The struggle to end the stasis
Global competiveness ranking: 14
Global innovation ranking: 11
Research and development spend as a percentage of GDP:1.8%
Canada is no stranger to innovation. A range of technologies have come out of the country, including the electric wheelchair, the hydrofoil boat, sonar, gas masks and medicinal insulin to name a few. And yet, Canadian innovation finds itself in an interesting position.
The country features all-round good education with excellent universities producing top tier research and a strong support network.
The economy, while not quite cracking out its sprinting shoes, grew around 1.7% last year, with many economists suggesting 2014 will provide similar or even more robust results. In addition, Canada was one of the few western countries to make it through2008’s financial crisis without becoming a scarred and beaten mess, with a largely unscathed banking sector, no major issues on the housing market, and its economy recovering faster than most other developed nations.
Today, fresh companies have access to investment, and business on the whole is in a good position, with more jobs to go round and access to strong infrastructure and supporting institutions.
That said, innovation in the country is somewhat stagnant, despite a steady increase on public spending on research and development (R&D) over the past 20 years. Although it climbed a place in this year’s global innovation rankings, Canada has slipped in recent history. In addition, Canada’s universities still lag behind their counterparts in the south in terms of transferring technologies from institutions to companies, and business spend on R&D has been falling consistently.
A similar story can be told for Canadian global competiveness. In terms of global ranking, the commonwealth country’s position has dropped from ninth in 2009 to 14th last year. The response so far has been one of muted alarm bells, with under performing business innovation highlighted as a cause for concern.
However, more specific to this report, Canada does perform well in terms of technology transfer. An Association of University Technology Managers survey has shown rapid growth in the period between 1991 and 2010 for tech transfer programmes, with the average number of inventions and discoveries per university increasing by 70% and the average number of patent applications rising from 6.4 to 24.4. Furthermore, licensing income has doubled, and the average number of spin-outs generated annually per university has gone from zero to 1.3.
However, Canada’s technology transfer needs a certain degree offine-tuning to get it fired up. A recent report on the country’s tech transfer– From curiosity to wealth creation: how university research can boost economic growth – suggests there are a few ways in which Canada can achieve this. First and foremost are the incentives offered to researchers, and how they can be extended to attract further talent from around the world. The report indicates that the Canadian government should be directing researchers away from business-related research to research issues that are the most challenging from a scientific standpoint. It suggests that the greatest benefits to society will come from scientists who consider financial rewards and practical utility as secondary issues.
The report also recommends that the government build on recent business-focused reforms to the National Research Council with an eye to turning the organisation into a pan-Canadian technology transfer institution, as well as taking new measures to encourage businesses to raise their R&D spend and invest in the commercialisation process.
It is also suggested that tech transfer offices (TTOs) should spend less time on generating licensing revenue and more on acting as intermediaries between academia and the business world. Further, it points out that individual TTOs for individual universities create a monopoly effect within an institution, and suggests that more organisations such as Mars Innovation (see box right) should be setup to foster competitiveness at the tech transfer level by adding free agents to the mix.
Overall Canada finds itself in astrong, if somewhat flat, position. In the short term, the country has little to worry about in terms of innovation. However, Canada is going to have to shake up the innovation bag and attempt to liven things up if it wishes to take the front foot and extend its intellectual longevity.
Spotlight: Mars Innovation
Based in Toronto, Canada’s most prominent region of innovation, is the commercialisation firm Mars Innovation.
Founded in 2008, the company has built up 16 partnerships with institutions in the area, including York, Ryerson and Toronto universities. A result of an innovation agenda in Canada, the unit was formed with $30m in backing, $15m from the government and the remaining half from member institutions.
Mars aims to identify research with commercial potential and to build the links with business to get that technology out of the labs. Through its collective partners and funding, it has considerable mass, which has helped bring more than 500 technologies to licensing stage and launch more than a dozen spin-outs, while raising over C$350m ($320m) in external funding and assisting in the creation more than 4,000 jobs.
The unit also supports early-stage companies financially through its Investment Accelerator Fund, which provides investments of up to C$500,000, aswell as managing a $30m clean-tech venture fund.