Industry Canada’s commmercialization pilot funds could finally see launch in July

Industry Canada is awaiting the green light from Treasury Board to launch its long awaited pilot funds for the commercialization of publicly funded research in universities and federal laboratories. Up for grabs is $50 million for the university community and $25 million for government labs over the next five years although the former is already the focus of concern from members of the university technology transfer community.

The University and Research Hospital Fund and the Government Lab Fund are the government’s initial response to growing pressure to generate social and economic benefits from its seven-year investment in Canada’s basic research engine. In the works for nearly two years, their focus and program structure have been the subject of considerable speculation.

Program details and the policy framework for the pilot programs have been completed by Industry Canada staff based on advice from an industry-dominated Commercialization Funds Advisory Committee. The operational component of the proposed strategy is a limited number of Commercialization Management Boards (CMBs), funded on a competitive basis following a call for proposals expected as early as July. In the case of the university fund, the CMBs will be decision-making bodies while CMBs serving federal labs will be limited to an advisory role due to restrictions under the Financial Administration Act and departmental reluctance to relinquish financial control.

“The advisory committee sees the CMBs as catalysts, coordinators and facilitators. They would access what is available and complement what is not available with their own funds,” says Michele Boutin, acting director of knowledge infrastructure in Industry Canada’s innovation policy branch. “Whether $75 million over five years is enough will depend on how it ends up being allocated. I think if it’s spread across the country it won’t have much impact.”

CMBs are consortia of either universities and hospitals or government labs. If selected, they are required to develop strategic commercialization plans which will be submitted to a National Advisory Board to determine which will receive funding. Each CMB is required to have majority representation from the private sector.

Activities eligible for funding include market assessments, business plan development and mentoring services for spin-offs. The government fund would also consider “more basic capacity building activities, such as staff training”.

“The advisory committee says the best way to build commercialization capacity is to build linkages between universities and industry,” says Boutin. “These new relationships may open the eyes of the business community to the research wealth in the university community.”

NEW UMBRELLA GROUP VIES FOR UNIVERSITY PILOT FUND

During the long gestation period for the pilot funds, a sizeable portion of the university community came together under a new umbrella organization to bid for a majority of the university fund. The Alliance for the Commercialization of Canadian Technology (ACCT) is based upon four existing regional networks — ARCN for Atlantic Canada , Les BLEUs for Quebec, OnSett for Ontario and Westlink for the Western provinces — representing 84 member universities and related organizations and with the backing of 27 industry supporters.

The ACCT is designed to comprise a national association of technology transfer offices, essentially a Canadian equivalent to the US-based Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM), in which most Canadian universities participate. The ACCT approached Industry Canada for funding from the university fund to implement an ambitious implementation phase featuring organizational assessments and grants, training and professional development and advocacy and representation. Their bid was rejected on the basis that its funding criteria was not competitively based.

“It was a show stopper before we even got started,” says Boutin. “Any proposal has to be competitively based. To give the full $50 million to one proposal is not possible no matter how meritorious.”

The ACCT refutes Industry Canada’s interpretation of both its proposed funding process and the amount it was actually requesting. ACCT documents show that it was seeking $33.6 million over three years before proceeding to a second phase in which it planned to establish a pre-seed investment fund and provide early stage concept development grants in partnership with the federal government and the venture capital community.

“What Industry Canada is saying about us is a crock. We told them it would also be competitive under ACCT,” says John Molloy, president and CEO of Parteq Innovations, the technology transfer arm of Queen’s Univ. “They weren’t prepared to listen to our ideas. They want a program where they can go back and get more money and scale it up across the country. But in five years there may not be any money for commercialization.”

Molloy says ACCT is about to incorporate and has attracted considerable support both from the university community and heads of many companies and business organizations. He notes that ACCT’s umbrella approach leverages four established organization with proven expertise in tech transfer and commercialization, making its rejection by Industry Canada somewhat baffling.

“We’ve spent all this time building up networks and now we’re going to knock them down? There’s a lot of work to do before opportunities are identified and industry participates in developing the idea ... But the fund was a done deal by the time we approached them,” he says.

Molloy also wonders why there hasn’t been an attempt to coordinate the new university pilot fund with complementary initiatives by the granting councils. He points to the Intellectual Property Management program at Science and Engineering Research Canada as a case in point. Still, he’s confident the pilot funds in their current incarnation will have a positive impact.

“The commercialization pilot funds are not the way we recommended to go but it is a way to build capacity. Any effort is good and I expect good proposals.”

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