Alberta Research Council seeking major capital expansion for life sciences

The Alberta Research Council (ARC) is seeking to increase its influence in applied research and commercialization in the life sciences with a major capital expansion of its facilities. The plan would cost in excess of $100 million to implement and dovetails with the province’s emerging life sciences strategy, not to mention ARC’s bid to win favour for Innovation Canada, its proposed national commercialization program (R$, December 11/03).

As the largest provincial research organization in Canada, ARC has become a substantially market-driven entity serving Alberta’s private sector R&D and commercialization requirements. The capital expansion would enhance that role but it would also anticipate trends and lead the charge in areas the provincial government has identified as strategic priorities in the life sciences such as forestry, agriculture and other natural resources.

“This would be a doubling of our scale but we wouldn’t do it all in one chunk. We would build the facilities and grow into them,” says ARC president/CEO Dr John McDougall. “We’ve defined the concept as a series of modules with a focus on the life sciences.”

ARC had representation during the formulation of Alberta’s freshly minted life sciences strategy, which was developed by the Alberta Science and Research Authority (ASRA) and officially approved by government last March. Officials with the Ministry of Innovation and Science say the strategy is now in its early implementation stages with investments being made in core facilities and technology platforms in the areas of genomics, bioinformatics, biotechnology and nanotechnology. But full roll out is dependent on additional funding. Those seeking an acceleration of the strategy’s implementation are hoping that new funding will be announced in the upcoming Alberta Budget, which is traditionally brought down in March.

McDougall says that although no funding has been committed to ARC’s scale-up, it will be moving ahead on the first component of the expansion over the next year. In addition to money, he says there is also the challenge of changing ARC’s institutional culture to facilitate a productive integration with the provincial life sciences strategy.

“There is a critical need but in order to move organizations away from their historical space and be proactive, you need to change the culture and business behaviour of that organization. It’s hard to do,” he says. “It takes someone willing to stand behind us. The Alberta Advantage is ASRA and they’ve come to recognize what we’re trying to do.”

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