SSTI Digest

Whether it's oil, gas, mining, lumber, fishing or farming, economies dominated by natural resource exploitation are subject to periods of boom and bust. In order for the four provinces of Canada's Atlantic region to shield themselves from such market swings and scarcity problems, it is necessary to build R&D partnerships and to collaborate more than ever, concludes a report released by Dr. Alan Cornford of GPT Management Ltd., Marin Consultants, Inc. and Gardner Pinfold Consultants Ltd.

Innovation and Commercialization in Atlantic Canada, released in March, aims to assist the Atlantic Provinces in identifying ways to improve the area's economy through R&D, innovation and  commercialization programs. The key for the region, the authors say, is to encourage more private R&D investment and activity.

University partnerships lead to diversity in teaching and research, highlight the importance of university research and lead to the development of special expertise, concludes a policy brief by the Conseil Superieur De L’Education in Quebec.

Universities: Working In Partnership, prepared for the Minister of Education, examines the effects of partnerships with outside entities on elements of the university mission in Canada, particularly Quebec. The brief outlines the positive effects of partnerships, as well as the counterproductive and undefined effects.

The brief focuses on the university viewpoint of partnerships and identifies concerns and tensions by universities when engaging in these agreements. These concerns and tensions are parlayed into five key questions to be asked. From these questions, the Counsel outlines five guidelines for partnerships:

Today's online issue of the Chronicle of Higher Education reports Microsoft Corporation is contributing $750 million to China to support computer science education, basic research, software training, and business growth.

To give a sense of the magnitude and potential importance of Microsoft's investment on the Chinese and global IT market and workforce: the $750 million (to be allocated over three years) is currently equal to 50 percent of the entire Chinese software industry's annual revenues.

The article reports $24 million would be used to create five software colleges in the leading Chinese universities while the balance "will go directly into joint-ventures with Chinese manufacturing firms and software companies."

Canada already has seen its number of biotech firms grow from 227 in 1997 to 400 in 2000, second only to the U.S. in biotech concentration. Last week's announcement of a $51 million (Canadian) biotechnology strategy is intended to further strengthen the Ontario's position in health research and commercialization.

Ontario's Biotechnology Strategy, outlined by Ernie Eves, Ontario's Premier, and Jim Flaherty, Minister of Enterprise, Opportunity and Innovation, includes the following highlights:

The Institute for Competitiveness and Prosperity — the research arm of Ontario's Task Force on Competitiveness, Productivity and Economic Progress — has released a comprehensive view of Ontario's industry clusters, showing for the first time how they compare with similar clusters in other provinces and U.S. states.

A View of Ontario: Ontario's Clusters of Innovation serves as the Institute's first Working Paper on Ontario's competitiveness, productivity and economic progress. It draws on the analytical approach of Harvard Business School's Michael Porter and is the result of collaboration with the Institute for Strategy and Competitiveness at Harvard.

The Spring 2002 edition of the Isuma, the quarterly Canadian Journal of Policy Research, is dedicated to issues surrounding the New Economy. Many of the 16 papers in the free, online issue will be of interest to readers of SSTI's Weekly Digest, including:

Savannah, Georgia

CyberGeorgia, a pilot effort of the Georgia Department of Industry, Trade and Tourism (GDITT) and the Business and Education Technology Alliance of Southeast Georgia to create more tech-based companies outside the Atlanta metro region, was launched last month in Savannah. According to the April 17 issue of the Augusta Chronicle, the program will include an incubator, investment matching services, intellectual property assistance, and a connection between the area

universities and new tech businesses. If successful, GDITT anticipates creating similar centers in other regions of the state, the paper reports.

Backed by a Technology Foresight Fund of more than $550 million annually, the Science Foundation Ireland has given the go-ahead to a new awards system designed to attract top researchers and support industry-university partnerships.



The new system includes SFI awards for world-class researchers who move to Ireland, for Irish and international researchers already based in Ireland, for the support of scientific conferences for scientists based in Ireland and for a requirement for collaboration among certain SFI-funded researchers and industry:

During the 1970s, Canada routinely topped the U.S. in terms of real growth in gross domestic product per capita. As recently as 1990, Canada enjoyed the fourth highest standard of living in the world but slipped to seventh by 1999.



The two long-term initiatives launched in the last two weeks by the Canadian National Government — a National Innovation Strategy and the Trudeau Scholarships — and the $2.7 billion (CND) Fuel Cell research program created last year reflect the country's commitment to reversing these trends.



Canada's Innovation Strategy

Unveiled last week by Industry Minister Allan Rock and Human Resources Development Minister Jane Stewart, Canada's Innovation Strategy has two strategic thrusts that are expected to drive economic growth and social development in Canada over the next decade.

We read a lot of e-mail for the Digest. A lot of e-mail. We know that e-mail boxes are getting fuller all the time, so even thinking of recommending that you increase your reading load takes a lot of nerve, or a very good reason. This one is the latter.



For anyone interested in cultivating the fullest understanding possible of the wide world of tech-based economic development, I believe one of the best newsletters/websites is Ontario's Regional Economic Development and Innovation (OREDI) Newsletter, a free biweekly e-publication of the Ontario Network on the Regional Innovation System (ONRIS) at the Centre for International Studies, University of Toronto.

Several warnings have been issued in recent years about U.S. dominance in the world's scientific and technological communities slipping: the number of science and engineering (S&E) doctorates awarded per capita; the dearth of women and minorities entering technical fields; the facility in which knowledge, companies and people can be transferred globally; scores on standardized math and science tests; and indicators for global entrepreneurship, to name a few.

The latest alert, a draft report released in December by the National Science Board (NSB), urges the National Science Foundation (NSF) to take a more active, even strategic, role in fostering and participating in international S&E partnerships and collaborations.

The Australian Government has enacted new rules to attract international private equity investment in the country’s venture capital community. The rules introduce tax concessions for international investors, including university endowment funds and venture capital fund-to-fund vehicles. The rules will treat these investors in the same way as pension funds, exempting them from capital gains tax on their Australian investments. The government’s impact analysis suggests the plan should attract $1 billion (Australian dollars) in foreign investment and add $350 million to the Australian annual gross domestic product. Venture capital proponents say the new rules levels the investment field with the U.S., the United Kingdom and other industrialized countries. More information is available from the Australian Venture Capital Association Limited by cllicking on News Releases at: http://www.avcal.com.au