NRC pushes ahead with plans to recast itself as a research technology organization

Goodyear expresses support

The federal government must decide whether to accept advice recommending the dismantling of the National Research Council (NRC) or stick with the path of transformation now underway at the 96-year-old organization. The recently released report by the Jenkins Panel recommends breaking up the NRC into a series of separate entities, whereas the renewal path currently being pursued by the NRC would see the individuality of its institutes give way to a program-based research and technology organization (RTO) geared towards outcomes and better connections to customers.

The future home of the NRC's Industrial Research Assistance Program (IRAP) also remains up in the air. The Jenkins Panel is recommending that it be enlarged and split off from the NRC to become part of a proposed Industrial Research and Innovation Council (R$, October 31/11). The NRC's strategic vision positions IRAP as an integral element of the organization's new configuration.

While the government ponders the recommendations of the Jenkins Panel, the NRC is moving aggressively and has established a clear set of timelines for its transformation with a completion date set for April 1/12 (see charts on page 2).

NRC management held a two-day session in late October to assess progress. The meeting's "special guest" was Dr Gary Goodyear, minister of state for science and technology, who provided a "positive endorsement for the direction in which the NRC is heading, and reinforced the importance of RTOs in the Canadian innovation landscape", according to an internal NRC news release.

Goodyear said he has asked NRC president John McDougall "to advise me on his views on the recommendations and in particular on those which relate to the NRC directly".

In an interview with RE$EARCH MONEY, McDougall declined to speculate on which route the government will ultimately take, but his description of the current transformation of the NRC is based on an organization which remains as a coherent whole.

"The diagnosis (of the Jenkins Panel) matches very well with what people have been saying for a long time," says McDougall. "We've got good support and great respect but change is not new. These kinds of organizations change all the time."

Under its evolving structure, the NRC will focus on four core businesses with several R&D themes, under which will operate technology platforms and programs. An initial set of four flagship programs — printable electronics, resilient wheat, bio-composite materials and algae — are also being created, some of which are well developed and have received notional funding. The core value informing all structural changes is collaboration, whether it's with industry, government or academia, under a simplified structure that is more market-oriented, outcome-based and closely connected to customers.

"What we've been doing is getting people-oriented towards how to think in a more outcome-oriented way which is where programs come from," says McDougall. "That means they (staff) have to be more effective project managers, more effective in engaging with the customer, more effective in terms of thinking about what matters and how you figure that out … That' s the fundamental change that's being implemented now."

Once complete, many familiar aspects of the current NRC configuration will be jettisoned. Reference to institutes will be replaced with programs and portfolios, Directors general (DGs) will likely be re-titled resource managers and technology clusters will lose their visibility. External institute advisory boards have already been disbanded and a greater portion of the NRC's budget is now centrally controlled through the senior executive committee (SEC).

"(The NRC has) ended up with an awful lot of ways of slicing the pie. It's more like a Rubik's Cube type approach," says McDougall. "We've got things we call clusters, we've got sector strategies for the institutes, we've got all these things working hollis bollis together. One of our game plans is to try to simplify things and not have so many ways of essentially looking at the same thing. There are no real clear boundaries between them anyway. My task has been trying to get coherence and simplification. That's what the programs are about."

McDougall says the new structure is designed to give good ideas a chance to rise up through the organization for consideration and funding will be allocated to as many promising ideas as resources permit. Programs will emerge over time, grow, diminish and end when their objectives are met. "It's a constantly renewing model as opposed to a fixed infrastructure model," he says.

Financial constraints are also likely to play a major role in the extent to which NRC can launch new programs as opportunities emerge. In his remarks to NRC management, Goodyear referred to the need "for all federal government institutions to review their budgets and find reductions of between five and ten per cent", making it clear that "everyone makes a contribution."

future of irap

Since the government has yet to state its reaction to any of the Jenkins Panel's recommendations, McDougall declined to express any views on whether IRAP should be spun off from the NRC. But he sees its role in a transformed NRC as being even more tightly integrated than before.

"IRAP, probably more than any agency of any kind in the country, knows the industrial makeup of the country. And they know the big guys to the little guys, where they are and what they are trying to do. It's a very important organization in that respect," says McDougall. "One of the things we're … doing is engaging them more strongly in our program design process … Linking them actively into what we do — as opposed to simply operating them as kind of a piece on the side that's largely independent —has huge benefits."

While the NRC awaits the federal decision on its future direction, it's business as usual and McDougall reports that external revenues are above projections.

"We're actually ahead of our plan ... It's a great positive indicator that people are buying into our game plan," he says.

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