Cultivating Canada's Science and Technology

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By Karen Harrison

Government leadership and investment in science and technology has played a significant role in stimulating innovation, knowledge and wealth creation across Canada. As the federal government begins to implement the strategic
directions of Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada’s Advantage, released in May 2007, Pierre Coulombe, president of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC), spoke with Biotechnology Focus about the plan and the council.

Last year the NRC celebrated its 90th anniversary. Over the years it has been involved in such groundbreaking projects as building the first nuclear reactor to operate outside of the United States, the electric wheelchair, bomb detectors, security strips on Canadian currency, the pacemaker, 3D animation – which we started in the ‘70s and has resulted in Academy Awards from, for example, The Lord of the Rings and is even used by an Ottawa company to investigate the status of the tiles on the space shuttle before re-entry.

The NRC’s preferred option is to license technology to an existing company – it makes, on average, 100 licensing agreements annually, across Canada and abroad. However, it will create a new company if it can’t find an existing one to take over a specific technology. Over the last 10 years, it has spun off more than 60 companies.

Q: What do you see as the role of government-directed S&T in general, and NRC in particular, in stimulating innovation, knowledge and wealth creation?

A: Governments in all countries have a key role to play. The S&T strategy recognizes this through the Knowledge Advantage, the People Advantage and the Entrepreneurial Advantage by helping universities to develop and train the very best possible people to take us into the future. Developing the knowledge is the first building block.

Government can play a key role in developing the entrepreneurial spirit in various ways – fiscal incentives, opening up trade markets, forging international relationships, fostering the role of embassies and consulates. Within NRC, we do a lot of work supporting entrepreneurial initiatives, primarily in small and medium sized enterprises.

Government also has a role to develop what could be defined as long-term targets in programs that address large issues. This often takes place in departments with a large R&D component – Agriculture & Agri-Food, Fisheries & Oceans, Health Canada, National Defence, Environment and Natural Resources.

Q: What is NRC’s primary role in this?

A: NRC’s focus is to support Canadian industry. How can we make industry more competitive? We can do the research with a view to transferring the technology to the private sector, and we need to have an understanding of the needs of the various sectors in which we can play a role.

Government research programs have a purpose – they have goals to achieve. In that way, they are different from the university system where programs are focused on developing the knowledge and training high quality personnel. NRC is focused on the needs of industry; by listening to them we can build programs that are targeted. The knowledge we develop today will solve tomorrow’s problems.

A good example of that is nanotechnology, a sector where we need to develop the knowledge before transferring it to industry. We have identified targets that we would like to achieve in the future, to provide Canadians with the best medications, the best diagnostic tools. So how do we support industry and government departments, but in a very targeted fashion?

We build partnerships with universities, and with international partners. With nanotechnology, for example, we are teaming up with NSERC and the Business Development Bank of Canada. NRC will pay its own people, and NSERC will provide grants to university professors. Together we do the research. BDC will then explore the transfer of that technology to an existing Canadian company or support the start-up of a new company. We’re also doing that with bioproducts and hydrogen fuel cells. We sometimes team up with other departments such as Agriculture & Agri-Food in the case of bioproducts.

In supporting the entrepreneurial advantage, we have identified nine key sectors in the Canadian economy where we are convinced that NRC can play a role.

Working in each sector, and primarily with Industry Canada, we identify exactly what NRC can do. Then we mobilize our institutes to make a contribution to this sector. Aeronautics-aerospace, for example, is a key sector. We have a large institute in Montreal. We work with almost all the Canadian companies in that sector.

Q: What are the biggest challenges that NRC faces over the next 10 to 20 years?

A: One of our biggest – and it is found everywhere – is an aging population in industry and the universities. In five to 10 years, it will represent a significant challenge.

We will face a shortage of personnel in all sectors, and finding highly qualified people is going to be a challenge. We don’t want to compete for the same people, so this might lead to opportunities for new models of partnerships – sharing resources, teaming up with universities to get the best person. Obviously, this approach is easier to do with universities than with industry because of such issues as confidentiality and intellectual property.

Emerging economies such as China, India and Brazil are tremendous market opportunities for Canadian companies but are also significant challenges. How can we best support the Canadian economy as we face those pressures?

Also, how do we remain relevant to our stakeholders? We have two criteria for our work: excellence – the work cannot be second tier – and relevancy. If we are not excellent, we will fail even though we may be relevant. If we are relevant but not competent, it will not do any good. We must ensure we are both, and the challenge lies in making choices. When you choose what you will do, you are also choosing what you will not do. Last August we had to cancel some programs and let go some excellent people. This is not pleasant, but you have to do it.

Q: With respect to these challenges, what are some of the opportunities for government, private industry, and universities within the broad direction of the S&T strategy?

A: One of the leading parameters in this document is the need to enhance partnerships. From the beginning, NRC has been involved in creating partnerships. As the situation becomes more complex, with an aging population, emerging economies, the strategy provides some guidelines for these partnerships.

For example, in PEI we have the Institute for Nutrisciences and Health that we started recently. We brought under the same roof Agri-Food, NRC and University of PEI scientists interested in developing new aspects of nutriceuticals, primarily their role in chronic diseases such as obesity, diabetes, and so on. If you were to visit this facility, it would be impossible to tell which scientists work for which organization, because they wear the same coats and share the same lab. They all pursue the same objectives.

This is a new model of partnership. It is the backbone of what we call a technology cluster. We have 11 across the country. The purpose is to build a community around NRC activity, which will develop a particular field in a collective way. The strategy offers us many ways to bring together industry, academia and other government departments to achieve common goals.

And those who are best suited to the task are the ones who will lead an initiative. It is not always NRC who takes the lead.
Another model is our national nanotechnology institute in Edmonton, a joint venture with the University of Alberta, the province and NRC. We have one of the most sophisticated buildings in Canada on the U of A campus. We have invested over $125 million over the last five years, and we will continue to invest.

And last year we worked with General Electric on the certification on their second largest engine, the GENEX, which will be on the Boeing 787. We set up the wind tunnel in Mirabel to study icing, and tested this engine on behalf of GE. They recognize that we have specific expertise that they cannot find anywhere else in the world. Another component of that infrastructure is a huge ice tank in St. John’s, which is used to study the behaviour of ships and drilling platforms in icy conditions at sea.

These are all national assets – we take care of them, and we offer them to universities and the private sector to do their own work.

NRC seeks to build strong partnerships on the knowledge and application sides. It is a continuous spectrum from knowledge to commercialization. This is our strategy moving forward, and it is very much in line with the government’s S&T strategy. We are part of the federal system, and we have to make sure that our targets enhance the strategy and help to fulfill the objectives of the government.