ARC’s I-CAN initiative scaled back to focus exclusively on networking existing facilities

The Alberta Research Council’s re-focused Innovation Canada (I-CAN) initiative could be up and running by the fall if negotiations with prospective partners are successfully concluded. Once an much larger proposal with a price tag of $2.5 billion over five years, I-CAN has been streamlined and will now focus on establishing a national network of specialized services and expertise for commercialization, product development and prototyping.

Although it’s billed as an “action oriented, pragmatic breakthrough mechanism”, the expensive bells and whistles are gone, left for other organizations and funding agencies to deal with. I- CAN to work towards linking existing research providers coast to coast.

I-CAN is now seeking a modest $3 million annually to establish a management framework and secretariat to oversee a network of research infrastructure, leaving enhancements to existing facilities and related programs to the participating organizations. For its part ARC — easily Canada’s largest and most successful provincial research organization — is seeking further investments from the provincial government, with early indications that the administration of premier Ralph Klein is receptive to new strengthening the organization.

ALIGN WITH NRC?

The shift in I-CAN’s strategy coincides with the increasing prospect of the National Research Council (NRC) being tagged by the federal government as a key commercialization mechanism. Several discussions have already taken place between ARC president and CEO Dr John McDougall and NRC interim president Dr Michael Raymont, and more talks are anticipated to determine whether and how a unified proposal could be structured (see page 1).

Raymont told RE$EARCH MONEY that a unified commercialization proposal between NRC, ARC and possibly others could be a reality within six months. The push for a single proposal is also being urged by Dr Arthur Carty, national science advisor to the prime minister. Such an approach is also the best way to get buy-in from the central agencies that control the Budgetary purse strings.

“I-CAN will concentrate on linking research providers and other policy changes will fall out of that. Improving the performance of the university system on the applied R&D side would put pressure on other groups to apply for more funding,” says ARC VP Karen Belliveau. “The proposal is scaled back but the impact would be just as high if the public policy agenda is there to support it.”

With I-CAN’s new focus, ARC officials have been staging a series of workshops across Canada to solicit the views of small business and other stakeholders. Six have been held to date in Ottawa, Toronto, Winnipeg, Montreal, Calgary and Edmonton, with Saskatoon and Vancouver scheduled for later this summer. A workshop slated for Atlantic Canada could not be arranged before the summer break, but a fall meeting is scheduled at which time a draft business plan will have been completed. A regional pilot project is also being considered.

WORKSHOP FEEDBACK ENCOURAGING

Feedback from the workshops have indicated considerable support for the concept and most participants agree on a number of key issues. I-CAN should:

* add value to what is already in place;

* avoid building another bureaucracy;

* have a clear operational focus; and,

* focus on a structure that responds quickly to selected priority needs.

In a presentation to the Edmonton workshop on June 22, McDougall said I-CAN should be positioned to assist firms in the development, design and demonstration of technologies with promising commercial characteristics. Consideration should be given to how various technologies move at differing paces.

“This is not a one-size-fits-all agenda. Governments recognize that they need to get downstream from big R,” he says. “In Can-ada, we’ve tended to invest in the front end and then we quit. Is it surprising then that (technology) ends up heading south? Probably not.”

McDougall noted that Canada is “sub critical” in the area of public commercialization services when compared to other industrialized nations and stressed the importance of moving quickly. He noted that “the commodity-based revenue bubble won’t last forever” and argued that now is the time to launch I-CAN while money is still available.

The best way forward, McDougall contends, is to position I-CAN as a critical link between the creation of new ideas and the deployment of globally competitive products with small- and medium-sized enterprises as the primary delivery vehicle. The network would establish a series of local or regional nodes by forging strategic alliances with existing intermediary organizations.

PARALLEL INITIATIVE

While ARC expands the stakeholder base for its I-CAN proposal, another national initiative is taking place. The Challenge Dialogue: Growing Innovative Enterprises in Canada, is attempting to engage the private sector in determining what activities public bodies should pursue to encourage the growth of innovation-intensive businesses.

So far, more than 80 individuals from industry, research centres, academia, government agencies and support groups have engaged in electronic dialogue with the intention of generating a set of actions that will engage senior government policy makers.

Those recommendations would then be refined and vetted by a variety of individuals including business leaders — a process that runs parallel to the consensus building I-CAN is currently engaged in.

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