Research-to-market support

The Canada Foundation for Innovation expands its funding for technology development at Canadian universities

By John Cooper

Innovation is at the heart of any thriving knowledge-based economy. The key to such an economy is people — people who can make that innovation happen. Any support that helps to keep talented people in Canada making innovative discoveries is a smart investment in economic development. For this reason, the announcement late last year by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) that it is injecting $18.6  million into 87 projects at 31 universities nationwide was very welcome news.

The goal of the program is to attract and retain more than 115 top-flight researchers, and create highly marketable, innovative technology. Additionally, CFI is getting ready to pump million over the next four years to continue to attract and keep leading edge researchers at Canadian  institutions.

Fighting the brain drain

The foundation, an independent organization created in 1987, was launched with the intention of helping universities realize their research technology-to- market potential. Its continuous focus is on turning the much-feared ‘brain drain’ into a ‘brain gain.’ Brain drain was long blamed (especially during the 1970s and 1980s) for the recruitment of innovative Canadian-trained researchers by universities in the U.S. and internationally, resulting in a deficit of research talent. At the time, Canadian schools were unable to launch these kinds of projects to attract international researchers to this country.

That changed with the advent of CFI. “The foundation is here to enhance and increase the capacity of Canadian research and to enhance the competitiveness of universities,” says Dr. Eliot Phillipson, president and CEO of CFI. The foundation helps fund the  infrastructure — laboratories, equipment and buildings — that universities, colleges and the private sector can use to leverage world-class research into market-ready products.

CFI allocates funds on a “rigorous, merit-based system,” says Phillipson. “Once we approve a project, we are allowed to fund up to 40% for the capital infrastructure cost.” That’s matched by 40% from provincial governments and 20% from the institution, the latter often through endowments, donors or private sector partners. The newly-announced funding comes in two parts: $14.3 million under the CFI’s New Opportunities Fund and $4.3 million under a start-up program called the Infrastructure Operating Fund.

Spin-offs and royalties

To date, CFI has awarded $2.9 billion to more than 4,000 projects at 127 educational institutions Canada-wide, spanning a full range of marketable scientific projects, from engineering to animal sciences, agriculture and health care. That investment in turn leveraged $7.9 billion in private sector investment, resulting in 270 patents and the creation of 40 companies through the support of CFI. The turning point in Canada came in 1997, when the federal government began running budget surpluses, allowing greater investment in technology, said Phillipson.

An example of an institution that has become a nursery for both good science and great business is the University of British Columbia (UBC). According to Brian Lin, communications coordinator at UBC, the institution’s university-industry liaison office works with professors and private sector partners to help them obtain patents, create spin-off companies, make technology available to the private sector and earn the   school royalties.

Don Brooks, UBC’s associate vice-president of research, said CFI has made an invaluable contribution to the university’s research potential.

“CFI awards have transformed UBC’s capacity to perform research of the highest quality, investigative work that has placed us in the top 35 of the world’s research-intensive universities,” said Brooks. “Moreover, it has allowed us to attract some of the finest young academics in the western world to  our campus.”

As a result, UBC is first among Canadian universities for the number of U.S. patents granted (11th in North America), and the school has created 117 spin-off companies. Last year, UBC invested $343 million in research funding and generated $16 million in technology licensing revenue. Leading UBC projects include Visudyne, a leading-edge treatment for age-related blindness that is marketed by a company  headed by UBC researchers; Web CT, a Web-training tool for university students; and Neuromed Technologies, a UBC spin-off company that develops and markets drugs to combat chronic pain.

Sponsored by CFI, these kinds of multi-disciplinary research projects, often combining such disparate areas of endeavour as engineering and the fine arts, are doable “because our mandate spans the spectrum,” says Phillipson.

Grassroots infrastructure

Last year’s announcement was also a case of ‘out with the old, in with the new,’ as the organization is sunsetting its seven-year-old New Opportunities Fund; a success story in itself, the NOF has helped to bring more than 3,000 researchers to Canada since 1998.

“The New Opportunities Fund helped to put Canada on the map when it comes to attracting the very best researchers from around the world,” says Phillipson. “Providing them with state-of-the-art infrastructure helps ensure that we stay at the cutting edge of the global knowledge-based economy.”

The NOF will be succeeded by the Leaders Opportunity Fund (LOF), which comes with a budget of $300 million for 2006-2010. Like the NOF, the new fund hopes to attract world-class researchers to Canadian universities and promote marketable research at institutions nationwide.

Overall, CFI answers a definite need for grassroots infrastructure assistance, says Phillipson. “Schools were at a disadvantage because researchers needed equipment and those costs can run between $200,000 and $500,000. They were also disadvantaged in terms of competing with U.S. universities,” which tend to move very quickly from a research into a marketing mode.

For its part, the LOF is a “mechanism that each institution will have to recruit faculty,” says Phillipson, and “a way of giving the institutions a rapid response mechanism” to get staff on board.

The CFI is widely considered to have levelled the playing field in recruiting new faculty, adds Phillipson. “In the last year, universities identified 3,000 new faculty members using CFI infrastructure. Of those 3,000 new faculty members, 1,200 — or 40% — were from outside Canada. That’s a reversal of brain drain and it means we can compete with the leading institutions in the world.”

Tech transfer — a contact sport

Many researchers at the host institutions are themselves, as in the case of the UBC researchers, able to spin off their work into businesses of their own. From micro-systems testing for cell phone technology at the University of Toronto to the University of Windsor’s development of hand-held photoacoustic devices for weld-testing in the auto sector, to animal nutrition improvements for the dairy industry at the University of Alberta and the boosting of crop yields at the Nova Scotia Agricultural College, the potential for spin-off companies   is high.

That potential has also stimulated a greater collaboration between research institutions and the private sector — more than 2,200 outside researchers have taken advantage of CFI-funded technology sites.

The CFI-funded national Synchrotron Facility at the University of Saskatchewan in Saskatoon is a good example. It has private sector partners using the facility, which employs light to determine the chemical nature and the molecular structure of materials that involve everything from new drugs and computer chips to better engine lubricants and more effective medical imaging.

“With the Synchrotron, 25% of the time is reserved for private sector partners,” says Phillipson. “As a result, it’s creating a cluster and Saskatoon is becoming quite a science-focused location. They (scientists and the private sector) are working together and freely exchanging information.”

Phillipson likens the playing field to... well, a playing field.    

“Technology transfer is really a contact sport,” said Phillipson. “The more interactions on a daily level that we have between the technology partners and the private sector partners, the more opportunities we have. It’s a case of ‘market pull and science push.’ If there’s no customer there’s no market pull that can happen. It requires a university to make their discoveries known to the market and for the market to look at ways to exploit and develop that technology.

“It’s having a ripple effect on the private sector. People are really taking notice of Canadian research.”

John Cooper is a Whitby, Ont.-based freelance writer.

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