Thank you very much for the opportunity to be here today. I will also read from some prepared remarks.
On behalf of 96 Canadian universities, I am pleased to have the opportunity to participate in the committee's consideration of issues related to intellectual property and technology transfer in post-secondary education. We have submitted a brief to the committee in both official languages.
Universities stimulate knowledge mobilization by training talented graduates, publishing open access articles, creating and testing data stemming from public research, creating high-tech startups, and through new technologies and research solutions that benefit large and small businesses.
Our universities, here in Canada, conduct 41% of the country's research and development and are key partners in industrial innovation. They conduct over $1 billion in research for the private sector annually.
There is no single path for innovation and no magic bullet to achieve innovation. Each region and sector will require a unique mix of collaborations between universities, government, private and non-profit sectors. At the centre of this innovation ecosystem is federal support that facilitates dynamic partnerships with flexible IP arrangements. Since innovation takes many forms, Canada needs a policy ecosystem that is flexible and diverse.
Universities Canada welcomed the $950 million over seven years in budget 2017 for innovation superclusters and the requirement for industry partnership with post-secondary institutions.
Our country has long been able to bring together those two sectors through initiatives that benefit Canadians, such as the Consortium for Research and Innovation in Aerospace, or CRIAQ, a Quebec non-profit organization that includes 21 academic institutions and 57 companies. It provides an exceptional intellectual property agreement whereby industrial partners receive an exclusive royalty-free license. The organization estimates that companies see a $1 return on every 25¢ invested.
Other initiatives drive regional economies. The Centre for Hybrid Automotive Research and Green Energy is an industrial-scale research and development lab at the University of Windsor. It transfers electrified vehicle technology to local industry partners at globally competitive levels.
Our universities' willingness to share is a unique asset to help drive innovation. Open innovation provides the private sector with quick access to the results of federal investments in discovery science and can encourage its commercialization. The University of Toronto's structural genomics consortium, which includes nine major pharmaceutical companies and collaborators worldwide, freely discloses the results of its work to the international health care community, leading to the creation of many Canadian companies.
Canadian private sector investment in R and D continues to decline compared to that of other countries in the OECD. From 2006 to 2014, our global ranking in business expenditures in R and D dropped from 18th to 25th. Open science could be part of the solution to combat this trend and encourage Canada's private sector to pull more IP from universities.
Today, I'd like to make four recommendations to the committee that would help grow Canada's innovative capacity and strengthen our IP landscape.
First, Canada’s research ecosystem is fertile ground for tomorrow’s leading market innovations. Government action in budget 2018 on the recommendations of the April 2017 fundamental science review panel will be a critical next step in unlocking Canada's innovative potential for commercialization and knowledge mobilization. This panel of eminent Canadians, which includes some of our top business leaders, makes it clear that significant reinvestment in basic research is critical and foundational to driving innovation in this country.
Our second recommendation is to maintain space for universities to have flexible IP policies. Canadian universities use a range of IP policies, from creator-owned to institution-owned, with most adopting some hybrid of the two. There is no one best way to do innovation, and both types of policies can drive patents and commercialization. For example, the creator-owned policy at the University of Waterloo has helped make the region one of the most dynamic areas in Canada for start-ups and high-tech growth, while UBC's institution-owned policy recently allowed it to license a promising new treatment for prostate cancer to the pharmaceutical giant Roche.
Flexibility allows universities to modify their strategies, depending on regional, sectoral, and partners' needs. Fully harnessing the potential of university R and D to meet the diversity of business needs means our institutions must maintain policies that are open to risk and experimentation.
Our third recommendation concerns strategic funding. While the innovation activity produced by our universities continues to increase, its growth slowed considerably after the loss of the intellectual property mobilization program in 2009. This was a tri-council initiative designed to encourage the sharing of expertise between university tech transfer offices. It led to a number of enhancements in the Canadian IP ecosystem. Its termination resulted in a loss of technology transfer staff across Canada and a loss of substantial national expertise on university best practices related to IP.
Like other innovation nations in the OECD, Canada would benefit from a stand-alone fund dedicated to catalyzing knowledge mobilization from universities for economic and social benefit.
Finally, we recommend that the government catalyze the creation of a national IP concierge service. This national hub could coordinate tools and initiatives that promote knowledge mobilization from all sectors, including universities. Services could include a database of pro bono legal services with IP expertise and a suite of template agreements demonstrating best practices in university business negotiation, such as the Lambert Toolkit in the United Kingdom, or the Australian IP Toolkit for Collaboration.
In closing, I want the committee to know that we are interested in working with you to establish recommendations in order to leverage academic knowledge and foster innovation and economic growth. Universities, in partnership with the government, private and non-profit sectors, as well as international collaborators, have an important role to play in building a better Canada for all Canadians.
I look forward to discussing this with you soon.
Thank you very much.