If you look at NSERC, for instance, they have committees in different areas, and some of those areas are clearly very basic--math, atomic physics, and that sort of thing. In the applied sciences and the health sciences, the allied health sciences, there's a lot of weight given to where this development, whatever it is, will go: what are you going to use the database for, and how is this going to help society?
At the purely academic level we have a pretty good balance for the people who want to take it to the next step. I think it's more in this area where the university is kind of finished. We've gone as far as we can with the kind of funding we can generate as academics, so what's the next step?
Angus mentioned the Centre for Drug Research and Development. That's one category of next steps. These people have all had university careers. One was a CEO who used to work for Angus. They've gone out and raised money from the federal government competitively, and from the provincial government by just making a very strong case. They're in a very good position, because of their own industrial backgrounds, to move these products close to the market.
But it was very awkward for them to fund this. I think the only reason they got funded so well was that they were exactly at the right place, at the right time, with the right people. It would be almost impossible to reproduce. There's no source of money they could have gone to and said, “Okay, we want to put together a process, a set of people, a set of testing laboratories, a partnership with BCIT or whatever, to take that kind of step.”
If there was a source of funding for that level of activity, it would be very helpful. CECR are in that direction, but they're very tightly focused and there aren't very many of them. A larger part where people could apply to that fund, perhaps in partnership with people like my colleagues, would be a useful thing to try.