Thank you very much, and thank you for giving us the opportunity to present.
My name is Wilf Keller. I serve as president and CEO of Genome Prairie. I'm accompanied by Patrick Pitka, our chief financial officer. I'd also like to point out that Dale Patterson, the vice-president for government and external relations at Genome Canada, is here in the audience today. I'll make a few opening remarks, and then Pat will cover off the recommendations.
Genome Prairie is one of six independent incorporated centres of work under the agreement with Genome Canada, our federal parental entity. I would point out at this point that this is about biosciences and the strategic position of biosciences and the outcome of bioscience research, particularly genomics research, a critical driver in the biosciences that's going to have a highly significant impact going into the future in the case of health, agrifood, forestry, fisheries, environment, and so forth. We see this as a strategic area.
Genome Prairie covers the provinces of Manitoba and Saskatchewan, as far as our regional activities are concerned. We have three major roles.
Firstly, we organize and manage genomics projects funded by Genome Canada, and we try to build the best case for doing this research in Manitoba and Saskatchewan, the prairie region. To date, we have managed over the last decade more than $180 million of these large-scale projects, covering crops—for example, canola, a $14 billion industry primarily driven through genetic research, and we intend to build on that—human health, animal health, and the environment.
Secondly, we want to build a strong regional base by working with the provinces and the regional centres, Western Economic Diversification, and regional producers, groups, and industries, and we want to be sure that regional priorities are met through the work that we promote.
Thirdly, we're very interested in outreach, through mentoring students to be top candidates, for example, in the Sanofi-Aventis BioTalent Challenge. One of our regional students was a national winner last year.
I specifically want to address the whole issue of innovation. There's a lot of discussion about this. There's a major R and D review that's been commissioned recently. The national coalition for innovation has put out a report. We think it's critical that the work that we do and the knowledge that we generate becomes translated into real results, into commercial activity. We have formulated our recommendations around the whole issue of helping the industries, the entrepreneurs, and the companies in our area to be competitive, to take advantage of the new ideas that are out there, and to in fact be innovative.
I'm going to pass this over to Mr. Pitka to provide those recommendations that we see as critical for our organization.