Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Good morning everyone.
I read your submission, Mr. Johnston, and I found it to be quite interesting. I'd like to read a few excerpts:
As noted by the Conference Board of Canada in its June 2007 report, How Canada Performs: A Report Card on Canada, we as a nation have not been good at managing the innovation system; we have not been good at integrating our efforts along the continuum. Canada was given a mark of “D”, putting us 14th of the 17 countries studied. At page 63 they note: Canada's ranking in the innovation domain reveals underlying deficiencies; we are not keeping up with other countries on the commercialization of knowledge.
Further on in your submission, you note:
Part of the difficulty to date has been the failure of governments to recognize a simple truth inherent in the above system: companies create wealth in the innovation system by commercializing products and services; universities do not.
You also say that R&D activities must be linked to the needs of the marketplace and of clients.
My question is for all of you. What can we do to promote commercialization? What steps can we take to ensure that government funding of all research systems produces better results?