Quebec opens up research and innovation strategy consultation to outside groups

The Quebec government has engaged two prominent organizations to lead the consultation phase for the third incarnation of the Quebec Strategy for Research and Innovation (SQRI 3). To be completed in time for consideration in the 2013 Budget, the strategy's development will be overseen by a new Strategic Committee in Science and Innovation (CSSI).

The use of external organizations to help craft research and innovation policy is unprecedented and responds to concerns that past policy development did not consult widely enough. The Association for Research Development and Innovation in Quebec (ADRIQ) will establish a committee to consult with the province's industry related entities, while the Association francophone pour le savoir — formerly the French Canadian Association for the Advancement of Science (ACFAS) — will solicit input from a wide range of academic and other organizations.

The CSSI replaces the Council of Science and Technology which was abolished in 2010 after more than 30 years of providing independent S&T Advice to government (R$, April 9/10).

At issue is how Quebec should proceed and build upon the first two versions of SQRI, which were supported with billions of dollars in new investment. The second version of the strategy (Mobilize, Innovate, Prosper) was backed with $1.2 billion in new spending, including funds for five flagship research programs. It runs until 2013.

Pilots of several flagships have been launched (environmentally friendly aircraft, green pulp & paper technologies, electric bus development) with a fourth in personalized medicine to be announced within weeks, in collaboration with Genome Canada and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Dr Remi Quirion, Quebec's new chief scientist and president of the Quebec Research Fund, says there's a good chance the government may be willing to increase investments in science and innovation as long as SQRI 3 provides a realistic pathway that generates economic and social benefits.

"I'm relatively optimistic as the Quebec budget should be balanced, so there's opportunity for new investment," says Quirion.

The deadline for submissions to ADRIQ and ACFAS is August 6, with a preliminary report due September 6 followed by a final report October 14. The CCSI has already met twice and plans to meet regularly over the next six months. Quirion says some issues are already emerging from those meetings, as well as a June 1 health care summit in which premier Jean Charest, Finance minister Raymond Bachand and Economic Development, Innovation and Export Trade (MDEIE) minister Sam Hamad all chaired specific sessions.

"The third strategy may refine the major sectors identified in the second strategy as the Finance minister has been pushing for this. It may also add two or three more sectors to the original five although my bias would be fewer. We need to focus on fewer areas in partnership with other provinces, the federal government and international players," says Quirion. "SQRI will also seek to find ways to change the way we train our researchers … We need to train students with strong values from outside of academia so they are more business and social oriented."

Open and inclusive process unprecedented

As the chair of the ACFAS committee leading the consultation, Louise Dandurand says the process for the strategy's development is a welcome change from past consultations. In 2006, several members of the Council of Partners for Innovation resigned to protest the absence of S&T measures in that year's Budget. CPI was also supposed to provide input into a reworking of the 2001 S&T policy (R$, April 14/06). For SQRI 2, requests for briefs were issued late in the process of the strategy's development, with little more than two weeks allowed for responses.

Dandurand says the current approach is a complete opening up of the consultation phase and allows ACFAS and ADRIQ to act as brokers and strategic animators of the debate, the results of which will be made public.

"It's unprecedented. The government has mandated two organizations to do the consultation and do it publicly. It's a two-stage process with briefs followed by open meetings based on the ideas presented in the briefs. The departments and the ministry have committed to an open and democratic process," says Dandurand, on leave as the VP research at Concordia Univ and former president and CEO of the Fonds québécois de la recherché sur la société et la culture (FQRSC).

Dandurand adds that the process for SQRI 3 also represents an attempt to rebalance the province's strategy to include science and social aspects as well as technology and economic development, which has come to dominate science policy in recent years.

"We can generate the kind of debate and client interest in the community that was absent in the two previous processes … We need a balance between science policy and research and innovation policy. There's been a reduction of research policy to innovation but they are not the same thing. You cannot assimilate one to the other," she says. "The process will be beneficial to all parties — government, policy makers and the academic community."

Dr Yves Gingras, a long-time observer of Quebec and federal S&T policies, is cautiously optimistic that the new consultation process may produce a more inclusive policy.

"Contrary to the last SQRI, which was perceived as being defined without any real consultation, now MDEIE seems to realize a larger consultation done by an independent organization like ACFAS will help assure more buy-in from the community," says Gingras, an ACFAS board member, Canada Research Chair in History and Sociology of Science at the Univ of Quebec at Montréal and scientific director of the Observatoire des sciences et des technologies. "But that does not assure that the new policy will take all suggestions into account. We will have to wait and see after the consultation what is in the policy beyond vague affirmations about the importance of innovation and the usual policy language."

Regardless of the government's response, there's no doubt that Quebec has supported its research and innovation strategies generously whether the government in power was Parti Quebecois or Liberal.

"Both parties have shown very intense periods of interest and periods of less interest (but) the funding has been healthy and has grown with more resources for each strategy," says Dandurand. "And when we compare ourselves to other provinces, Quebec is by far the only province making investments in social sciences and humanities research."

Editor's note: ADRIQ did not respond to calls for comment for this article.

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