Higher value must be placed on the creation of knowledge

In its recent report on intellectual property, the House Science and Research Committee stated that Canada has “the lowest level of corporate R&D funding in OECD and G7 countries.” This low level of corporate investment means that every year, ideas developed with our tax dollars are exploited by foreign companies willing to take the investment risk—a risk Canadian companies are unwilling to take. Intellectual property lawyer Jim Hinton elaborates: "we allow our publicly funded IP to be given away. We do the hard work of funding the research and creating the great ideas, but then we assign the rights to that IP to foreign companies. They make the money on our IP, sell the products back to us and, most devastatingly, they use Canadian-funded IP against us.” Baljit Singh, vice-president of research at the University of Saskatchewan, gives the example of a vaccine against a pig virus: “Researchers at the University of Saskatchewan discovered a virus, which led to the development of a vaccine in collaboration with Queen's University Belfast in Ireland and Ohio State University in the U.S.” However, that vaccine technology was purchased by a company in France, so although the university and inventors received more than $100-million in royalties, the job creation took place in France. Mike McLean, CEO of the Innovation Asset Collective, frames the problem like this, “You cannot commercialize what you don't own. Only companies with sufficient freedom to operate can be assured of capturing the high returns that deliver prosperity to Canada's economy. In comparison, many countries are implementing strategies to successfully commercialize innovation and build dominant IP positions.” McLean suggests this lack of investment may be due in part to Canada’s history: “For me, the largest roadblock is the lack of understanding about IP strategy and approaches to capture and commercialize IP. Canadian companies do not have access to role models or peers who understand these issues. Our economy has been dominated by resource companies and financial institutions for a long time. Until recently, those businesses have not needed to build strong IP positions in order to succeed. Our technology and knowledge-based companies, however, do. They don't have access to the right talent sets, peer groups and networks to build those capacities and understand those businesses. We need to build institutions and role models that can help drive that change and build successful companies that can then spawn others.” This period between innovation and commercialization has been rightly called “The Valley of Death.” The period before a market has been established requires considerable investment with little return. Louis-Félix Binette from the Mouvement des accélérateurs d'innovation du Québec, stated, “The valley of death extends to the early commercialization period, because when you have a highly technological, highly innovative solution, there is a fair chance that your first clients will get a prototype-level solution and it will probably cost you three or four times, 10 times or 100 times more to produce that first prototype than you can actually get from the sale. The more you sell, the more your balance sheet goes into the red. That's the valley of death.” While the risks and costs are very high, so, too, are the rewards, as Binette says: “For an investment fund, sometimes it's enough for one company to succeed in order to replenish the entire fund. That one transaction out of the 20, 30, 40 or 60 can be enough.” Along side this loss of IP is the continued loss of researchers to other countries simply due to lack of financial support for early career scientists and for basic research. Financial support graduate students and post-doctoral fellows—the people who do the majority of on-the-ground work in Canadian research—has remained stagnant for over 20 years. Meanwhile the three federal granting agencies are facing a five per cent budget cut. Unless Canadian governments and businesses begin placing a higher value on the creation of knowledge, our future prosperity is at risk. NDP MP Richard Cannings, who represents the riding of South Okanagan-West Kootenay, B.C., is his party’s deputy critic for innovation, science and industry. The Hill Times

Higher value must be placed on the creation of knowledge

The period between innovation and commercialization has been called 'The Valley of Death.' The period before a market has been established requires considerable investment with little return.

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Higher value must be placed on the creation of knowledge

The period between innovation and commercialization has been called 'The Valley of Death.' The period before a market has been established requires considerable investment with little return.

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