Expert panel picks technology areas with greatest potential for commercial success

Conference Board report

A new report from the Conference Board of Canada recommends that Canada dedicate greater resources to develop and commercialize a core set of technologies it contends holds the greatest economic potential. Two years in the making, the report by the Leaders' Panel on Innovation-Based Commerce (LPIC) targets clean energy technologies, water management technologies and regenerative medicine as the best candidates for developing pathways to "selected global markets" where Canadian firms can excel.

Entitled Canada's Pathways Toward Global Innovation Success, the LPIC report is the latest plank in CBoC's ambitious, long-term innovation agenda that began with a report by the Leaders' Roundtable on Commercialization (R$, May 16/06). CBoC is planning the creation of a number of innovation centres that align with the LPIC's recommendations.

"The centres are designed to attract executive participation with the view to doing more research in a targeted area. Canada does not do well in aligning factors for innovation success and we need to get better at that," says Guy Stanley's CBoC's director of technology and innovation and the report's lead author. "If you look at the Japanese and the Fins, they have governance systems for innovation with the ability to look at the innovation environment and calibrate the opportunities it represents."

The LPIC report does not contain any strikingly new recommendations. Instead, it reinforces previously proposed fixes for Canada's lack of innovative capacity such as pro-active government procurement, the creation of provincial and national innovation funds for selective investment, additional innovation funding targeting development and commercialization and governance systems that recognize both federal and provincial jurisdiction.

"A lot of the recommendations have been made before but they're worth mentioning again because not much has happened in these areas," says Stanley. "Things have to happen differently with a more active government to help promote targeted innovation."

One recommendation that may be new to the Canadian landscape is the concept of governments working with industry in a so-called triple helix relationship. The report describes it as "one in which each strand shares information with the other in such a way that the entity as a whole is information-rich and capable of thriving in a tough evolutionary environment. This will be a new way of working for Canadian institutions and will require learning and changing many entrenched practices".

"Canada should also implement programs that enable innovative small and medium-sized businesses to achieve readiness before they launch on capital markets, and should create additional incentives for technology uptake and development in industry and government."

— LPIC Report

In addition to general recommendations for helping select technology sectors develop pathways towards global markets, the report weighs in on each promising technology area with specific directives.

clean energy

With a US$77-billion global market that's forecast to grow to $254 billion in 10 years, clean energy technologies could be Canada's innovation trump card. Short- to medium-term opportunities in low-impact hydro power generation could be enhanced allowing provincial energy utilities to "go global" by focusing government support on international opportunities and project partnerships for large firms and SMEs with specialized skills. Other areas where Canada could develop longer-term advantage include nuclear power generation, hydrogen production, wind and solar technologies, biofuels and overall energy efficiency.

water management

The $400-billion water industry market is forecast to double every five to six years, with North America poised to capture 36% by 2010. Water management — quality enhancement, filtration, desalination, transmission and system management — are areas where Canada needs to focus with a national approach. Services rather than technology are seen to offer the most potential.

regenerative medicine

With a huge market driven by an aging population, regenerative medicine could be worth up to $20 billion by 2010. Canada enjoys a traditional research advantage in biomaterials, tissue engineering and stem cell therapeutics — an advantage greatly enhanced by a networked approach that has led to the formation of Aggregate Therapeutics, a for-profit company representing Canadian scientists working in the field (R$, October 7/08).

The report suggests that Canada can improve its pathway for regenerative medicine by improving the uptake and application of innovation in the health care system and shortening the cycles of therapy development and approval.

Other technology areas that offer promise for pathway development are geomatics, advanced materials for vehicles and technologies and services for the mining industry.

"The big thrust of this report is that we must start doing stuff more intelligently and differently than we have in the past," says Stanley. "A good idea is to build networks and the leadership will come from the momentum within the networks ... These are structural issues and there's no time like the present to address them."

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