Innovation Canada: A Call to Action

Executive SummaryReview Panel and the Expert Panel onCommercialization — we concluded that threegaps were most significant: (i) the strategic useof public sector procurement to fosterinnovation, (ii) the enhanced use of large-scaleresearch collaboration and (iii) the availability ofrisk capital to finance the development andgrowth of innovative businesses. The followingthree recommendations, as detailed inChapter 7 of our main report, address eachof these gaps in turn.Public Sector ProcurementWe concluded from our consultations andresearch that government support for businessinnovation needs to employ more “demandpull”measures to complement the moretraditional suite of “research-push” measures.To this end, public sector procurement andrelated programming should be used to createopportunity and demand for leading-edgegoods, services and technologies from Canadiansuppliers. This will foster the development ofinnovative and globally competitive Canadiancompanies while also stimulating innovationand greater productivity in the delivery of publicsector goods and services.Recommendation 3Make business innovation one of thecore objectives of procurement, with thesupporting initiatives to achieve thisobjective.3.1 Innovation as an objective — Make theencouragement of innovation in theCanadian economy a stated objective ofprocurement policies and programs.3.2 Scope for innovative proposals —Wherever feasible and appropriate, baseprocurement requests for proposals on adescription of the needs to be met orproblems to be solved, rather than ondetailed technical specifications that leavetoo little opportunity for innovativeproposals.3.3 Demand-pull — Establish targets fordepartments and agencies for contractingout R&D expenditures, including a subtargetfor SMEs, and evolve the current pilotphase of the Canadian InnovationCommercialization Program (CICP) into apermanent, larger program that solicits andfunds the development of solutions tospecific departmental needs so that thegovernment stimulates demand for, andbecomes a first-time user of, innovativeproducts and technologies.3.4 Globally competitive capabilities —Plan and design major Crown procurementsto provide opportunities for Canadiancompanies to become globally competitivesubcontractors.3.5 Working collaboratively — Exploreavenues of collaboration with provincialand municipal governments regarding theuse of procurement to support innovationby Canadian suppliers and to fostergovernments’ adoption of innovativeproducts that will help reduce the cost andimprove the quality of public services.Public–Private Research CollaborationWe believe that public–private researchconsortia in Canada lack the scale needed tohave significant impact on the development ofglobally competitive Canadian companies.Consequently, Canada needs a fundamentallynew approach to building such collaborations inareas of strategic importance and opportunityfor the economy. The existing institutes of theNRC are a unique asset in terms ofinfrastructure, talent and sectoral and regionalcoverage. Consistent with the new directionbeing taken by NRC management, we believethat several of the institutes should be evolvedto become a core national constellation of R&DE-11