| Canada’s Centers of Excellence |
 By Susan Avery
The term “centers of excellence” is not new. Universities, corporations, governments, and other organizations throughout the world have been implementing countless variations of the concept for decades. Canada, however, has taken the idea to such high levels of sophistication that the entire country itself could probably be called an “epicenter of excellence.”
From British Columbia to Newfoundland and all provinces in between, centers of excellence have proliferated, staffed by teams of specialists focusing on narrowly defined areas of expertise ranging from advanced manufacturing technologies to social and environmental issues. Most of Canada’s centers of excellence, usually including the word “Institute” or “Centre” in their names, are collaborative ventures with academic institutions in partnership with other groups. These may include various combinations of government agencies, private companies, and nonprofit organizations such as industry associations or private granting foundations.
With nearly 100 world-class universities and colleges throughout the country, many of which have dozens of these specialized facilities, Canada’s centers of excellence number in the thousands. The University of Waterloo in Ontario, for example, is home more than 30 Centres or Institutes, including the Institute for Quantum Computing, the Centre for Theoretical Neuroscience, the Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research, the Institute for Polymer Research, the Nortel Networks Institute for Advanced Information Technology (funded in large part by Toronto-based communications technology company Nortel), and the Institute for Risk Research.
In addition, almost all of Canada’s centers of excellence are linked together in networks with other centers that focus on related disciplines, creating what could be called “megacenters” of excellence — institutes without walls that stretch the definition of centers of excellence to encompass a regional or national focus. The general goal of all of these facilities and networks is commercialization of research.
Canada is well on its way toward a knowledge-based economy. It boasts the highest per capita higher education achievement rate of all OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) countries, based on the International Institute for Management Development’s IMD World Competitive Yearbook 2007. At 53 percent, it ranked just slightly ahead of Japan and Singapore, each at 52 percent, but far ahead of the United States’ 39 percent.
Government commitment to support science and technology (S&T) has played a major role in Canada’s success. Emphasizing that “talented, skilled, creative people are the most critical element of a successful national economy over the long term,” the country’s S&T strategy publication, Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada’s Advantage (May 2007), goes so far as to declare that ensuring marketplace competitiveness and encouraging private sector investment in innovation is “the most important role of the Government of Canada.”
Networking
Canada’s tradition of innovation stretches back nearly a century to the formation of the government-supported National Research Council of Canada (NRC), active since 1916 and now employing about 4,000 people at more than two dozen specialized facilities throughout the country. Partnering with universities and industries (Canadian and worldwide), NRC’s research and development work has led to the development of technology clusters in a wide range of fields from medicine to aerospace. Vancouver, British Columbia, for example, is home to the NRC Institute for Fuel Cell Innovation; Edmonton, Alberta, hosts NRC’s National Institute for Nanotechnology; Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, has attracted a thriving bio-ag cluster around NRC’s Plant Biotechnology Institute.
In 1989, the same year that it created the Canadian Space Agency, Canada established its Networks of Centres of Excellence Program (NCE). With the support of three science-based federal granting councils, NCE provides funding to networks of researchers in specialized fields whose applications meet strict criteria for excellence as well as relevance to Canada’s S&T goals. With an annual budget exceeding $80 million, NCE currently funds 21 networks, supporting more than 6,000 researchers and highly qualified personnel in 71 Canadian universities. Program partners include more than 750 Canadian companies, 300 provincial and federal departments, 500 other Canadian agencies and organizations, and 400-plus international partners.
Each network is a massive web of connected centers of excellence. AUTO21, for example, NCE’s automotive R&D network, includes about 300 researchers from 47 universities and colleges throughout Canada, 120 industry partners, and 72 government agencies or other public-sector organizations. A few of this network’s several dozen research projects currently in the works include development of automotive interior parts that are 100 percent recyclable, research into effective prevention of vehicle theft and drunk driving, and creation of “collaborative driving” systems in which groups of vehicles communicate with each other and even drive themselves without operators.
Even the highly specialized NCE networks are extensive and multidisciplinary. Geomatics for Informed Decisions (GEOIDE), which is researching new ways to use Global Positioning System data and other geographic information, involves 90 researchers and 300 graduate students at 54 universities throughout Canada, plus 66 government agencies or departments and 42 industry participants. Spinoff companies have included GeoTango, which developed a 3-D geospacial modeling technology and was acquired by Microsoft, and SimActive, which was contracted by Defence R&D Canada for further development of its 3-D graphic mapping software.
More networks are scheduled to join NCE this spring when two new competitions — Centres of Excellence in Commercialization and Research, and Business-Led Networks of Centres of Excellence — are concluded. Each of these new networks will address at least one of four priority areas established by Canada’s S&T strategy: environmental science and technologies, natural resources and energy, health and related life sciences and technologies, and information and communications technologies.
Commercialization
One former NCE network that was extremely successful in its commercialization efforts before reaching the end of its maximum allowed 14-year lifespan in 2006 was the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems (IRIS). Managed by Ottawa, Ontario-based Precarn Inc., a not-for-profit consortium specializing in designing and managing intelligent systems R&D programs, IRIS saw the creation of nearly 40 startup companies, including developers of computer vision systems, industrial automation systems, medical diagnostic tools, and a wide range of innovative software applications.
When NCE support ended for IRIS, Precarn managed to obtain funding elsewhere to continue more than a dozen research projects. The organization remains very active in intelligent systems R&D in collaboration with academic institutions, industry associations, and private corporations throughout Canada.
