Innovation Canada: A Call to Action

Innovation Canada: A Call to ActionBox 7.3 Germany’s Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft aThe Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (F-G) organization operates 60 Fraunhofer institutes inGermany. These customer-oriented, applied research institutes strive to transform scientificfindings into useful innovations. The institutes’ focus on application-oriented research issituated within the broader spectrum of the German research system — a spectrum thatincludes, at one end, the publicly funded, basic research-oriented Max Planck Society and, atthe other end, privately funded industrial research.The F-G’s threefold mission is (i) to promote and undertake research in an internationalcontext of direct utility to private and public enterprise and of wide benefit to society as awhole, (ii) to reinforce the competitive strength of the economy by developingtechnological innovations and novel systems solutions for their customers and (iii) toprovide a platform that enables staff to develop the necessary professional and personalskills to assume positions of responsibility within their institute, in industry and in otherscientific domains. As institutes are encouraged to work with industry, only about a third ofbase funding comes from government. Institutes must secure the remaining revenue fromother sources, which typically comes in roughly equal proportions from industry and publiccontracts and project funding.The Fraunhofer institutes provide highly specialized expertise that may be too expensive forany mid-sized company to build up and may also be beyond the scope of consultingcompanies. By connecting with universities and technical institutes/universities of appliedscience, and by applying for competitive research grants, the F-G institutes retain an edge inscience and technology. Indeed, the grants are used for advanced work that is well ahead ofthe marketplace but has been identified as potentially important to client companies in theyears to come.In summary, the Fraunhofer institutes are characterized by (i) professional R&D services toindustry, (ii) demand-driven research combined with scientific excellence, (iii) strongintegration with academia and (iv) autonomy combined with simple corporate rules and astrong brand.a Information drawn from the Fraunhofer website at: www.fraunhofer.de; and Panel consultations.Canada’s large-scale research collaboration gapby evolving the majority of its current institutesinto a national network of institutes focussed onlarge-scale collaborative research motivated byindustrial needs. To achieve this vision, greatcare will be needed to establish a process that,over time and in dialogue with partners, enablesthe NRC to focus on this opportunity withoutlosing the value for Canada from its otheractivities.The Panel’s consultations elicited statements ofstrong support for IRAP’s role in supporting R&Dand innovation by SMEs but, notably, there wasnot comparable testimony regarding therelevance and role of the NRC’s institutes. This,together with the other considerations outlinedabove, suggests that there is both the need andopportunity to focus and reorganize the NRC’snational assets to more effectively andstrategically support innovation in Canada. ThePanel endorses the plans currently under way toreorient certain NRC institutes to place greater7-8