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Ingenuity Lab (a nanotechnology initiative), the University of Alberta, and Carlo Montemagno—what is happening in Canadian universities? (2 of 2)

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You can find Part 1 of the latest installment in this sad story here.

Who says Carlo Montemagno is a star nanotechnology researcher?

Unusually and despite his eminent stature, Dr. Montemagno does not rate a Wikipedia entry. Luckily, his CV (curriculum vitae) is online (placed there by SIU) so we can get to know a bit more (the CV is a 63 pp. document) about the man’s accomplishments (Note: There are some formatting differences), Note: Unusually, I will put my comments into the excerpted CV using [] i.e., square brackets to signify my input,

Carlo Montemagno, PhD
University of Alberta
Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering
and
NRC/CNRC National Institute for Nanotechnology
Edmonton, AB T6G 2V4
Canada

 

Educational Background

1995, Ph.D., Department of Civil Engineering and Geological Sciences, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences University of Notre Dame

1990, M.S., Petroleum and Natural Gas Engineering, College of Earth and Mineral Sciences, Pennsylvania State University

1980, B.S., Agricultural and Biological Engineering, College of Engineering, Cornell University

Supplemental Education

1986, Practical Environmental Law, Federal Publications, Washington, DC

1985, Effective Executive Training Program, Wharton Business School, University of Pennsylvannia, Philadelphia, PA

1980, Civil Engineer Corp Officer Project, CECOS & General Management School, Port Hueneme, CA

[He doesn’t seem to have taken any courses in the last 30 years.]

Professional Experience

(Select Achievements)

Over three decades of experience in shepherding complex organizations both inside and outside academia. Working as a builder, I have led organizations in government, industry and higher education during periods of change and challenge to achieved goals that many perceived to be unattainable.

University of Alberta, Edmonton AB 9/12 to present

9/12 to present, Founding Director, Ingenuity Lab [largely defunct as of April 18, 2018], Province of Alberta

8/13 to present, Director Biomaterials Program, NRC/CNRC National Institute for Nanotechnology [It’s not clear if this position still exists.]

10/13 to present, Canada Research Chair, Government of Canada in Intelligent Nanosystems [Canadian universities receive up to $200,000 for an individual Canada research chair. The money can be used to fund the chair in its entirety or it can be added to other monies., e.g., faculty salary. There are two tiers, one for established researchers and one for new researchers. Montemagno would have been a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair. At McGill University {a major Canadian educational institution} for example, total compensation including salary, academic stipend, benefits, X-coded research funds would be a maximum of $200,000 at Montemagno’s Tier 1 level. See: here scroll down about 90% of the way).

3/13 to present, AITF iCORE Strategic Chair, Province of Alberta in BioNanotechnology and Biomimetic Systems [I cannot find this position in the current list of the University of Alberta Faculty of Science’s research chairs.]

9/12 to present, Professor, Faculty of Engineering, Chemical and Materials Engineering

Crafted and currently lead an Institute that bridges multiple organizations named Ingenuity Lab (www.ingenuitylab.ca). This Institute is a truly integrated multidisciplinary organization comprised of dedicated researchers from STEM, medicine, and the social sciences. Ingenuity Lab leverages Alberta’s strengths in medicine, engineering, science and, agriculture that are present in multiple academic enterprises across the province to solve grand challenges in the areas of energy, environment, and health and rapidly translate the solutions to the economy.

The exciting and relevant feature of Ingenuity Lab is that support comes from resources outside the normal academic funding streams. Core funding of approximately $8.6M/yr emerged by working and communicating a compelling vision directly with the Provincial Executive and Legislative branches of government. [In the material I’ve read, the money for the research was part of how Dr. Montemagno was wooed by the University of Alberta. My understanding is that he himself did not obtain the funding, which in CAD was $100M over 10 years. Perhaps the university was able to attract the funding based on Dr. Montemagno’s reputation and it was contingent on his acceptance?] I significantly augmented these base resources by developing Federal Government, and Industry partnership agreements with a suite of multinational corporations and SME’s across varied industry sectors.

Collectively, this effort is generating enhanced resource streams that support innovative academic programming, builds new research infrastructure, and enables high risk/high reward research. Just as important, it established new pathways to interact meaningfully with local and global communities.

Strategic Leadership

•Created the Ingenuity Lab organization including a governing board representing multiple academic institutions, government and industry sectors.

•Developed and executed a strategic plan to achieve near and long-term strategic objectives.

•Recruited~100 researchers representing a wide range disciplnes.[sic] [How hard can it be to attract researchers in this job climate?]

•Built out ~36,000 S.F. of laboratory and administrative space.

•Crafted operational policy and procedures.

•Developed and implemented a unique stakeholder inclusive management strategy focused on the rapid translation of solutions to the economy.

Innovation and Economic Engagement

•Member of the Expert Panel on innovation, commissioned by the Government of Alberta, to assess opportunities, challenges and design and implementation options for Alberta’s multi-billion dollar investment to drive long-term economic growth and diversification. The developed strategy is currently being implemented. [Details?]

•Served as a representive [sic] on multiple Canadian national trade missions to Asia, United States and the Middle East. [Sounds like he got to enjoy some nice trips.]

•Instituted formal development partnerships with several multi-national corporations including Johnson & Johnson, Cenovus and Sabuto Inc. [Details?]

•Launched multiple for-profit joint ventures founded on technologies collaboratively developed with industry with funding from both private and public sources. [Details?]

Branding

•Developed and implement a communication program focused on branding of Ingenuity Lab’s unique mission, both regionally and globally, to the lay public, academia, government, and industry. [Why didn’t the communication specialist do this? ]

This effort employs traditional paper, online, and social media outlets to effectively reach different demographics.

•Awarded “Best Nanotechnology Research Organization–2014” by The New Economy. [What is the New Economy? The Economist, yes. New Economy, no.]

Global Development

•Executed formal research and education partnerships with the Yonsei Institute of Convergence Technology and the Yonsei Bio-IT MicroFab Center in Korea, Mahatma Gandhi University in India. and the Italian Institute of Technology. [{1}The Yonsei Institute of Convergence Technology doesn’t have any news items prior to 2015 or after 2016. The Ingenuity Lab and/or Carlo Montemagno did not feature in them. {2} There are six Mahatma Ghandi Universities in India. {3} The Italian Institute of Technology does not have any news listings on the English language version of its site.]

•Opened Ingenuity Lab, India in May 2015. Focused on translating 21st-century technology to enable solutions appropriate for developing nations in the Energy, Agriculture, and Health economic sectors. [Found this May 9, 2016 notice on the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada website, noting this: “… opening of the Ingenuity Lab Research Hub at Mahatma Gandhi University in Kottayam, in the Indian state of Kerala.” There’s also this May 6, 2016 news release. I can’t find anything on the Mahatma Ghandi University Kerala website.]

•Established partnership research and development agreements with SME’s in both Israel and India.

•Developed active research collaborations with medical and educational institutions in Nepal, Qatar, India, Israel, India and the United States.

