More than 30 regional meetings planned

Industry Canada has formally kicked off the engagement segment of its innovation strategy as part of a highly structured process to encourage industry and other sectors to help achieve the government’s objective of transforming Canada into a world class, knowledge-based innovative economy. The May 9 announcement came with a pledge from Industry minister Alan Rock that the process would be complete by November at which time the government would be in possession of a document laying out a formal strategy for the next decade.

“The next few months are crucial to make sure we have a plan with targets and a timetable that everybody can buy in to. That will be our goal between now and November,” said Rock. “The first week in November we’re planning a national summit and will bring all parties together and produce in final form a concrete document which will take on Canada’s plan for the decade.”

The formal announcement actually comes several weeks after consultation with various industry sectors got underway. Those sectors have until the end of June to submit action plans for becoming more innovative. The other main component of the engagement process begins this week and involves more than 30 regional meetings for which groups must apply in advance to participate.

The innovation strategy is being positioned as a major priority for the Liberal government and the country, and great pains are being taken to display a show of unity between government, industry, labour and academia. Rock went so far as to describe the innovation agenda as the government’s number one priority, but backtracked somewhat when asked whether it ranked above issues such as health care, Kyoto and the fight against terrorism.

“I was being polite. It’s a top priority for government, we want to put it at the top of the national agenda. It’s central to my agenda as minister of Industry and all government ministers are involved,” he asserted. “We’ve got a lot of tough issues on the table but if we’re going to solve a lot of them like health care, like education, like unemployment and economic growth, we’ve got to get this right.”

The consultation phase follows the February 19 release of two major papers on innovation by Industry Canada and Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC). The Industry Canada document — Achieving Excellence: Investing in People, Knowledge and Opportunity — is considered to be stronger of the two. It has four theme areas that highlight the need for better commercialization of research results, the development of skills related to the new economy, an enhanced business and regulatory environment and a focus on community-based innovation (R$, February 27/02). The paper also calls for dramatically increased industry spending on R&D. That message was reinforced at the press conference by the presence of representatives from the banking, industry and high tech sectors.

GOVERNMENT PRIORITY

Rock emphasizes that the innovation agenda now unfolding has been approved by Cabinet and that all cabinet ministers have had the opportunity to provide input, adding that he will be encouraging other ministers to get involved in the engagement process. Both ministers and interested individuals are also being encouraged to participate through a so-called Do It Yourself Kit and CD Rom which connects to the Internet. An elaborate website has been constructed featuring both the Industry Canada and HRDC documents, technology roadmaps and background documentation. The website will be used throughout the process to post new meetings, information and developments as they occur (www. innovationstrategy.gc.ca).

Despite the government’s attempts to pitch the engagement process as all inclusive, it’s evident that the main audience is industry. Those involved in government S&T, for instance, are not being courted as potential participants. After some discussion, it was decided that federal S&T and the Federal Innovation Networks of Excellence proposal would be better dealt with through a parallel engagement process (see page 3).

MAIN FOCUS IS INDUSTRY

Opinion varies on what the engagement process is intended to achieve. Some contend that the consultations are meant primarily to obtain blessing for the various government initiatives being contemplated. Others feel the process has been designed to inspire industry to embrace innovation and increase R&D spending — necessary conditions if the government is to meet its ambitious targets by 2010.

“The main point is really to get stakeholders involved. Government has done an awful lot in the past few years and it’s time for industry to step up to the plate,” says Michael Fine, executive director of the Innovation Secretariat. “Our major goal is to get Canadian companies more attuned to being innovative (and) get good representation from the business community, academe and special interest groups.”

For the industry sector consultations, government representatives have completed their industry briefings (offers of engagement) and the sectoral action plans are expected to be completed and returned by the end of June.

For the regional meetings, they are slated to occur across the country until the end of September and are open to the public. But not all will be able to participate. Only those groups who are invited to join will participate in highly structured focus groups to debate the details of the four main themes of the innovation paper.

“These are not conferences so there won’t be a lot of podium talk,” says Fine. “There are four challenge areas and we’ll divide the groups up with between two-to-eight working groups depending on the size of the community and level of interest. There will be targets and a series of questions for each area.”

Once the regional meetings finish, government officials will sort through and condense materials and emerge with a slate of national and regional issues. They will form the basis of discussion at the November summit, which in turn will feed into the final contents of the innovation strategy.

“We have to synthesize all the stuff we hear into crucial national issues to be dealt with, although we have not completely decided on how to do that yet,” says Fine. “After the national summit, we have to come up with a follow-on process. There has to be checks to determine whether we are meeting our goals and so on. Then we hope to produce a national innovation action plan. The document going forward will be the innovation strategy, which will give us the means to monitor progress and meet all the targets in the strategy.”

Many are anticipating a flurry of new spending announcements in the wake of the consultation process. But Fine says it’s too early to say whether the events of the next few months will result in any new programs or initiatives. “If there are things with budget implications, we will have to discuss those with Finance officials,” he says.

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