I'll try to be brief, because we could go on for some time on this one.
I've been back in Canada for 10 years now—I was in Europe before—and my feeling is that we're lacking in good fundamental research right now. When I talk about fundamental research, I don't mean academic research, blue sky research; I mean the kind of research that is targeted towards innovation.
I'm sick and tired of hearing about “innovation”, because if we forget the research part, the fundamental research part done in the universities, we're missing a link. We're missing the boat. That's why, in one of my points, I said we need a very good link, while preserving the independent thinking of the universities in fundamental research, with FPInnovations. They're the innovative people who will basically target and tell us that they need these kinds of these fundamental things to be known, and to go ahead, because right now we do not know. The fundamental research right now is either purely academic or the professor thinks about it in his office, with no link to reality. It's very nice, very good. Is it useful? That's hard to say.
We don't have the real dollar value in fundamental research right now. We could. I was mentioning the innovation framework. The director of FIBRE, the network of networks, is invited from time to time when it pleases the members. That's not good. To know what's needed from the industry at the fundamental level, he should be there.
By the way, Dr. Theo van de Ven, the director, is a very good fundamentalist.