Ontario set to unveil major new research and commercialization strategy

The Ontario government is committing $1.8 billion over the next four years to support research and commercialization. The funding will be delivered primarily through three major programs that have been revamped and refocused over the past six months. The overhaul of the province’s delivery mechanisms is outlined in the new Ontario Research & Commercialization Strategy.

The province is reportedly fast-tracking its discussions with stakeholders so that it can finalize its programs and “get money out the door”. RE$EARCH MONEY obtained a version of the strategy being used for consultation purposes.

The changes to Ontario’s S&T programs are spurred in part by a major commercialization trend within government policy circles to capitalize on significant investments in basic research. They are also prompted by scathing criticism from the province’s auditor general over the handling of S&T spending by the previous Progressive Conservative administration and its offloading of programs to a quasi-private sector organization (R$, December 11/03).

The largest of the three programs is the Ontario Research Fund (ORF). Although the program has not yet been announced, it was referenced in the government’s latest departmental estimates with FY04-05 funding of $42.5 million (R$, July 16/04).

As previously reported, ORF collects much of the province’s research funding within a single program structure and encompasses programs created by the government of Mike Harris — the Ontario Research and Development Challenge Fund (CF) and the Ontario Innovation Trust (OIT). The move effectively brings those two programs back inside government where they will be administered by a dedicated secretariat. Final decisions on awards will be made by the minister of the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade (MEDT), whereas before four ministers were involved in approving CF awards.

INTEGRATED APPROACH

The integrated approach to research is intended to address the total operational costs of research including direct and indirect costs as well as infrastructure costs. The latter was the subject of an October/04 announcement by premier Dalton McGuinty to provide $300 million for the province’s contribution towards awards made under the federal Canada Foundation for Innovation. The draft Strategy confirms that Ontario will follow Quebec’s lead and establish a process to pre-approve matching funding before applications are submitted to the CFI.

For the research funding component of the ORF, the province will cover one third of total project costs with special emphasis on projects in the following sectors: materials and advanced manufacturing; information and communications technologies; life sciences; environmental technologies; energy systems and technologies (especially conservation and green technologies); and, emerging technologies such as nano-technology.

Projects will be solicited through general or targeted calls for proposals and scrutinized according to research excellence, private sector participation and commercialization potential, talent and networks. Funding is open to both academic- and business-led entities. “There will be no peer review. It will be more a sorting of priorities,” says a senior university official.

The Ontario Research and Commercialization Program (ORCP) has the more challenging task of increasing commercialization activity in the province and is likely to elicit a diverse reaction from various stakeholder groups. Among the program’s objectives is to “build and support technology transfer systems that integrate institutions and support Intellectual Property sharing/bundling”. Included in its objectives is the construction of academic-private sector partnerships with the aim of “making research institutions more accessible to industry”.

The ORCP is also focused on advancing discoveries and inventions towards “commercializable technologies” to attract private sector investment, focusing technology transfer capacity on technology prospecting and mining, and ensuring experienced management for managing and growing start-ups. It will feature funding programs to enhance technology transfer capacity, prototype and proof-of-principle and the “commercialization business environment”. The latter area will provide resources for academic institutions and business development consortia to facilitate start-ups and provide small firms with greater access to the physical and human resources of academic institutions.

Given the wide range of activities eligible under the ORCP, there will not be a pre-fixed funding formula. Proposal success and amounts and will be determined on a case-by-case basis, using a half dozen listed criteria. Like the ORF, the final decisions on approved projects will be made by the MEDT minister, with the ministry monitoring and administering investments.

CANCER RESEARCH PROGRAM

The third major program underpinning the Strategy is the Ontario Cancer Program. Its current status is unclear although those within the research community assume that it is the Liberal government’s version of the Cancer Research Network of Ontario (CRIO). That program was announced in the dying days of the Ernie Eves-led government with a budget of $1 billion over 10 years and an objective of making Ontario a world-leading centre for cancer research (R$, April 16/03). The Eves government tasked Dr Calvin Stiller and Dr Bette Stephenson to flesh out the concept.

“It’s not clear what the new government is going to do,” says a prominent research manager. “The May spending estimates show a modest amount of funding ($2.5 million) but that only appears to be money for planning.”

New and existing programs that complement the main thrust of the Strategy and their FY04-05 budget allocations are: the revamped Ontario Centres of Excellence ($34.3 million); Research Talent Development Program ($7.7 million); Biotechnology Cluster Innovation Program ($4.7 million); Medical Devices Strategy Support ($1.5 million); Fuel Cell Technologies Program ($1.5 million); and, Science and Technology Awareness ($0.5 million).

To help oversee and guide the new Strategy, several advisory bodies and panels are being established. They include a Commercialization Advisory Council chaired by Dr John Evans, an ORF board and associated panels, a program advisory panel for research proof-of-principle and a Research Talent Program Board.

NO COMMENT

MEDT officials would not comment on the Strategy for this article. Spokesperson Dino Rocca, assistant director of MEDT’s corporate marketing and communications services branch, confirmed that the strategy will be released “very shortly” but declined to provide a timeframe.

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