Community Outreach

•Created Young Innovators research experience program to educate, support and nurture tyro undergraduate researchers and entrepreneurs.

•Developed an educational game, “Scopey’s Nano Adventure” for iOS and Android platforms to educate 6yr to 10yr olds about Nanotechnology. [What did the children learn? Was this really part of the mandate?]

•Delivered educational science programs to the lay public at multiple, high profile events. [Which events? The ones on the trade junkets?]

University of Cincinnati, Cincinnati OH 7/06 to 8/12

7/10 to 8/12 Founding Dean, College of Engineering and Applied Science

7/09 to 6/10 Dean, College of Applied Science

7/06 to 6/10 Dean, College of Engineering

7/06 to 8/12 Geier Professor of College of Engineering Engineering Education

7/06 to 8/12, Professor of Bioengineering, College of Engineering & College of Medicine

…

University of California, Los Angeles 7/01 to 6/06

5/03 to 6/06, Associate Director California Nanosystems Institute

7/02 to 6/06, Co-Director NASA Center for Cell Mimetic Space Exploration

7/02 to 6/06, Founding Department Chair, Department of Bioengineering

7/02 to 6/06, Chair Biomedical Engineering IDP

7/01 to 6/02, Chair of Academic Biomedical Engineering IDP Affairs

7/01 to 6/06, Carol and Roy College of Engineering and Applied Doumani Professor of Sciences Biomedical Engineering

7/01 to 6/06, Professor Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

…

Recommending Montemagno

Presumably the folks at Southern Illinois University asked for recommendations from Montemagno’s previous employers. So, how did he get a recommendation from the folks in Alberta when according to Spoerre’s April 10, 2018 article the Ingenuity Lab was undergoing a review as of June 2017 by the province of Alberta’s Alberta Innovates programme? I find it hard to believe that the folks at the University of Alberta were unaware of the review.

When you’re trying to get rid of someone, it’s pretty much standard practice that once they’ve gotten the message, you give a good recommendation to their prospective employer. The question begs to be asked, how many times have employers done this for Montemagno?

Stars in their eyes

Every one exaggerates a bit on their résumé or CV. One of my difficulties with this whole affair lies in how Montemagno can be described as a ‘nanotechnology star’. The accomplishments foregrounded on Montemagno’s CV are administrative and if memory serves, the University of Cincinnati too. Given the situation with the Ingenuity Lab, I’m wondering about these accomplishments.

Was due diligence performed by SIU, the University of the Alberta, or anywhere else that Montemagno worked? I realize that you’re not likely to get much information from calling up the universities where he worked previously, especially if there was a problem and they wanted to get rid of him. Still, did someone check out his degrees, his start-ups,  dig a little deeper into some of his claims?

His credentials and stated accomplishments are quite impressive and I, too,  would have been dazzled. (He also lists positions at the Argonne National Laboratory and at Cornell University.) I’ve picked at some bits but one thing that stands out to me is the move from UCLA to the University of Cincinnati. It’s all big names: UCLA, Cornell, NASA, Argonne and then, not: University of Cincinnati, University of Alberta, Southern Illinois University—what happened?

(If anyone better versed in the world of academe and career has answers, please do add them to the comments.)

It’s tempting to think the Peter Principle (one of them) was at work here. In brief, this principle states that as you keep getting better jobs on based on past performance you reach a point where you can’t manage the new challenges having risen to your level of incompetence.In accepting the offer from the University of Alberta had Dr. Montemagno risen to his level of incompetence? Or, perhaps it was just one big failure. Unfortunately, any excuses don’t hold up under the weight of a series of misjudgments and ethical failures. Still, I’m guessing that Dr. Montemagno was hoping for a big win on a project such as this (from an Oct. 19, 2016 news release on MarketWired),

Ingenuity Lab Carbon Solutions announced today that it has been named as one of the 27 teams advancing in the $20M NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE. The competition sees scientists develop technologies to convert carbon dioxide emissions into products with high net value.

The Ingenuity Lab Carbon Solutions team – headquartered in Edmonton of Alberta, Canada – has made it to the second round of competition. Its team of 14 has proposed to convert CO2 waste emitted from a natural gas power plant into usable chemical products.

Ingenuity Lab Carbon Solutions is comprised of a multidisciplinary group of scientists and engineers, and was formed in the winter of 2012 to develop new approaches for the chemical industry. Ingenuity Lab Carbon Solutions is sponsored by CCEMC, and has also partnered with Ensovi for access to intellectual property and know how.

I can’t identify CCEMC with any certainty but Ensovi is one of Montemagno’s six start-up companies, as listed in his CV,

Founder and Chief Technical Officer, Ensovi, LLC., Focused on the production of low-cost bioenergy and high-value added products from sunlight using bionanotechnology, Total Funding; ~$10M, November 2010-present.

Sadly the April 9,2018 NRG COSIA Carbon XPRIZE news release  announcing the finalists in round 3 of the competition includes an Alberta track of five teams from which the Ingenuity Lab is notably absent.

The Montemagno affair seems to be a story of hubris, greed, and good intentions. Finally, the issues associated with Dr. Montemagno give rise to another, broader question.

Is something rotten in Canada’s higher education establishment?

Starting with the University of Alberta:

it would seem pretty obvious that if you’re hiring family member(s) as part of the deal to secure a new member of faculty that you place and follow very stringent rules. No rewriting of the job descriptions, no direct role in hiring or supervising, no extra benefits, no inflated salaries in other words, no special treatment for your family as they know at the University of Alberta since they have policies for this very situation.

Yes, universities do hire spouses (although a daughter, a nephew, and a son-in-law seems truly excessive) and even when the university follows all of the rules, there’s resentment from staff (I know because I worked in a university). There is a caveat to the rule, there’s resentment unless that spouse is a ‘star’ in his or her own right or an exceptionally pleasant person. It’s also very helpful if the spouse is both.

I have to say I loved Fraser Forbes that crazy University of Alberta engineer who thought he’d make things better by telling us that the family’s salaries had been paid out of federal and provincial funds rather than university funds. (sigh) Forbes was the new dean of engineering at the time of his interview in the CBC’s April 10, 2018 online article but that no longer seems to be the case as of April 19, 2018.

Given Montemagno’s misjudgments, it seems cruel that Forbes was removed after one foolish interview. But, perhaps he didn’t want the job after all. Regardless, those people who were afraid to speak out about Dr. Montemagno cannot feel reassured by Forbes’ apparent removal.

Money, money, money

Anyone who has visited a university in Canada (and presumably the US too) has to have noticed the number of ‘sponsored’ buildings and rooms. The hunger for money seems insatiable and any sensible person knows it’s unsupportable over the long term.

The scramble for students

Mel Broitman in a Sept. 22, 2016 article for Higher Education lays out some harsh truths,

Make no mistake. It is a stunning condemnation and a “wakeup call to higher education worldwide”. The recent UNESCO report states that academic institutions are rife with corruption and turning a blind eye to malpractice right under their noses. When UNESCO, a United Nations organization created after the chaos of World War II to focus on moral and intellectual solidarity, makes such an alarming allegation, it’s sobering and not to be dismissed.