This past December, Precarn and Ottawa-based technology advisory firm Reid Eddison announced a joint venture to help Canadian universities accelerate commercialization of intelligent systems research and to help spinoff and startup companies in the field with their growth strategies. And in January, Precarn and Canada’s Automotive Parts Manufacturing Association announced awards totaling $1.5 million, plus an additional $2.1 million raised from participants, to fund three separate research projects for the Canadian auto parts industry, developing automation and artificial intelligence solutions for defect detection, fault prediction, and complex welding. Project leaders are auto parts suppliers, with other companies and universities as partners.
In addition to the national networks, Canada also has local, regional, and province-based centers and networks of excellence. The Ontario Centres of Excellence (OCE), formed in 1987, supports basic research and assists with commercialization efforts through five province-wide Centres of Excellence: Communications and Information Technology, Earth and Environmental Technologies, Materials and Manufacturing, Photonics, and Energy. OCE takes credit for helping to launch 19 new leading-edge companies in Ontario during its 2006–2007 fiscal year, bringing the total to 95 commercial startups during the organization’s 20-year history.
Every province in Canada has established programs to support innovation and commercialization of research and new technologies. The NRC Institute for Information Technology (NRC-IIT) has locations in Ontario, New Brunswick, and Québec. The organization is dedicated to research and development in software and systems technologies in partnerships with businesses, universities, and government agencies, with a long-term goal of supporting innovation that has beneficial impact on Canadian society.
In Alberta, which is fortunate to have vast hydrocarbon resources, many centers of excellence focus on energy-related research. At the University of Alberta in Edmonton, the School of Energy and the Environment takes a multidisciplinary approach, with areas of study including ecosystem management, alternative fuels, and social issues relating to climate change in addition to advancing commercial technologies for oil sands development and other hydrocarbon industries.
The Manitoba Interactive Digital Media Association (MIDMA) is a nonprofit association dedicated to the expansion and growth of the interactive digital media industry, supporting networking and partnerships that benefit media producers in the province.
Québec’s centers of excellence cover a wide range of disciplines, including aerospace, information technologies, multimedia, and life sciences. In Québec City, the largest technology sector “by a distance” is optics and photonics, says Denis Gosselin, foreign investment prospecting director for the Greater Québec Metropolitan Region. The Centre for Optics, Photonics, and Lasers at Laval University and the National Optics Institute (INO), a nonprofit organization founded in 1985, form the hub of this cluster, which now employs more than 2,000 people at 30 companies and eight R&D centers in the area. INO, with a staff of more than 200, has been “very aggressive” in its marketing and networking efforts, according to Gosselin, with a large number of private-sector contracts and linkages with research centers in Europe as well as throughout Canada.
Other centers of excellence in the Québec City area include information technology, gaming technologies, processed materials manufacturing, and life science specialties such as immunology, obesity research, “nutraceuticals” (pharmaceuticals based on food products), “cosmeceuticals” (pharmaceutical cosmetics products), and neurosciences. Neural City, a new R&D park focusing on neuroscience industries, is now under development. While Gosselin admits that there is definitely competition from Montreal and other Canadian cities for technology investments, he emphasizes that “we focus on where we’re strong” and cites the Québec City area’s quality of life and low costs of doing business as a major attractions for S&T industries.
Focus on Life Sciences
One of the primary goals of Canada’s S&T policy is to improve life for all Canadians, so it is no surprise that many of the country’s centers of excellence focus on life sciences. This is a very broad category ranging from forestry management to genome mapping. NRC’s biotechnology program consists of six institutes located throughout Canada, and NCE has more networks relating to health, human development, and biotechnology than to any other category.
In the province of Québec alone, there are more than 13,000 researchers in health-related fields, with almost 100 health research centers in operation. The University of Montreal has a network of 24 research centers, and McGill University, also in Montreal, is home to 25 institutes and research centers including the world-renowned Montreal Neurological Institute with 11 specialized research units.
Genetic research is getting special attention in Newfoundland & Labrador, where an original “founder population” — more than 90 percent of Newfoundanders descended from the original 10,000 to 20,000 Irish, English, and Scottish settlers — provides an ideal living laboratory for the study of genetic disease and other biological phenomena. Memorial University of Newfoundland is the hub of activity in the province.
In Prince Edward Island, scientists at the NRC Institute for Nutrisciences and Health (NRC-INH) in Charlottetown are working to identify how bioactive compounds found in nature can be used to improve human and animal health. Research is focused on neurological disorders, obesity-related disorders, and infection and immunity.
Neurology is a major field of study throughout Canada, from the Brain Research Centre at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver to the Brain Repair Centre in Halifax, Nova Scotia, which will be the anchor tenant of the new Life Sciences Research Institute under development there. Both of these centers of excellence are joint ventures between academic institutions and regional healthcare networks.
Supplementing the public support of Canada’s many centers of excellence are contributions from private foundations. The Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, for example, supports a vast network of cardiovascular and cerebrovascular researchers throughout the country. Some centers of excellence, such as the Li Ka Shing Knowledge Institute under development at St. Michael’s Hospital, a teaching and research hospital in Toronto, are made possible through contributions from private donors and philanthropists.
As these health-related centers of excellence continue to advance in their research, the quality of Canada’s healthcare facilities, and therefore its overall quality of life, will continue to advance as well.
Companies seeking research assistance or investment opportunities can find a wealth of useful links to these programs, as well as to national initiatives, at http://innovationstrategy.gc.ca. |
