Latest Genome Canada projects to fuel innovation in the fast-growing bioeconomy

Genome Canada's most recent Large-Scale Applied Research Project (LSARP) competition sheds light on the evolving focus of the agency's support of Canada's traditional industries as genomics extend their reach into the sectors underpinning the bioeconomy. The 2015 competition is the first to focus on natural resources and the environment and follows the agriculture and agri-food competition — Genomics and Feeding the Future — held in 2014.

Taken together, the two competitions are larger that Genome Canada's last health-focused LSARP held in 2012. Health has historically been the agency's primary focus but with the rapid growth in the bioeconomy, there's increasing recognitions of the need to fuel new sectors of economic growth.

The LSARP competition was initially pegged at $80 million (including co-funding) but was expanded to $110 million to accommodate the volume of high-quality applications. For the 13 projects ultimately funded, $32 million was provided by Genome Canada and $78 million from provinces, international organizations and industry to support projects targeting forestry, mining and the oil and gas sector, many of which have a climate change component.

"This is a revelation and a big difference from 2010," says Marc LePage, Genome Canada's president and CEO. "We're engaging Suncor, Enbridge and companies from the forestry and mining sectors. These partners are helping to shape the questions we're asking. They're participating in research for real-life problems and issues."

The competitions were announced as Canada undertakes a trio of advisory council examinations of fundamental science, the overall innovation ecosystem and economic growth. The latter is chaired by Dominic Barton, global managing director of McKinsey and Co. Barton has publicly acknowledged the importance of boosting innovation in agriculture and food as way to offset declines in exports and the price-sensitive oil and gas sector (R$, October 27/16).

"The bioeconomy often has difficulty getting attention as they include more traditional industries but these sectors are growing rapidly," says LePage. "They produce a lot of jobs and exports and Canada has global scale in oil and gas, forestry, mining and genomics. Barton gets this and Genome Canada is involved in both research and innovation from LSARP (research) to our Genomic Applications Partnership Program (applied)."

The upcoming 2017 LSARP competition will focus on precision health with guidelines to be released in January. It will draw on the $237.2 million in funding Genome Canada received in the last federal Budget.

Disruptive Innovation

Genome Canada has also announced $9.1 million in awards through its inaugural Disruptive Innovation in Genomics competition (DIG). LePage says the response to the competition was "over the moon" and resulted in 20 Phase 1 or seed awards of $250,000 each. Five Phase II or prototype projects received $4.1 million from Genome Canada and $9.2 million in co-funding. Genome Canada is negotiating a funding agreement with Innovation, Science and Economic Development to launch a second round of Phase II funding which will be open only to successful Phase I researchers.

"Phase I of DIG is for higher-risk, smaller amounts where people are pushing the envelope and taking risk at the front end. They're all pushing hard to go to prototype," says LePage. "

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