Research, development and international innovation exchange

An article today by the Globe's James Bradshaw on the mission by the Governor General and Canadian university presidents reflects the growth of Brazil and good efforts by Canada to connect with this growing and prosperous nation. Brazil's ambitious Science without Borders initiative will enable top Brazilian students to tap Canada's world leading research and education capacity. It is also an opportunity to develop close ties to Brazilian markets for Canadian companies and innovation. Linking R&D to international innovation through "soft landings" in Brazilian (and other international) markets is one way we can help Canadian entrepreneurs succeed in the global market. The soft landing here refers to working with Brazilian colleges and universities and their technology transfer institutions to connect to local conditions and find valuable conditions for innovations to reach Brazil's markets. The Brazilian mission heralds a very positive step forward for Canada's science and technology enterprise. Polytechnics Canada CEO Nobina Robinson is joining the Governor General on the mission to Barbados and Trinidad & Tobago.

And speaking of our S&T capacity, the Globe's print version has an excellent special supplement on research and Development. It includes strong messages from the granting councils and many university presidents on the need to connect our S&T enterprise to business innovation. Earlier this week Timothy Caulfield opined about the value of basic research, decrying any focus on the application of research. In so doing he demonstrates the long held bias held by many researchers toward applied research. As a result, he overlooks the importance of innovation and commercialization. Canada is near the top of the OECD in public sector research, but near the bottom for industry research--a differential that contributes to our productivity problem. Our goal must be to realize the gains basic science creates rather than simply giving these away for others to sell back to us. Basic and applied sciences are equally necessary and fully complementary endeavours.

The sooner we connect these two solitudes the better our country will be. The Brazilian mission shows that a strong and healthy S&T system includes solid connections to training talent for R&D and industry innovation, and connecting to business innovation downstream of scientific discovery. To not do this is to abrogate our responsibility to the future. It bears repeating:

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.

From Concept to Commercialization: How SME'S Can Turn Innovations Into Income

Join Infonaut's Niall Wallace and me at the Toronto Board of Trade on 30 May 2012 for a breakfast talk on From Concept to Commercialization: How SME'S Can Turn Innovations Into Income, part of the RBC Business Advice Series: Innovation for SMEs. We will discuss the challenges that Small and Medium Enterprises' often face in bringing ideas to the market and what can be done to overcome them. Participants will:

• Learn how to quickly turn your ideas into marketable innovations
• Discover how to overcome the challenges of access to capital and facilities
• Reduce your R&D costs by partnering with the college sector

Register online at the Toronto Board of Trade.

George Brown College Research partner Clear Blue Technologies in the news

George Brown College Research partner Clear Blue Technologies is featured in a Toronto Star profile that describes their off-grid street light product and its development at the GBC Research Labs. In Colleges eager to offer startups help with R&D, Star writer Dana Flavelle outlines how our faculty and students worked with Clear Blue to go from concept to commercialization. GBC faculty Leo Salemi, who leads green energy research at the college, helped test and build prototypes for Clear Blue, using our Casa Loma campus roof top as a platform for testing and development.

Salemi, winner of a GBC Innovation award, has led a team to the Microsoft Imagine Cup Finals as one of the top 3 entries in Canada. If they win they go to Australia in July. Good luck to Leo and his team!

Re$earch Money: Canada's colleges and polytechnics helping to put people into innovation

Re$earch Money yesterday published an article I co-wrote with Marti Jurmain titled Canada's colleges and polytechnics helping to put people into innovation. The article outlines the college and polytechnic participation and approach to people-centred innovation. On this note, yesterday's announcement of the entrepreneur visa program is a good step bringing Canada in line with other countries who are offering immigrants a passport to a productive future. As the Star's Dana Flavelle points out, these start-up visas will help entrepreneurs make Canada home to emerging business innovation.

P3RD: Public Private Partnerships in Research and Development

The Globe and Mail's James Bradshaw yesterday put out a piece on Public Private Partnerships in Research and Development, or P3RD. IBM teams with Ontario universities as part of federal innovation push heralds a good development in linking public and private sector R&D, as per my earlier comments on the recent budget. Canada needs to foster more of this. The fear that the shorter time horizons of industry R&D will deleteriously affect academic research is a red herring.

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.

Of course we must always be careful to ensure that academic freedom is protected - this is s staple of the academic enterprise. But Canadians in general must become more amenable to commercialization if we are to fix our long ailing productivity and innovation problems. Jim Balsillie's op-ed on this topic is interesting, and the story of the York-CIGI experience is instructive. A balance must be sought in the exploration of P3RD, particularly when Canada, even though we rank among the highest HERD spenders, does not have the GDP to support R&D in any and all disciplines. That is, we need to prioritize and play to our strengths.

Playing to our strengths means focusing our public R&D on the production of ideas and talent that can then be taken up by industry. A report out today by the Centre for the Study of Living Standards points out what Polytechnics CEO Nobina Robinson has said: companies commercialize; people innovate. As the Globe's review puts it, Competition needed to drive innovation, report says. The report is out today, and looks to be required reading on the topic of public-private partnerships in R&D.

Post-Budget Address By Minister Goodyear outlines Canada's business innovation agenda

Minister of State for Science and Technology and the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario Gary Goodyear addressed the Economic Club this morning in a post-budget speech outlining Canada's approach to fostering greater business innovation. Minister Goodyear opened with a reminder that, while Canada is doing well economically, "we are facing competition from emerging, fast-growing economies." The entrepreneur is the driving force behind the economy, and supporting business innovation is a priority emerging from Budget 2012, as I outlined in my last post. While Canada is first in HERD in the G7, Minister Goodyear reminded the audience that "results matter more than rank".  (As an aside, the person I was sitting next to reported hearing on the radio this week that Canada is #2 in HERD; 19th in BERD. If true, this is worse than last year.) This is the well known refrain of how Canada lags in business investment in R&D. The new funding announced in Budget 2012 retains our world leading research spending (HERD), while focusing new money on fostering greater industry-academic partnerships and business investments in R&D and innovation. This is exactly what Canada needs.

James Bradshaw, in a Globe and Mail article last Friday, quoted me (and others) in support of the Budget, which I said was “good for competitiveness and good for productivity. The big message here is that the federal government is focusing its innovation efforts on the private sector, and that’s something that’s sorely needed in this country,” Dr. Luke said. “We need to be a world-leading applied research and commercialization country. That’s where this budget is heading us to.”

Canada's approach to business innovation is in keeping with Bank of Canada Marc Carney's speech on "Exporting in a Post Crisis World." Carney outlines the need for Canada to update our approach to international markets, signalling a shift that will see "Canadian businesses retooling and reorienting to the new global economy." Currently we are "concentrated in slow-growing advanced economies, particularly the United States, rather than fast-growing emerging markets." This was the point Minister Goodyear made this morning, and it relates very well to the concept of a soft landing in international markets, which I outlined just over a year ago. That is, educational institutions like George Brown College are working with our international education partners to provide our entrepreneurs and industry partners with connections to global markets. Our international partners can connect industry to their markets, working with us to adapt and adopt (adoptation) technologies to the realities of place within each locality. Not only can we work together to internationalize education, but we can work toward engaging our industry directly in providing entrance to new, emerging markets. And that's good for Canadian competitiveness and productivity.