Reinventing innovation and commercialization policy in Ontario Working Paper 6 - October 2004
Ontario firms in traded industries trail their US counterparts by 55 percent in patent creation per employee, a key measure of innovative capacity in Ontario. To improve our innovation performance, government policy needs to focus as much on the demand for innovation as on funding of R&D and the hard sciences. That is the key conclusion of Working Paper 6 Reinventing innovation and commercialization in Ontario released today by the Institute for Competitiveness & Prosperity.
In its recent Budget the Ontario Government indicated that the Institute would conduct research into Ontario’s commercialization of R&D. As a first step it is proposing a way to think about the issues related to innovation and commercialization. Having reviewed the factors at play in innovation the Institute is proposing that Ontario assess two complementary factors - the support for innovation and the pressure for innovation. The Working Paper refers to funding for R&D and availability of scientists and engineers as examples of support. In the area of pressure it is referring to the forces that compel firms to innovate – sophisticated and demanding customers and capable competitors.
The Working Paper concludes that government policy in Canada has focused too much in the area of support for innovation, and within that has concentrated excessively on hard sciences and technology. To create an effective environment for innovation it is equally important that there be support from effective managers who are driving company operations and strategies. Public policy also needs to drive towards creating greater pressure on businesses. No matter how much government support is given for innovation, businesses only innovate to the extent their customers and competitors pressure them to. The evidence in this and previous Working Papers indicates that this pressure is lacking in Ontario.