So although Canadians typically think of their society and themselves as among the more honest and transparent found anywhere, how many Canadian institutions are engaging in activities that border on dishonest and are not entirely transparent around the world?

It is overwhelmingly evident that in the last two decades we have witnessed first-hand a remarkable and callous disregard for academic ethics and standards in a scramble by Canadian universities and colleges to sign up foreign students, who represent tens of millions of dollars to their bottom lines.

We have been in a school auditorium in China and listened to the school owner tell prospective parents that the Grade 12 marks from the Canadian provincial school board program can be manipulated to secure admission for their children into Canadian universities. This, while the Canadian teachers sat oblivious to the presentation in Chinese.

In hundreds of our own interaction with students who completed the Canadian provincial school board’s curriculum in China and who achieved grades of 70% and higher in their English class have been unable to achieve even a basic level of English literacy in the written tests we have administered.   But when the largest country of origin for incoming international students and revenue is China – the Canadian universities admitting these students salivate over the dollars and focus less on due diligence.

We were once asked by a university on Canada’s west coast to review 200 applications from Saudi Arabia, in order to identify the two or three Saudi students who were actually eligible for conditional admission to that university’s undergraduate engineering program. But the proposal was scuttled by the university’s ESL department that wanted all 200 to enroll in its language courses. It insisted on and managed conditional admissions for all 200. It’s common at Canadian universities for the ESL program “tail” to wag the campus “dog” when it comes to admissions. In fact, recent Canadian government regulations have been proposed to crack down on this practice as it is an affront to academic integrity.

…

If you have time, do read the rest as it’s eye-opening. As for the report Broitman cites, I was not able to find it. Broitman gives a link to the report in response to one of the later comments and there’s a link in Tony Bates’s July 31, 2016 posting but you will get a “too bad, so sad” message should you follow either link.The closed I can get to it is this Advisory Statement for Effective International Practice; Combatting Corruption and Enhancing Integrity: A Contemporary Challenge for the Quality and Credibility of Higher Education (PDF). The ‘note’ was jointly published by the (US) Council for Higher Education (CHEA) and UNESCO.

What about the professors?

As they scramble for students, the universities appear to be cutting their ‘teaching costs’, from an April 18, 2018 article by Charles Menzies (professor of anthropology and an elected member of the UBC [University of British Columbia] Board)  for THE UBYSSEY (UBC) student newspaper,

For the first time ever at UBC the contributions of student tuition fees exceeded provincial government contributions to UBC’s core budget. This startling fact was the backdrop to a strenuous grilling of UBC’s VP Finance and Provost Peter Smailes by governors at the Friday the 13 meeting of UBC’s Board of Governors’ standing committee for finance.

Given the fact students contribute more to UBC’s budget than the provincial government, governors asked why more wasn’t being done to enhance the student experience. By way of explanation the provost reiterated UBC’s commitment to the student experience. In a back-and-forth with a governor the provost outlined a range of programs that focus on enhancing the student experience. At several points the chair of the Board would intervene and press the provost for more explanations and elaboration. For his part the provost responded in a measured and deliberate tone outlining the programs in play, conceding more could be done, and affirming the importance of students in the overall process.

As a faculty member listening to this, I wondered about the background discourse undergirding the discussion. How is focussing on a student’s experience at UBC related to our core mission: education and research? What is actually being meant by experience? Why is no one questioning the inadequacy of the government’s core contribution? What about our contingent colleagues? Our part-time precarious colleagues pick up a great deal of the teaching responsibilities across our campuses. Is there not something we can do to improve their working conditions? Remember, faculty working conditions are student learning conditions. From my perspective all these questions received short shrift.

I did take the opportunity to ask the provost, given how financially sound our university is, why more funds couldn’t be directed toward improving the living and working conditions of contingent faculty. However, this was never elaborated upon after the fact.

…

There is much about the university as a total institution that seems driven to cultivate experiences. A lot of Board discussion circles around ideas of reputation and brand. Who pays and how much they pay (be they governments, donors, or students) is also a big deal. Cultivating a good experience for students is central to many of these discussions.

What is this experience that everyone is talking about? I hear about classroom experience, residence experience, and student experience writ large. Very little of it seems to be specifically tied to learning (unless it’s about more engaging, entertaining, learning with technology). While I’m sure some Board colleagues will disagree with this conclusion, it does seem to me that the experience being touted is really the experience of a customer seeking fulfilment through the purchase of a service. What is seen as important is not what is learned, but the grade; not the productive struggle of learning but the validation of self in a great experience as a member of an imagined community. A good student experience very likely leads to a productive alumni relationship — one where the alumni feels good about giving money.

…

Inside UBC’s Board of Governors

Should anyone be under illusions as to what goes on at the highest levels of university governance, there is the telling description from Professor Jennifer Berdahl about her experience on a ‘search committee for a new university president’ of the shameful treatment of previous president, Arvind Gupta (from Berdahl’s April 25, 2018 posting on her eponymous blog),

If Prof. Chaudhry’s [Canada Research Chair and Professor Ayesha Chaudhry’s resignation was announced in an April 25, 2018 UBYSSEY article by Alex Nguyen and Zak Vescera] experience was anything like mine on the UBC Presidential Search Committee, she quickly realized how alienating it is to be one of only three faculty members on a 21-person corporate-controlled Board. It was likely even worse for Chaudhry as a woman of color. Combining this with the Board’s shenanigans that are designed to manipulate information and process to achieve desired decisions and minimize academic voices, a sense of helpless futility can set in. [emphasis mine]

These shenanigans include [emphasis mine] strategic seating arrangements, sudden breaks during meetings when conversation veers from the desired direction, hand-written notes from the secretary to speaking members, hundreds of pages of documents sent the night before a meeting, private tête-à-têtes arranged between a powerful board member and a junior or more vulnerable one, portals for community input vetted before sharing, and planning op-eds to promote preferred perspectives. These are a few of many tricks employed to sideline unpopular voices, mostly academic ones.

It’s impossible to believe that UBC’s BoG is the site for these shenanigans take place. The question I have is how many BoGs and how much damage are they inflicting?

Finally getting back to my point, simultaneous with cutting back on teaching and other associated costs and manipulative, childish behaviour at BoG meetings, large amounts of money are being spent to attract ‘stars’ such as Dr. Montemagno. The idea is to attract students (and their money) to the institution where they can network with the ‘stars’. What the student actually learns does not seem to be the primary interest.

So, what kind of deals are the universities making with the ‘stars’?

The Montemagno affair provides a few hints but, in the end,I don’t know and I don’t think anyone outside the ‘sacred circle’ does either. UBC, for example,is quite secretive and, seemingly, quite liberal in its use of nondisclosure agreements (NDA). There was the scandal a few years ago when president Arvind Gupta abruptly resigned after one year in his position. As far as I know, no one has ever gotten to the bottom of this mystery although there certainly seems to have been a fair degree skullduggery involved.

