New Brunswick strategy triggers heavy investment in research and innovation

Based on Finnish and Ontario models

New Brunswick has rolled out the major planks of a new research and innovation investment strategy designed to boost the performance and impact of the province's weak public- and private-sector R&D. The investments allocate $91.4 million over five years towards research and innovation-focused initiatives, the bulk of which comes from an $80-million commitment announced in early February by premier David Alward.

This fall, the government launched a series of initiatives aimed at industry, academia and government (see chart page 2) and created the New Brunswick Research and Innovation Council (NBRIC) to advise on the strategy's implementation and future direction.

The strategy follows more than two years of research and consultation that led to a major report — Strategies for Innovation: A framework for accelerating the Province of New Brunswick — and a task force to advise the government on how best to allocate and track investments in the province's small but vibrant know-ledge-based economy.

In this fiscal year alone, the government has pumped $20.4 million into the innovation system through a variety of new and existing mechanisms. New programs include a voucher program, an industry innovation challenge, a series of academic research chairs, a seed-stage venture capital fund and start-up investment fund. A mentorship program is slated for launch in early 2014.

It's all part of the province's innovation-based economic development (IBED) policy that draws heavily on the Finnish and Ontario innovation systems to guide the government's support and participation in New Brunswick's priority economic sectors — information and communications technology, biosciences, industrial fabrication, value-added wood and food and aerospace and defence.

"We've moved to better position the province and demonstrate a higher level of support for companies and entrepreneurs on the ground," says René Boudreau, NBRIC's executive director. "The strategy will increase partnerships with the public capacity we already have. The new programs have strong market pull so that companies can leverage that institutional research capacity."

New council a key policy mechanism

Of the recommendations contained in the Strategies for Innovation report — also known as the Manship report after its lead author, provincial entrepreneur Jon Manship — the first one to be implemented was the formation of NBRIC. Modelled on the Finnish Research and Innovation Council, the 17-member NBRIC will include eight industry representatives, academics and government innovation officials as well as the leader of the official opposition. Together they will produce a multi-year policy and budgetary framework for consideration by the executive council, develop and publish sector-specific reports and prepare an annual report on provincial research and innovation.

"We want to ensure that planning goes beyond the typical four-year cycle and keeps government and all stakeholders to account," says Boudreau. "We drew on the Finnish experience because over time the Finns saw a renaissance in the value-added field. The Ontario model was also top-of-mind for the level of activity it has leveraged."

New Brunswick's interest in Finnish innovation policy and models goes back several years with the pioneering work of individuals like Douglas Robertson, formerly director of innovation policy and research projects at the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency and now president and CEO of Tech South East Inc, a Moncton-based innovation intermediary. Robertson participated in two missions to Finland and forged ties between European-based innovation organizations and Atlantic Canada. He says the introduction of the new strategy is timely and signals the beginning of a new era for the province.

"To see this level of coordination and investment, it has the potential to do some pretty exciting things in the province … New Brunswick was the last province to have a defined and dedicated innovation strategy in place," says Robertson. "The scale is also very significant. This level of investment was never there before and the policy framework is a big gain … It's going to take a few years to see the fruits of this but we're getting the building blocks in place."

The holistic scope of the strategy is aimed at gaps in the innovation ecosystem, with significant levels of institutional and venture funding to mitigate risk and encourage entrepreneurial activity.

"We're creating the bridges between applied research and venture capital and company creation," says Boudreau. "On a majority of metrics we're playing catch-up."

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