FUTURE PATHS
The Committee heard on several occasions that Canada lacks a long-term plan or vision for its future in the new knowledge-based economy of the 21st Century. Virtually all participants agreed that future wealth creation would depend on knowledge-based industries which require a strong R&D base.
It was pointed out to the Committee that many of our competitors have completed technology foresight exercises to pick their five or six emerging critical technologies. Listed below is a comparison of priorities of three international foresight studies.
| UK Generic S&T Priorities
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Japan-Germany Foresight Survey Areas
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Australia-Key Forces
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| Harnessing future communica
tion and computing technology
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Microelectronics and information society
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Information and communication
technology
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| A cleaner world
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Prospects for a cleaner environment
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Environment
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| Process and products from genes
to new organisms
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Life sciences and the future of
the health system
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Genetics and biotechnology
|
| Getting it right: precision and
control in management
|
|
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| New materials, synthesis and
processing
|
Material and future processes
|
|
|
|
|
Globalization
|
|
|
Dr. Arthur Carty, who is the president of the National Research Council of Canada, was presenting on the strategies of different countries - Germany, Japan, etc., - and where their priorities are, and when he got to the Canadian slide there weren't any priorities, and he indicated that we still have to devise that. It's a very good comment. We have yet to devise it, but when are we going to do that? We're going to be so far behind the rest of the world that we may not have many other sectors to focus on.
The Committee heard about the importance of enabling technologies, which have the potential to transform the basis of competition in existing industries and create new ones. Many witnesses suggested that Canada's critical technologies should include: agri-food, telecommunications, biomedical, and biotechnology. All areas where Canada has strong expertise. Some panelists suggested that a technology foresight exercise should be undertaken to pick the five or six emerging critical technologies for Canada.
[R]ecognize that there are winners and losers in the high-technology game for Canada. We can't be all things to all people. Pick the top five or six priority industries, then assist, support, mentor and nurture them on a macro basis to develop them successfully.
We also have to pick some winners to get the "Canada Incorporated", because we can't be everything to everybody.
The Committee was warned to be cautious of asking industry to establish a list of long-term needs since industry is centered on the short-term bottom line.
[C]ritical industries and technologies of the future - don't look to business for answers to such questions. Business has a short-term survival instinct based on an annual plan. They might have five-year plans or ten-year plans, but they're not qualified to dream about the technologies of the next hundred years that are going to make us a living. They don't even think that way, for the most part.
I would argue that you need to look to that sector of our population that is free to examine these issues and have the brains and the training to do so. In other words, go to the research community.
Make sure, however, that their thought processes have some relevance, which comes back to the issue that they have to broaden their interests to look at the economic consequences of what they're doing
In research and global expertise, it was made very clear that Canada cannot be all things to all people. The Committee was also told that the government, in collaboration with industry and academia, should work on developing a Vision 2010 which would show where Canada should be in the year 2010, based on the five or six key industries established from a foresight exercise, and then develop a plan to help ensure that Canada attains its objective. Such plan must be dynamic and regularly updated. The Committee frequently heard that in moving the country towards the vision, the focus must be on the innovation system and process and not just on the R&D.
We've got to go for value, and we've got to put together a national vision of this country that's so exciting and compelling everybody wants to be a part of it. That's what leadership is about. It's creating that vision of the future that's so exciting and compelling everybody wants to be a part of it. We don't have a vision, ladies and gentlemen, of Canada in the year 2010 or 2020.
We need to start with that and put in that window - science and technology. We have to do the symbols that are right. We have to recognize the winners, we have to give this winning spirit, we have to learn from what I heard here today, with Newbridge Networks and its approach. The learning is there, we've got the pieces, and we've just got to have the will to do it. . . Don't go from 1996 out to the year 2010. Go out to the year 2010 and come back to 1996, and build the strategy that way. That's the world we're fighting in. We're not dealing in the future in 1996, we're dealing in the years 2010 and 2020, and that's where Canada can stake its ground.
[R]eally focus on the targeted technologies and develop contacts and in-depth understanding of the resulting industries. Then help to mentor and nurture, sending a message of support and encouragement to those industries. They will create the jobs.
[W]e, as a nation have not put a stake in the ground and declared our objectives and our intention to one of the top six nations in the world in science and technology.
Several witnesses noted that once Canada has long-term objectives then academia and industry should not hesitate to develop and exploit innovations from anywhere in the world that are helpful to these objectives. In a similar vein, it was mentioned that Canada's tax strategy should be designed to assist the development of new companies and innovation in the five or six key industries.
The Committee was told that a measurement system for both intellectual property and intellectual capital as well as an `innovation index' for Canada would help enhance innovation.
I've learned that innovation, intellectual capital, research and development are very hard to measure at an individual company level and an overall economy level. . . At an individual company level these new critical assets are very difficult to measure. Our previous systems don't work very well. We need new measurement tools and new measurement methods. . . As I think Tom Peters, one of the management professors and consulting gurus, says, what gets measured gets managed and gets done. If your key assets are invisible and intangible intellectual capital that you have a great deal of difficulty measuring, then it's going to be very difficult to manage those.
We have difficulty with what to measure in innovation and how to measure innovation. Take the textile industry for example. Although largely viewed as a traditional manufacturing industry spending little on R&D, textiles are one of the leading industries in Canada in terms of introducing workforce and Canada first innovations. Textiles are a fit of such industries as machinery paper and light products, rubber, plastics, transportation equipment. . . But textiles also purchase and use state of the art machinery and equipment in their production processes. Keeping abreast of new technology by using and diffusing it in the industry certainly helps innovation to happen; however, this kind of innovative activity is not captured well by our statistics.
[T]here needs to be mechanisms in which we can understand the dollars we're investing in innovation and what kind of tangible results they have. Everyone across the panel said how difficult it is to measure. How do you measure it, etc.?
It needs to be done regardless. There needs to be visible accountability. Maybe we should have some type of science and technology or innovation index reported on an annual basis - for example, how are we doing on the following key ten factors as a country? - be that the number of technology workers trained and actually placed in companies or be that a royalty stream resulting from technology the government and the universities have actually managed to transfer to the private sector, with the private sector willing to pay a royalty stream back - nothing so significant that it becomes a barrier, but at least as an indicator that the private sector sees worth in some of the technology.
One initiative from the federal government's S&T strategy involves a series of surveys, being conducted by Statistics Canada, to measure various factors related to innovation.
[We] are running a survey of innovation in service industries. . . we want to know the innovative activities of those companies. . . we will be asking them about the impact of government programs. . . We are looking at R&D in software,. . . biotechnology,. . . and pollution abatement and control. . . We're looking at intellectual property and we're looking at trade in various merchandise commodities. . . We are putting together a framework to make all of these new indicators that we are trying to build easier to understand, to provide a picture of science and technology activity in Canada and to support the debate that you in Parliament may wish to have.
The Committee heard suggestions that the government, in collaboration with the provincial governments, industry and academia, should develop and implement an education program to increase interest on innovation and the `can do' attitude in Canada's youth. With a clear focus on winners, Canadians must be repeated told by all the major players in the innovation system of the importance of S&T and innovation to their future.
I believe that we need loud and credible voices who speak for this in the senior management levels of government, university and business, with all of them saying the same things and singing from the same song sheet about the critical importance of science and technology to Canada's economic future.