After a previous president, Martha Cook Piper took over the reigns in an interim arrangement, Dr. Santa J. Ono (his Wikipedia entry) was hired.  Interestingly, he was previously at the University of Cincinnati, one of Montemagno’s previous employers. That university’s apparent eagerness to treat Montemagno’s extras seems to have led to the University of Alberta’s excesses.  So, what deal did UBC make with Dr. Ono? I’m pretty sure both he and the university are covered by an NDA but there is this about his tenure as president at the University of Cincinnati (from a June 14, 2016 article by Jack Hauen for THE UBYSSEY),

… in exchange for UC not raising undergraduate tuition, he didn’t accept a salary increase or bonus for two years. And once those two years were up, he kept going: his $200,000 bonus in 2015 went to “14 different organizations and scholarships, including a campus LGBTQ centre, a local science and technology-focused high school and a program for first-generation college students,” according to the Vancouver Sun.

In 2013 he toured around the States promoting UC with a hashtag of his own creation — #HottestCollegeInAmerica — while answering anything and everything asked of him during fireside chats.

He describes himself as a “servant leader,” which is a follower of a philosophy of leadership focused primarily on “the growth and well-being of people and the communities to which they belong.”

“I see my job as working on behalf of the entire UBC community. I am working to serve you, and not vice-versa,” he said in his announcement speech this morning.

Thank goodness it’s possible to end this piece on a more or less upbeat note. Ono seems to be what my father would have called ‘a decent human being’. It’s nice to be able to include a ‘happyish’ note.

Plea

There is huge money at stake where these ‘mega’ science and technology projects are concerned. The Ingenuity Lab was $100M investment to be paid out over 10 years and some basic questions don’t seem to have been asked. How does this person manage money? Leaving aside any issues with an individual’s ethics and moral compass, scientists don’t usually take any courses in business and yet they are expected to manage huge budgets. Had Montemagno handled a large budget or any budget? It’s certainly not foregrounded (and I’d like to see dollar amounts) in his CV.

As well, the Ingenuity Lab was funded as a 10 year project. Had Montemagno ever stayed in one job for 10 years? Not according to his CV. His longest stint was approximately eight years when he was in the US Navy in the 1980s. Otherwise, it was five to six years, including the Ingenuity Lab stint.

Meanwhile, our universities don’t appear to be applying the rules and protocols we have in place to ensure fairness. This unseemly rush for money seems to have infected how Canadian universities attract (local, interprovincial, and, especially, international) students to pay for their education. The infection also seems to have spread into the ways ‘star’ researchers and faculty members are recruited to Canadian universities while the bulk of the teaching staff are ‘starved’ under one pretext or another while a BoG may or may not be indulging in shenanigans designed to drive decision-making to a preordained outcome. And, for the most part, this is occurring under terms of secrecy that our intelligence agencies must envy.

In the end, I can’t be the only person wondering how all this affects our science.

Suggestions for the new Canadian government regarding science and a Chief Science Officer (Advisor)

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I wasn’t the only *one* writing about the new cabinet. In my Nov. 4, 2015 posting I included a roundup of early responses to the election *(oops, the roundup of responses is in my Nov. 2, 2015 posting)* and what that might mean for science and I also speculated on what the new government’s first ‘science’ move might be.

I missed John Dupuis’  (Confessions of a Science Librarian) posting where he provides a roster of the new ministers with some science or technology responsibilities in their portfolios in his Nov. 4, 2015 posting (Note:  Links have been removed),

But Canada has a new government, a new prime minister in Justin Trudeau and a new cabinet. Kirsty Duncan, an actual scientist who worked on the IPPC [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change], has been appointed Science Minister. Come to think of it, we have a Science Minister. [Note: Canada has had a Minister of State (Science and Technology) for a number of years. This was considered a junior ministry and the junior minister reported to the Minister of Industry Canada, a ministry which seems to have been changed to Innovation, Science and Economic Development.]

The roster of ministers in other science and technology-related portfolios is also very strong. Navdeep Singh Bains at Innovation, Science and Economic Development. Lawrence MacAulay at Agriculture and Agri-Food. Jane Philpott at Health. Marc Garneau at Transport. Jim Carr at Natural Resources. Hunter Tootoo at Fisheries and Oceans, and Canadian Coast Guard. Catherine McKenna at Environment and Climate Change. And yes, we have a Minister of Climate Change. And Mélanie Joly at Heritage, in charge of Libraries and Archives Canada. [emphasis mine]

Bit of a surprise to see Libraries and Archives Canada listed there but it makes sense when you follow the reasoning (from Dupuis’ Nov. 4, 2015 posting; Note: A link has been removed),

What hasn’t really appeared on any of the lists [of recommendations for what the new government should be addressing] I’ve seen is fixing the damage that the previous Conservative government did to the science library infrastructure in Canada, most prominently to the Department of Fisheries and Oceans library system but also to the systems at Environment Canada and others.

While those libraries were being closed and consolidated, we were assured that the collections were properly merged and weeded, that new scanning and document delivery procedures were being implemented that would effectively replace the local staff and collections and that researchers would see no difference in the level of service. The Federal government did announce an extensive re-visioning of it’s science library infrastructure. Which looks good on paper.

But it’s safe to say that basically no one believed the Conservatives were up to the challenge of doing a good job of this. All the evidence that we were able to see indicated that the merging and consolidation of collections was rushed, haphazard and devoid of planning at best and willfully destructive at worst. As far as I can tell, we have nothing but the previous government’s word that the scanning and document delivery services that were rushed into the breach are anywhere near sufficient. Nor did we see real evidence that they were truly committed to the revisioning.

…

For more about the depredations to the Fisheries and Oceans libraries along with other government science libraries see my Jan. 30, 2014 posting. In it I note there are issues with digitizing material (there were claims the books weren’t needed as they’d been digitized) and accessing that information in the future.

Getting back to Dupuis, do read his post in its entirety to find out what his suggestions are for a renaissance of a science library system in Canada.

Suggestions for a Chief Science Officer/Advisor

I haven’t seen anyone making suggestions for this office and while I feel the choice of Ted Hsu would be too partisan given that he was a Liberal Member of Parliament and the party’s science critic in the last government, there are other possibilities such as Arvind Gupta (computer scientist) and Lynnd Quarmby (molecular biology).

Gupta who recently and unexpectedly resigned as president of the University of British Columbia (UBC; there’s more about the resignation in my Nov. 4, 2015 posting) has moved, temporarily at least, to the University of Toronto. From 2000 to 2014, Gupta had a enviable reputation as the CEO [Chief Executive Officer] and scientific director of Mitacs Canada, a non-profit that worked with federal and provincial governments and industry to fund student researchers. He was also a member of the Conservative government’s Science, Technology and Innovation Council and was involved in a review of government funding for science (aka, Review of Support to R&D [Research and Development]) resulting in what was known as the Jenkins report or by its formal title: Innovation Canada: A Call to Action (published in 2011).

