt, and we would do well to remember that a healthy ecosystem is determined by the overall health of its constituent parts. Mantel spoke about how we are moving in Ontario to a more market-focused innovation system where our students enter the workforce as "demanders of innovation." Creating these "demanders" is the purview of GBC's Research Commercialization and Innovation program. Innovation literacy is the cornerstone of this demand.

In times such as these with the economic downturn, many commentators are calling for spending on infrastructure as a way to stimulate economic growth while investing in the future. Similarly, we must invest in the "infrastructure of the mind," and create graduates from college and Polytechnic programs that promote a sustainable environment for applied research that supports environmental sustainability.

Research as a public good

An editorial in today's Globe and Mail outlines how R&D spending should be considered a "public good." While there is no mention of the role of colleges in the applied research aspect of our R&D, the editorial does pick up on a special report from last Saturday's Globe that focused on Canadian innovation. This story outlines many of the hard facts Canada must face in terms of R&D, including the fact that we spend little on research and development overall compared to other countries, we do little to encourage applied research once inventions are made (the "D" in R&D), and that an ecosystem approach to the R&D value chain in Canada necessitates a focus on the complementarity of all players as working together on our productivity, both social and economic.