A four-year old proposal to establish a national network of contract research organizations has found new life as the political environment becomes more receptive to an organization designed to bridge the gap between the lab bench and the marketplace. Innoventures Canada (I-CAN) — formerly known as Innovation Canada when it was originally floated in 2003 (R$, December 11/03) — was recently incorporated with four founding members, with two more slated to join in the near future and several others expressing strong interest.

The Alberta Research Council (ARC) – the driving force behind Innovation Canada and its predecessor – is a founding I-CAN member along with the Saskatchewan Research Council, the Manitoba Industrial Technology Centre and the Centre de Recherche Industrielle du Quebec. The New Brunswick Research and Productivity Centre and the Northern Centre for Advancement of Technology (Ontario) have also agreed to join the federally incorporated, not-for-profit corporation.

These applied research and technology organizations offer a host of technology development and deployment services that are situated in the gap between promising ideas and the marketplace – a space that most acknowledge is difficult to bridge.

I-CAN backers are convinced that, if supported and fully implemented, it can have a significant impact on increasing private sector R&D, accelerating innovation through increased cluster capacity, growing small businesses and acting as an interface between industry and academia. McDougall points to the ARC model, with project work accounting for nearly 80% of $90 million in annual funding.

"We're following what I call the 5-D model — discovery, deployment, development, design and demonstration, with our role focusing on the last three. Our first job is to get it up and running … Companies want whole solutions to their problems and I-CAN makes this easier.," says John McDougall, ARC's president and CEO and the originator of the I-CAN concept. "This is not about subsidies. This is infrastructure, which is very different. Government has to pre-capitalize the infrastructure because business can't carry it (but) it needs to be industrially, market based."

McDougall outlined the I-CAN concept to the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology last November and was greeted with what he described as "unanimous support from all (political) parties". He has also met with and received support from the western regional federal caucus. In the years since his original push for the concept, McDougall says he's witnessed a "sea change in attitude", suggesting that the time for I-CAN has arrived .

"It has not yet translated into funding but we don't have to make the case. People agree. The system is not balanced properly," he says. "Canada's public spend on research is second in the world in relative terms and that's super. But on the competitiveness side, our rank has fallen to 16th … We haven't kept up."

MAKE I-CAN ELIGIBLE FOR FEDERAL PROGRAMS

Instead of seeking public funding before going ahead, I-CAN's backers plan to ramp up with existing resources and grow step-by-step by making proposals addressing pressing national priorities. The 2003 version of I-CAN had a hefty $2 billion-plus pricetag. McDougall says ultimate objective is to grow an organization of the same size and scope, but the strategy is no longer to seek large amounts of federal and provincial funding. Instead, he would prefer that I-CAN was permitted to be a prime applicant to programs such as the Canada Foundation for Innovation, Sustainable Development Technologies Canada and NSERC-sponsored industrial chairs.

In the meantime, I-CAN plans to launch programs focused on specific S&T challenges. First up is a proposal for the I-CAN Centre for Conversion of Carbon Dioxide. The organization is set to announce approval for $300,000 in federal assistance to develop a business plan and research proposal for the centre, with a target of reducing Canadian CO2 emissions by 100 million tonnes annually by 2012.

"Total Alberta emissions are about 250 tonnes and we're proposing to reduce that by 100 tonnes which is a pretty good chunk," says McDougall. "We're taking a bioconversion approach … It's a question of will and economics and I'm very optimistic about it."

Plans are also in the works for projects in biotechnology and hydrogen.

I-CAN is conceived to fulfill a role similar to organizations such as Battelle and the Southwest Research Corp (SRI) in the US, TNO in Holland, Franhaufer in Germany, the Industrial Technology Research Institute in Taiwan and TEKES in Finland. These organizations are strategically positioned to offer specialized facilities and expertise to business in the areas of product and process engineering, prototype development, testing, early stage production and manufacturing, and commercialization.

"The first thrust is federal endorsement for our concept," says McDougall. "The second stage is for the federal government to formally commit to the I-CAN system and I hope it will happen in the next Budget. That's my dream scenario. Once they acknowledge our value proposition, it gets easier to grow and expand."

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