Lynne Quarmby who recently ran for election as a member of the Green Party has had her research recognized by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) with a 2011 Discovery Accelerator Supplement, a funding program reserved for researchers who show strong potential to become international leaders within their field. She is an advocate in a number of areas including gender equality for women in science and technology, as well as, science and climate issues.

Truthfully, I’d like to see Gupta and Quarmby share the position.

Also, I’d like to find out who you’d suggest take on the role* of Canada’s Chief Science Officer/Advisor. Please let me know your recommendations in the comments section.

*This correction made to the first sentence ‘one’ and this correction made to the first paragraph ‘(oops, the roundup of responses is in my Nov. 2, 2015 posting)’ Nov. 5, 2015 at 1145 hours PST.

*’rold’ corrected to ‘role’ on Nov. 16, 2015.

Science and the new Canadian cabinet

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Justin Trudeau, Canada’s new Prime Minister was sworn in this morning (Nov. 4, 2015). He announced his new cabinet which holds 30 or 31 ministers (reports conflict), 15 of whom are women.

As for my predictions about how science would be treated in the new cabinet, I got it part of it right. Navdeep Singh Bains was named Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. I believe it’s the old Industry Canada ministry and it seemed the science portfolio was rolled into that ‘new’ ministry name as I suggested in my Nov. 2, 2015 posting.  (I thought it would be Industry and Science.)  However, there is also a Minister of Science, Kirsty Duncan. This represents a promotion of sorts for the science portfolio since it was previously considered a junior ministry as signified by the  title ‘Minister of State (Science and Technology)’.

It appears science is on the Liberal agenda although how they’re going to resolve two ministers and ministries having science responsibilities should be interesting. At the top level, I imagine it’s going to be split into applied science or commercial science (Innovation) as opposed to basic science or fundamental science (Science). The problem in these situations is that there’s a usually a grey area.

Moving on, if there’s anything that’s needs to be done quickly within the science portfolios, it’s the reinstatement of the mandatory long form census. Otherwise, there’s no hope of including it as part of the 2016 census. This should induce a sigh of relief across the country from the business community and provincial and municipal administrators who have had some planning and analysis problems due to the lack of reliable data from the 2011 census and its mandated, by then Prime Minister Stephen Harper, voluntary long form census.

***ETA Nov. 6, 2015: A day after the cabinet announcement, there was an announcement reinstating the mandatory long form census about which David Bruggeman provides an update  in a Nov. 5, 2015 posting on his Pasco Phronesis blog (Note: Links have been removed),

He [Justin Trudeau] also announced his cabinet, and his government announced that it would restore the mandatory long-form census.  I’ll focus on the cabinet, but the census decision is a big deal, especially with the next one scheduled for 2016. The official list of the top tier Cabinet appointments is online.

The census decision was announced by the new Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, MP Navdeep Bains.  Minister Bains was returned to Parliament in this year’s election, having served previously in Parliament from 2004-2011.  His training is in finance and his non-Parliamentary experience has been in financial analysis.  …

If you have the time, do read David’s post he includes more detailed descriptions of the new ‘science’ cabinet appointees. And, back to the original text of this posting where I highlight two of the ‘science’ appointments.***

As for the two new ‘science’ ministers, Kirsty Duncan and Navdeep Singh Bains there’s this from the Nov. 4, 2015 cabinet list on the Globe & Main website,

Navdeep Singh Bains
[Member of Parliament {MP} for] Mississauga-Malton, Ontario

Innovation, science and economic development

Former accountant at the Ford Motor Company of Canada. Former professor at Ryerson University’s management school. Entered federal politics in Mississauga in 2004.

Kirsty Duncan
[MP] Etobicoke North, Ontario

Science

Medical geographer and former professor at the University of Windsor and University of Toronto. Has been a Liberal MP since 2008.

For those who don’t know, Etobicoke (pronounced e [as in etymology] toh bi coh), is considered a part of the city of Toronto.

There is more information about this new government in the form of a PDF listing the new Cabinet committees and their membership. I’m not sure about the protocol but it would have been nice to see Elizabeth May, MP and leader of the Green Party, listed as a member of the Cabinet Committee on Environment, Climate Change and Energy (there were three petitions asking she be named Environment Minister according to an Oct. 20, 2015 news item by Lisa Johnson for CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] news online). Perhaps she’ll be on a Parliamentary committee concerned with these issues.

More predictions

Buoyed by my almost successful prognostication, I’m going to add another couple to the mix.

I think there will be the appointment of a Chief Science Advisor (likely answering to the Prime Minister or Prime Minister’s Office) and while some might think Ted Hsu would be a good choice, I suspect (sadly) he would be considered too partisan a choice. A physicist by training, he was a Liberal Member of Parliament and the party’s science and technology critic in the recently dissolved 41st Parliament of Canada from June 2, 2011 to August 15, 2015. However, should Prime Minister Justin Trudeau choose to appoint a Parliamentary Science Officer after appointing a Chief Science Advisor to the government, Hsu might be considered a very good choice given his experience as both scientist and parliamentarian. (As I understand it, a Parliamentary Science Officer, as modeled by the UK system, is someone who gives science advice to Members of Parliament who may request such advice when dealing with bills that contain science policy or require a better understanding of science, e.g. an energy bill, when debating and voting on the measure.)

Justin Trudeau and his British Columbia connection

Amusingly, the University of British Columbia (UBC) is touting the fact that Trudeau graduated from there with an undergraduate degree in Education. From a Nov. 4, 2015 UBC news release (received in my email),

The University of British Columbia congratulates Justin Trudeau, who earned a bachelor of education from UBC in 1998, on becoming Prime Minister of Canada today.

“It is not every day that a UBC alumnus achieves Canada’s highest office,” said Interim President Martha Piper. “As UBC celebrates its Centennial year, Mr. Trudeau’s accomplishment will serve as a prominent marker in the history of our university and count among the highest achievements of our more than 300,000 alumni.”

Trudeau is the first UBC graduate to be elected prime minister and joins fellow alumni prime ministers Kim Campbell (BA’69, LLB’83) and John Turner (BA’49) who were appointed upon securing their party leadership.

UBC would also like to congratulate alumna Jody Wilson-Raybould (LLB’99), who was appointed Minster of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, and all the other cabinet ministers appointed today.

“UBC looks forward to working with Prime Minister Trudeau and his cabinet in the coming months and continuing the strong dialogue UBC has enjoyed with our partners in Ottawa,” said Piper.

This is only amusing if you know that UBC is trying desperately to distance itself from a recent scandal where Arvind Gupta, president, stepped down (July 2015) from his position at the university only one year into his term for reasons no one will disclose. While the timing (the news release was distributed late on a Friday afternoon) and secrecy seemed suspicious, the scandal aspect developed when the chair of the UBC Board of Governors, John Montalbano called a faculty member to complain about a blog posting where she speculated about some of the pressures that may have been brought to bear on Gupta. Her subsequent posting about Montalbano’s phone call and senior faculty response excited media interest leading eventually into an investigation into Montalbano’s behaviour and charges that he was interfering with academic freedom. Recently exonerated (Oct. 15, 2015), Montalbano resigned from the board, while UBC admitted it had failed to support and protect academic freedom. Interesting, non?

