Jenkins Panel member sheds light on process leading to influential report

The seeds sown in the report of the Jenkins Panel are bound to grow although it will take several Budgets before the full extent of its impact will be known, says Nobina Robinson. The Polytechnics Canada president says the 2012 Budget has moved on several recommendation and indicated that further consultations are planned for the National Research Council, public support for venture capital and the federal R&D tax credit program.

Robinson was a member of the expert panel led by Open Text executive chairman Tom Jenkins that issued Innovation Canada: A Call to Action last fall (R$, October 17/11). She spoke of her experience on the panel for the first time at the 11th Annual RE$EARCH MONEY Conference.

"Budget 2012 was a first and dramatic step in the right direction but much more needs to be done. It will take more than one Budget," said Robinson. "Only time will tell whether we have updated our blueprint for innovation."

Robinson made it clear that she would speak about the parts of the report that she liked and "be silent on the parts that I don't", although she acknowledged that the panel was constrained in what areas it was allowed to examine and what kinds of recommendations it could make. She added that the consensus on the six main recommendations did not extend to the myriad sub-recommendations contained in the report.

sadi excluded

She revealed that one major program out of the 60 that were originally part of the panel's work — the Strategic Aerospace and Defence Initiative (SADI) — was removed at the urging of the aerospace sector, which wanted a separate review. (It will be part of a larger Aerospace Programs and Policies Review now underway and chaired by David Emerson). Other areas outside of the purview of the Jenkins Panel were intellectual property, competition policy and federal intramural R&D.

Robinson said the Jenkins report contains a few "hidden gems" that have yet to be addressed by government, including a vouchers program, which she said would allow all service providers to participate and give industry more choice in how it spends R&D assistance. A vouchers program would be one of the services delivered through the proposed Industrial Research and Innovation Council. IRIC would also manage the Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP), and a national concierge service as well as develop a national talent strategy. She said the government's decision to launch a concierge service through IRAP was a "political decision" and that it would be best to combine it with a vouchers program.

Advocating a larger role of colleges and polytechnics was also addressed. Robinson said the concept of highly qualified personnel should be expanded to highly qualified and skilled personnel, recognizing the complementarity between universities and colleges where all actors play to their strengths and unique roles.

Robinson says government programs supporting industry R&D should be invisible to the client "never mind the machinery behind it". She called for better navigation of federal programs and pointed to Germany's Central Innovation Programme SME (ZIM).

"Their program managers turn around a preliminary decision (on applications) in something like two weeks and the program never runs out of money".

minister of innovation?

In the area of S&T governance, Robinson asserted that changes are required and that Canada should have a minister of innovation and a ministry of business innovation. She also advocated for a client-focused research technology organization (which the NRC is currently reorganizing to become), adding that it will take years before such an organization comes to fruition. Robinson also suggested that the various players must learn how to collaborate and coordinate to achieve the country's S&T objectives with the greatest efficiency and speed.

"Stop the blame game. Differentiate and collaborate. Move at the speed of business," she said, adding that there needs to be an acknowledgement from government to support demand-driven innovation. "It's easy to blame industry for a lack of receptor capacity but it's not fair. Billions of taxpayer money has been invested in R&D based on the push model."

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