Advance our research, advance our economy
Humour the professor in me for a moment and answer this quiz question: Name a group of people defined by their willingness to experiment, persistent curiosity and ability to think long-term.
If you answered, “leading researchers,” you are correct. If you answered, “successful entrepreneurs,” you are also correct, and bonus points if you answered “both.”
Researchers and entrepreneurs share a profound commonality; often, they are one-in-the-same person. I’ve witnessed this firsthand during my journey through research and technology development — in academia, government, the private sector, and now as President and CEO of the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).
Researchers and business leaders alike set their sights on the cutting-edge: what’s new, what’s possible, what’s not yet been done. They have an uncanny ability to spot emerging opportunities and a prescient sense of what’s coming next, equipped with the instincts and drive to seize these moments. They are boldly ambitious, highly skilled, big-picture thinkers seeking to move things forward, to alter our world in some positive way.
No new idea, whether it be to improve our health, protect our environment or revitalize our industries, comes to fruition without being conceived, tested, tweaked and perfected. That is, without being researched. So, research is inherent in discovering emerging opportunities for economic growth through new products and services.
But research — the kind that takes place in the state-of-the-art research labs the CFI funds at universities and colleges across the country — does something else for the economy. It trains highly skilled innovators, many of whom make the natural transition to entrepreneurship. A new generation of innovators and entrepreneurs are doing just that: taking the skills they acquire in research labs and inventing new products, launching companies and creating good jobs for Canadians.
Take Photonic, a Vancouver-based quantum computing company that has secured a staggering US$140 million in funding and landed a partnership with Microsoft. Working in a CFI-funded lab, Founder and CEO, Stephanie Simmons, came up with and tested the ideas that would lead her to launch her business. She now heads up one of the country’s leading quantum research labs at Simon Fraser University while also guiding Photonic toward realizing the tremendous commercial potential of quantum technology.
Success stories like this aren’t hard to find. Each year, more than 25,000 students and postdoctoral fellows gain invaluable experience in CFI-funded labs. These young people gain advanced knowledge working alongside leaders in all fields of research and acquire real-life experience that opens up future job prospects in all sectors, including the business world.
This is promising news for an economy in need of a boost. We know Canada needs economic growth and that growth means forward-looking change. Advance our thinking, advance our economy; we’ve seen this in every human progression throughout history. A single innovative idea or invention can change the world and ignite economic growth for generations.
It follows that a solid research foundation, featuring cutting-edge labs, is a competitive advantage for any country. More than offering excellent skills training and hands-on experience, well-equipped labs provide the tools and expertise businesses can access to test and refine ideas that will elevate them in the marketplace.
For example, in its early days, erthos®, a biomaterials company outside Toronto, relied on a lab at Lambton College in Sarnia, Ont., to help test its idea that biomaterials could replace plastics. The company now employs 22 people and is helping factories move away from plastics without having to retool, opening new markets for their clients while saving them money.
These days, a great deal is written and said about the worrying trends in the Canadian economy — fluctuating interest rates, low productivity and a sense of stagnation since the last century — and it’s easy to feel grim about it all.
But my years working in research and business have taught me that research provides solutions and presents possibilities. It’s up to us — research funders and governments — to continue to support a robust research ecosystem that fosters brilliant ideas and transformative technologies. Because, ultimately, this is what will define a prosperous future for our country.
Sylvain Charbonneau is the President and CEO of the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI). The CFI equips researchers to be global leaders in their fields and to respond to emerging challenges by investing in state-of-the-art tools, instruments and facilities at universities, colleges, research hospitals and nonprofit research institutions. This support mobilizes knowledge, spurs innovation and commercialization, and empowers the talented minds of a new generation.