Canada’s federal scientists bargain for the right to present scientific results without government interference

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I believe this latest bargaining round (h/t Dec. 3, 2014 news item on phys.org) between the Canadian federal government (Treasury Board) and the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC; a multi-disciplinary professional union representing 60,000 members employed by the Canadian federal government) is extraordinary. To my knowledge, no other union in this country has ever bargained for the right to present information without political interference or, more briefly, integrity. (Should you know otherwise, please let me know.)

Kathryn May in a Dec. 2, 2014 article for the Ottawa Citizen seems to have broken the news,

The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, which represents more than 15,000 scientists, researchers and engineers, is tabling a negotiating position for managing science in the “public interest” with a list of demands for Treasury Board negotiators that dramatically push the boundaries of traditional collective bargaining in the public service.

The 7,000 members of PIPSC’s large applied science and patent examination group are the first at the table with Treasury Board this week, followed by 2,300 members of the research group next week.

…

A document obtained by the Citizen shows the union is looking for changes to deal with the ongoing spending cuts in science and “interference” in the integrity of scientific work.

The integrity policies will ensure science is done in the public interest; information and data is shared; scientists can collaborate, seek peer review and be protected from political meddling, “intimidation,” “coercion” or pressure to alter data.

It’s hard to tell how much of this is political grandstanding but it should be noted that there has been international notice of the situation in Canada (from the news article),

About a month ago [late October or early November 2014], hundreds of scientists from around the world signed an open letter appealing to Prime Minister Stephen Harper to end the “burdensome restrictions” Canada’s scientists face in talking about their work and collaborating with international colleagues.

The letter, signed by 800 scientists from 32 countries, was drafted by the Union of Concerned Scientists, which represents U.S. scientists.

May’s article goes on to note,

The union has extensively surveyed federal scientists in recent years and issued two major reports that found scientists don’t feel they can freely speak and that spending cuts are affecting Canadians’ health, safety and environment.

A quarter of scientists surveyed said they have been asked to exclude or alter information. That request, whether explicit or implicit, came from the department, ministers’ offices or the Prime Minister’s Office. At the same time, nearly three-quarters of scientists believe policy is being compromised by political interference.

…

Specifically, PIPSC wants a scientific integrity policy for Treasury Board and the 40 science-based departments and agencies. The union would be consulted in the drafting and the final policy would be part of the collective agreements and made public.

The policy would touch on a range of issues and existing policies, but the key proposal is the “right to speak.” The union wants a clause guaranteeing scientists the right to express their personal views while making clear they don’t speak for government.

The other big demand is professional development, allowing scientists to attend meetings, conferences and courses to maintain their professional standards.

Do please read May’s article in its entirety (assuming the news paper continues to make it freely available) as it is riveting for anyone interested in this topic.

A Dec. 3, 2014 PIPSC news release provides more details about specific negotiating points,

The proposal being tabled would see enforceable policies negotiated that, among other things, ensure:

  • federal scientists have the right to speak;
  • reinvestment in research programs;
  • adequate national and international collaboration among scientists;
  • preservation of government science knowledge and libraries, and;
  • a guaranteed role in informing evidence-based public policy.

“It’s sad, frankly, that it’s come to this,” added Daviau [Debi Daviau, PIPSC president]. “But negotiating provisions in our collective agreements seems to be the only way to get this government’s attention and adopt meaningful, enforceable scientific integrity standards. At least this way our members would have the chance to grieve violations of standards they argue are essential to maintaining adequate public science services.”

The negotiating point (4th bullet) about libraries seems to have arisen from a specific cost-cutting exercise involving the Dept. of Fisheries and Oceans libraries mentioned in my Jan. 30,  2014 posting. (The disbursement of some priceless volumes along with standard texts appeared to have been done with all the grace and thoughtfulness one would expect from a mindless mob.)

On a related note, I attended a four-day international congress in August 2014 and was surprised by the lack of Canadian scientists at this meeting. Perhaps this is not an area (alternatives to animal testing) where we have invested much research money but it was surprising and somehow shocking that so few Canadian scientists were giving presentations; there was one scientific presentation from a group at the University of British Columbia.

The issues around scientific integrity are complex and I’m not comfortable with the notion of including the principles in a union contract. My experience is that unions can be just as repressive and reductive as any government agency. That said, I think the practice of scientific integrity in Canada needs to be addressed in some fashion and if the only means we have is a union contract then, so be it.

It may be a few weeks before I get back to the topic of scientific integrity and the right to speak as I’m still catching up from all that teaching but I hope to have a more thoughtful and complex piece on these issues written before the year’s end.

ETA Dec. 4, 2014 1245 hours (PDT), coincidentally or not the Canadian federal government announced today * a $1.5 billlion fund (over 10 years) for research (from a Dec. 4, 2014 University of British Columbia [UBC) news release),

The University of British Columbia [UBC] welcomes today’s announcement of the $1.5-billion Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF), designed to significantly enhance the capabilities and competitiveness of Canada’s post-secondary institutions, says President Arvind Gupta.

“Thanks to this investment by the Government of Canada, our universities have an extraordinary opportunity to foster globally significant research on issues that have the capacity to change people’s lives and shape our future,” said Gupta. “Excellence in research makes our reputation, and enables us to attract the best faculty, students and staff from around the world.”

UBC will be among Canada’s top universities competing for up to tens of millions of dollars annually in CFREF funding over the course of the 10-year program. These new funds could support UBC’s emerging research and innovation strategy, designed to put students at the cutting edge of knowledge, providing access to the latest discoveries and revelations, noted Gupta.

…

UBC is internationally recognized for research excellence in such areas as: Quantum materials; translational genomics and precision oncology; economics; neurosciences; biodiversity; bio-economics; and microbial diversity, among others.

You can read the full UBC news release here. There were a few details more to be had in a U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities Dec. 4, 2014 news release,

The U15 Group of Canadian Research Universities applauds the official launch of the Canada First Research Excellence Fund (CFREF). Prime Minister Stephen Harper launched the Fund today, accompanied by Ed Holder, minister of state for science and technology, at an event attended by representatives from the post-secondary education sector and industry.

“Since its announcement in Budget 2014, The U15 has been looking forward to the official launch of CFREF as a significant commitment by Canada to support globally competitive research excellence,” said Dr. Feridun Hamdullahpur, chair of The U15 and president and vice-chancellor of the University of Waterloo. “This Fund will allow successful institutions to better compete on the international stage in established areas of research strength as well as new and emerging areas that will support Canada’s scientific standing and long-term economic advantage.”

Interesting timing, non?

* ‘of’ removed from sentence on Dec. 4, 2014.

