Editorial - 25-6

The Ontario Centres of Excellence is to be congratulated for taking the initiative to improve Canada's weak track record for commercializing publicly funded research. Through its federally supported Centre for the Commercialization of Research (CCR), it has spearheaded the formation of the International Commercialization Alliance (ICA) which aims to share international best practices and models to boost the economic outputs stemming from research (see page 4).

Over the past 15 years, Canada and other nations have poured billions into boosting their research capacity, often in an ad hoc manner and with scant thought as to how resulting discoveries will find their way into the marketplace or social usage. Recent attempts to stimulate commercialization have done little so far in improving upon the trickle of commercial outcomes we've seen so far.

The CCR plans to change all that by collaborating with other commercialization bodies to determine what works and what doesn't and implementing the best models. Judging from the ICA's inaugural forum last month, there are plenty of excellent models from which to choose. The association will undertake a series of projects to examine the best prospects in detail and disseminate its findings to members.

It's a low-cost, high-impact approach to a problem so many have faced as the march towards a knowledge-based economy accelerates. Generating greater prosperity from research is a difficult and complex process. The ICA is an excellent step forward in meeting the challenge by pooling creativity from around the globe.