Ontario government outsources administration of two largest R&D funds

The Ontario government has created a non-profit company to take over the administration of its two largest R&D funds and has appointed a former DM to run the show. The Innovation Institute of Ontario (IIO) has been established as a subsidiary of the Ontario Innovation Trust (OIT), the arm's length agency responsible for providing matching funds to universities and institutes that secure federal infrastructure support from the Canada Foundation for Innovation.

The new organization's function will be to administer and provide technical support to OIT and the Ontario R&D Challenge Fund (CF). The OIT recently announced new investments of $127 million, bringing its total disbursements since May, 1999 to $354 million. The CF is an internal government program within the Ministry of Energy, Science and Technology (MEST). It has an annual budget of $100 million this year (a level that's expected to be sustained) and funds university-based research projects that can attract one third of their costs from the private sector. The IIO has entered into a contract with MEST to administer CF funding.

The IIO's CEO is Ken Knox who served as DM for the Ministry of Energy, Science and Technology until last May. Regarded as a capable and experienced administrator, Knox declined a request to be interviewed for this article. The IIO's operations will be overseen by a board of directors which will be selected by an interim board in the near future (see box).

Government officials say that the primary reason behind the outsourcing of administration for the two funds is not cost savings but to provide universities and research institutions with a more efficient, one-stop bureaucracy to deal with when seeking funding. A secondary rationale is to alleviate MEST from the administrative burden of running the CF. It's a contention supported by at least one university R&D administrator. Dr William Bridger, VP research at the Univ of Western Ontario views Knox's appointment to head up the new entity as a welcome development, given Knox's reputation within the university community and the need to decrease the growing number of R&D funding sources universities are must contend with.

"We're happy to see Ken (Knox) in a front line position as far as universities are concerned. The load being placed on institutions for accounting and reporting is tremendous," says Bridger. "Universities are geared up for the granting councils but not for the specificity and detail needed for matching requirements. We've had to hire people at Western and we've had lots of discussions with MEST officials as to how to streamline this process."

Bridger was party to those discussions as past chair of the Ontario Council of University Research (OCUR), a committee of provincial VPs research and an affiliate organization to the Council of Ontario Universities. He says he hopes the creation of the IIO will also help to reduce the time between a university's notification that it has received an award and its actual public announcement. In the past, award announcements have had to wait for the availability of the appropriate politician or official but it's not clear that this practice will change under the new administrative model.

OIT executive director David Bogart says the creation of the IIO marks a "modest step" towards improving the delivery of research funding, and that it will be monitored closely to ensure that it's effective.

"The impetus for the IIO came from the boards of the OIT and the Challenge Fund, and they felt there were opportunities that could be achieved if we had a consolidated delivery program," he says. "The government still plays a major role in the policy thrust of the Challenge Fund, but this will make it easier for the review process. Now there's one place for submissions whether it's a Challenge Fund or an OIT project."

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