Vancouver (Canada) and a city conversation about science that could have been better

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Institutional insularity is a problem one finds everywhere. Interestingly, very few people see it that way due in large part to self-reinforcing loopbacks. Take universities for example and more specifically, Simon Fraser University’s April 17, 2014 City Conversation (in Vancouver, Canada) featuring Dr. Arvind Gupta (as of July 2014, president of the University of British Columbia) in a presentation titled: Creativity! Connection! Innovation!

Contrary to the hope I expressed in my April 14, 2014 post about the then upcoming event, this was largely an exercise in self-reference. Predictably with the flyer they used to advertise the event (the text was reproduced in its entirety in my April 14, 2014 posting), over 90% in the audiences (Vancouver, Burnaby, and Surrey campuses) were associated with one university or another.  Adding to the overwhelmingly ‘insider’ feel of this event, the speaker brought with him two students who had benefited from the organization he currently leads, Mitacs (a Canadian not-for-profit organization that offers funding for internships and fellowships at Canadian universities and formerly a mathematics NCE (Networks of Centres of Excellence of Canada program; a Canadian federal government program).

Despite the fact that this was billed as a ‘city conversation’ the talk focused largely on universities and their role in efforts to make Canada more productive and the wonderfulness of Mitacs. Unfortunately, what I wanted to hear and talk about was how Gupta, the students, and audience members saw the role of universities in cities, with a special reference to science.

It was less ‘city’ conversation and more ‘let’s focus on ourselves and our issues’ conversation. Mitacs, Canada’s productivity, and discussion about universities and innovation is of little inherent interest to anyone outside a select group of policy wonks (i.e., government and academe).

The conversation was self-referential until the very end. In the last minutes Gupta mentioned cities and science in the context of how cities in other parts of the world are actively supporting science. (For more about this interest elsewhere, you might find this Oct. 21, 2010 posting which features an article by Richard Van Noorden titled, Cities: Building the best cities for science; Which urban regions produce the best research — and can their success be replicated? as illuminating as I did.)

i wish Gupta had started with the last topic he introduced because Vancouverites have a lot of interest in science. In the last two years, TRIUMF, Canada’s national laboratory for particle and nuclear physics, has held a number of events at Science World and elsewhere which have been fully booked with waiting lists. The Peter Wall Institute for Advanced Studies has also held numerous science-themed events which routinely have waiting lists despite being held in one of Vancouver’s largest theatre venues.

If universities really want to invite outsiders into their environs and have city conversations, they need to follow through on the promise (e.g. talking about cities and science in a series titled “City Conversations”), as well as, do a better job of publicizing their events, encouraging people to enter their sacred portals, and addressing their ‘outsider’ audiences.

By the way, I have a few hints for the student speakers,

  • don’t scold your audience (you may find Canadians’ use of space shocking but please keep your indignation and sense of superiority to yourself)
  • before you start lecturing (at length) about the importance of interdisciplinary work, you might want to assess your audience’s understanding, otherwise you may find yourself preaching to the choir and/or losing your audience’s attention
  • before you start complaining that there’s no longer a mandatory retirement age and suggesting that this is the reason you can’t get a university job you may want to consider a few things: (1) your audience’s average age, in this case, I’d estimate that it was at least 50 and consequently not likely to be as sympathetic as you might like (2) the people who work past mandatory retirement may need the money or are you suggesting your needs are inherently more important? (3) whether or not a few people stay on past their ‘retirement’ age has less to do with your university job prospects than demographics and that’s a numbers game (not sure why I’d have to point that out to someone who’s associated with a mathematics organization such as Mitacs)

I expect no one has spoken or will speak to the organizers, Gupta, or the students other than to give them compliments. In fact, it’s unlikely there will be any real critique of having this presentation as part of a series titled “City Conversations” and that brings this posting back to institutional insularity. This problem is everywhere not just in universities and I’m increasingly interested in approaches to mitigating the tendency. If there’s anyone out there who knows of any examples where insularity has been tackled, please do leave a comment and, if possible, links.

Creativity—Connection—Innovation—Dr. Arvind Gupta leads a City (Vancouver, Canada) Conversation this Thursday, April 17, 2014

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There’s a lot of excitement about Simon Fraser University’s (SFU) upcoming City Conversation’s April 17, 2014 session featuring Dr. Arvind Gupta, computer scientist and newly appointed president of the University of British Columbia (UBC). Being held at 12:30 pm at SFU’s Harbour Centre campus, the event will be broadcast (this is a first for the City Conversations program) to both the Burnaby and Surrey campuses as well.  Here’s a description of the event and of the speaker, along with more details about the locations (from the April 13, 2014 announcement; Note: Links have been removed),,

This week’s City Conversation [titled: Creativity! Connection! Innovation!] will feature Dr. Arvind Gupta, who will discuss the world of research collaborations and innovation, and the role universities and student entrepreneurs play while bringing their ideas to market.

The event will take place at SFU’s Vancouver campus (Harbour Centre, 515 West Hastings St., Room 7000), from 12:30-1:30pm on April 17, and for the first time City Conversations will be simulcast and open to audiences at SFU’s Burnaby (IRMACS Theatre, ASB 10900) and Surrey (Room 5380) campuses.

Participants at SFU’s satellite locations will be able to comment and ask questions of the presenters through video conferencing, with SFU associate vice president, External Relations Joanne Curry (Burnaby) and SFU Surrey executive director Steve Dooley (Surrey) serving as moderators.

Dr. Gupta, former SFU professor and current CEO and scientific director of Mitacs [Canadian not-for-profit organization that offers funding for internships and fellowships at Canadian universities and formerly a mathematics NCE (Networks of Centres of Excellence of Canada) program {a Canadian federal government program}]. Launched at SFU in 1999, Mitacs supports national innovation by coordinating collaborative industry-university research projects with human capital development at its core.

I understand from City Conversations organizer, Michael Alexander, audio will be recorded and a file will be available. I’m not sure what the timing is but the City Conversations Past Event and Recordings webpage is where you can check for the audio file.

I noticed the talk seems to be oriented to the interests of students and staff but am hopeful that some reference will be made to the impact that creativity, connection, and innovation have on a city and how we in Vancouver could participate.

One biographical note of my own here, for two years I tried to contact Michael Alexander with an idea of a City Conversation. We had that conversation March 31, 2014. It was largely focused on my desire to have some science-oriented City Conversations and this is the outcome (and fingers crossed not the last one). I am thrilled to bits.  For anyone wondering what Gupta’s talk has to do with science, innovation is, usually and internationally, code for applied science and technology.

Innovation discussion in Canada lacks imagination

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Today, Feb. 18, 2011, is the last day you have to make a submission to the federal government of Canada’s Review of Federal Support to Research and Development.

By the way, the  expert panel appointed and tasked with carrying out this consultation consists of:

Mr. Thomas Jenkins – Chair
Dr. Bev Dahlby
Dr. Arvind Gupta
Ms. Monique F. Leroux
Dr. David Naylor
Mrs. Nobina Robinson

They represent a mix of industry and academic representatives; you can read more about them here. You will have to click for each biography. Unfortunately, neither the website nor the consultation paper offer a list of members of the panel withbiographies that are grouped together for easy scanning.

