NRC's role being redefined to enhance its pivotal role in Canadian innovation

Core businesses, research themes established

The National Research Council (NRC) isn't likely to figure prominently in the upcoming federal Budget but that doesn't mean the organization has stopped planning for the future. For the past seven months under the leadership of a new president, Canada's largest research and technology organization has been re-evaluating its place in the Canadian innovation system, defining its core businesses and research themes that are forming the broad elements of a new strategy.

Most of the year has been devoted to a largely internal exercise of strategizing and consulting with the NRC's 5,000-plus workforce as well as reaching out to other players in the S&T system. While details are scarce, some specifics have emerged which reflect, at least in part, the values and track record of John McDougall, the former president and CEO of the Alberta Research Council who was selected as NRC president last April.

Perhaps most significantly, the NRC plans to triple the amount of revenue it derives two of its four core business areas (see chart).

"On the technical services side — certification and one-on-one problem solving — you would expect that companies mostly pay for it. In those spaces, the majority of our work would be cost recovery and I can tell you today it's not. It should be, so that's where I see the biggest change," says McDougall. "We probably have about $50 million worth of industry spending and I would expect that to be, over time, something like $150 million. That's against our total book of about $1 billion."

"We're embarking in an effort of generating programs that have signif-icant scale and stature to really make a difference and would allow us hopefully to position ourselves in those spaces globally as one of the leaders." — NRC president John McDougall

Revenue will also be derived from NRC's strategic research operations, although McDougall says the majority of funding for those activities will come from public sources, given its objective of longer-term projects to provide Canada with competitive advantage.

"We're trying to get in front of the wave for Canada and that means we'll pay a reasonable level of public support," he says. "But you want to encourage private sector participation because that keeps you real and anchored in the market space ... You need that customer connection."

The NRC intends to utilize its new strategy to more sharply focus its resources on a manageable number of areas where Canada can be world class and contribute to improving national competitiveness and productivity, as well as forging collaborative partnerships with other nations such as Israel.

sharper focus and greater collaboration

That sharper focus extends beyond NRC to encompass other players in Canada's research and innovation system. Existing collaborations with organizations such as the Business Development Bank of Canada and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council will be strengthened and replicated with other entities where they make sense and leverage external resources rather than replicating them.

"One of the core values that has emerged is collaboration and partnership … If we're successful in that space we should have a lot more collaborations than we have traditionally had," says McDougall. "We should be looking to partner where in the past we might have tried to develop the same capabilities. Now we're thinking, if it already exists, can we take advantage of that … Over the past 10 or 15 years we've gone through a phase where there has been an enormous amount of money to create things which did lead to a lot of duplication. There's now a sense of, maybe we need to consolidate and bring things into a little tighter construct. That's common all over the country and it's a good thing."

On the international front, the NRC and McDougall have taken a strong role in recent discussions with at least two Israeli delegations that have travelled to Ottawa in recent months. In August, a delegation including chief scientist Dr Eli Opper visited the NRC in Ottawa for a broad-ranging discussion on innovation, followed by a Toronto meeting to scope out potential collaborations in nanotechnology.

focus on international

In late November, a Canada-Israel summit was held in Toronto and moderated by McDougall, exploring potential areas of collaboration in water, alternative energy and the brain. The latter was the focus of a separate but parallel initiative by the Ontario government which provided seed funding to create the Ontario Brain Institute that will collaborate with Israeli scientists (R$, November 29/10).

"Canada is looking strategically at where global relationships make sense from an innovation standpoint of helping Canada be successful ... Israel has a reputation of being at the top of R&D expenditures as a unit of GDP and a tremendous amount of their economy is small- and medium-sized enterprise, so there's reason for interest." says McDougall. "The CIIDRF (Canada-Israel Research and Development Foundation) has been in place for 15 or 20 years so there's something to build on ... We came away very enthusiastic."

McDougall is a distinct departure from previous NRC presidents and his reputation for practicality and strong management skills has resonated with many in the S&T community who hope the NRC is now embarking on a vibrant new chapter in its 94-year history. With a new mission and strategy nearly complete, the fruits of that labour may soon become apparent.

"We have a very good feel now for where we want to be. We see ourselves as a research and technology organization that plays in the middle ground between academic research and the marketplace," says McDougall. "We want to be the best in the world at that. I think it's reasonable and I think it's shared by government. That's a good space to be in."

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