Dr Peter Hackett

New thinking needed for managing federal S&T

By Dr Peter Hackett

The federal in-house S&T capacity is the only entity that the federal government can explicitly direct to meet Canada’s needs in an era in which science is the defining force in society. It’s an instrument of public policy. We have to nurture that resource and ensure that it is efficiently managed to meet the needs of Canadians. We must make the management as excellent as the science. And we need new thinking.

Federal policy makers have released two innovation documents as a blueprint for future economic growth. Industry Canada’s document – Achieving Excellence: Investing in People, Knowledge and Opportunity – is the strongest indication yet that the Government of Canada plans to take a different approach in federal S&T.

An early response from the federal community is the Federal Innovation Networks of Excellence (FINE). The FINE Program is based on a very different way of spending federal S&T dollars. It cuts across federal departments and agencies, universities, non-government organizations and the private sector.

You see the issues do not respect the systemic barriers that we have between performers in Canada. Our management systems must cut across these barriers.

Whether the projects involve water, national security or biotechnology, federal scientists will be challenged to participate in the best teams possible, drawing from all sectors of the S&T community at large.

We’re also taking a very broad, horizontal approach to government science and technology policy through S&T foresight techniques. In our vision for the federal S&T of the future, the foresight engine would sit in front of the FINE delivery mechanism.

S&T foresight (STFS) involves systematic attempts to look into the longer-term future of science and technology, and their potential impacts on society. We do this to identify what areas of R&D will likely influence change and yield the greatest economic, environmental and social benefits during the next 10-25 years. As you know we all can become preoccupied with the issues of today, managing for the short term. This tool allows us to look up at the horizon and beyond.

To serve Canadians well, we must do this. Why? Because we do not know where the solutions will come from. Even today’s issues demand foresight when we consider the solution rather than the problem.

Foresight helps us look at existing situations in new ways, and uncover new opportunities. With this tool in hand, we can work with communities to define technology cluster strategies that build on the community’s existing strengths and its future potential for economic growth. It also helps us communicate to the public the complicated socio-economic or ethical issues that can arise.

At a recent meeting, Deputy Ministers agreed to a test pilot of foresight techniques. Each science-based department and agency has been asked to submit up to five topics to the National Research Council. The deadline is only weeks away.

Last year, Finance minister Paul Martin addressed the Canadian Society of New York. In his speech, he spoke not only of how new technologies are changing industries. He also spoke of the race to capitalize on these technologies for economic growth. He said that new technologies create new industries, new industries bring new rules and the first rule is not to be second.

Science is the defining force in society. Canadian society will be shaped and shaken by the developments in technology that are an inevitable part of human existence. That will occur within our borders or off our shores. We can not stop them.

The federal S&T capacity must be maintained as the government’s principle interlocutor, its eyes and ears, its sense of touch, taste and smell — and its sixth sense — with the world of science and technology. Because the impact of developments in science and technology on Canadian society will only continue.

I find it impossible to think of a policy area that has not been impacted by S&T. None of these impacts will respect the boundaries of any research performer.

We must modernize the way in which science is managed in government. We must create an integrated management response and a networked research performance capacity. We must cease isolating the federal S&T enterprise. We must bring down the systemic barriers within the Canadian system of innovation.

To succeed, we must all work together — government, private sector, scientific community and general public. Together we must understand the challenges and the opportunities that new technologies bring to society, and together we must the find the right solutions — solutions that future generations will be able to live by. Those solutions begin with understanding.

Dr Peter Hackett is VP research at the National Research Council of Canada