One sidenote, big kudos to whomever decided this was a good idea (from the Review web page),

Important note: Submissions received by the panel will be made publicly available on this site as early as March 4, 2011.[emphases mine] * The name and organizational affiliation of the individual making the submission will be posted on the site; however, contact information (i.e., email addresses, phone numbers and postal addresses) will not be posted, unless that information is embedded in the submission itself.

This initiative can be viewed in two ways: (a) necessary housecleaning of funding programmes for research and development (R&D) that are not effective and (b) an attempt to kickstart more innovation, i.e. better ties between government R&D efforts and industry to achieve more productivity, in Canada. From the consultation paper‘s introduction,

WHY A REVIEW?

Innovation by business is a vital part of maintaining a high standard of living in Canada and building Canadian sources of global advantage. The Government of Canada plays an important role in fostering an economic climate that encourages business innovation, including by providing substantial funding through tax incentives and direct program support to enhance business research and development (R&D). Despite the high level of federal support, Canada continues to lag behind other countries in business R&D expenditures (see Figure 1), and this is believed to be a significant factor in contributing to the country’s weak productivity growth. Recognizing this, Budget 2010 announced a comprehensive review of federal support to R&D in order to maximize its contribution to innovation and to economic opportunities for business. (p. 1 print;  p. 3 PDF)

I’d like to offer a submission but I can’t for two reasons. (a)  I really don’t know much about the ‘housecleaning’ aspects. (b) The panel’s terms of reference vis à vis innovation are so constrained that any comments I could offer fall far outside it’s purview.

Here’s what I mean by ‘constrained terms of reference’ (from the consultation paper),

The Panel has been asked to provide advice related to the following questions:

§ What federal initiatives are most effective in increasing business R&D and facilitating commercially relevant R&D partnerships?

§ Is the current mix and design of tax incentives and direct support for business R&D and businessfocused R&D appropriate?

§ What, if any, gaps are evident in the current suite of programming, and what might be done to fill these gaps?

In addition, the Panel’s mandate specifies that its recommendations not result in an increase or decrease to the overall level of funding required for federal R&D initiatives. (p. 3 print; p. 5 PDF)

The ‘housecleaning’ effort is long overdue. Even good government programmes can outlive their usefulness while ineffective and/or bad programmes don’t get jettisoned soon enough or often enough. If you want a sense of just how complicated our current R & D funding system is, just check this out from Nassif Ghoussoub’s (Piece of Mind blog) Jan. 14, 2011 posting,

Now the number of programs that the government supports, and which are under review is simply mind boggling.

First, you have the largest piece of the puzzle, the $4-billion “Scientific Research and Experimental Develoment tax credit program” (SR&ED), which seems to be the big elephant in the room. I hardly know anything about this program, besides the fact that it is a federal tax incentive program, administered by the Canada Revenue Agency, that encourages Canadian businesses of all sizes, and in all sectors to conduct research and development in Canada. Former VP of the NRC and former President of Alberta Ingenuity, Peter Hackett, has lots to say about this. Also on youtube.

But you don’t need to be an expert to imagine the line-up of CEOs waiting to testify as to how important these tax incentives are to the country? “Paris vaut bien une messe” and a billion or four are surely worth testifying for.

Next, just take a look (below) at this illustrative list of more directly funded federal programs. Why “illustrative”?, because there is at least one hundred more!

Do you really think that anyone of the heads/directors/presidents (the shopkeepers!) of these programs (the shops!) are going to testify that their programs are deficient and need less funding? What about those individuals that are getting serious funding from these programs (the clients!)?

Nassif’s list is 50 (!) programmes long and he suggests there are another 100 of them? Yes, housecleaning is long overdue but as Nassif points out. the people most likely to submit comment about these programmes  are likely to be beneficiaries uninclined to see their demise.

There is another problem with this ‘housecleaning’ process in that they seem to be interested in ‘tweaking’ rather than renovating or rethinking the system. Rob Annan at the Researcher Forum (Don’t leave Canada behind) blog, titled his Feb. 4, 2011 post, Innovation vs. Invention, as he questions what we mean by innovation (excerpt from his posting),

I wonder if we’ve got the whole thing wrong.

The fact is: universities don’t produce innovation. For that matter, neither does industrial R&D.

What university and industrial research produces is invention.

The Blackberry is not an innovation, it’s an invention. A new cancer-fighting drug is not an innovation, it’s an invention. A more durable prosthetic knee is not an innovation, it’s an invention.

Universities can – and do – produce inventions.

In fact, they produce inventions at an astonishing rate. University tech transfer offices (now usually branded as “centres for innovation and commercialization”) register more intellectual property than could ever be effectively commercialized.

But innovation is distinct from invention. Innovation is about process.

Innovation is about finding more efficient ways to do things. Innovation is about increasing productivity. Innovation is about creating new markets – sometimes through the commercialization of inventions.

Innovation is about the how not about the what.

Thought-provoking, yes? I think a much broader scope needs to be taken if we’re going really discuss innovation in Canada. I’m talking about culture and making a cultural shift. One of the things I’ve noticed is that everyone keeps saying Canadians aren’t innovative. Fair enough. So, how does adding another government programme change that? As far as I can tell, most of the incentives that were created have simply encouraged people to game the system, which is what you might expect from people who aren’t innovative.

I think one of the questions that should have been asked is, how do you encourage the behaviour, in this case a cultural shift towards innovation, you want when your programmes haven’t elicited that behaviour?

Something else I’d suggest, let’s not confine the question(s) to the usual players as they’ll be inclined to offer more of the same. (There’s an old saying, if you’re a hammer, everything looks like a nail.)

Another aspect of making a cultural shift is modeling at least some of the behaviours. Here’s something what Dexter Johnson at the Nanoclast blog (IEEE Spectrum) noticed about US President Barack Obama’s January 2011 State of the Union address in his January 28, 2011 posting,

Earlier this week in the President’s State of the Union Address, a 16-year-old girl by the name Amy Chyao accompanied the First Lady at her seat.

No doubt Ms. Chyao’s presence was a bit of stage craft to underscore the future of America’s ingenuity and innovation because Ms. Chyao, who is still a high school junior, managed to synthesize a nanoparticle that when exposed to infrared light even when it is inside the body can be triggered like a bomb to kill cancer cells. [emphasis mine] Ms. Chyao performed her research and synthesis in the lab of Kenneth J. Balkus, Jr., a chemistry professor at the University of Texas at Dallas.

This is a remarkable achievement and even more so from someone still so young, so we would have to agree with Prof. Balkus’ assessment that “At some point in her future, she’ll be a star.”

However, Chyao was given to us as a shining example of the US potential for innovation, and, as a result, its competitiveness. So beyond stage craft, what is the assessment of innovation for the US in a time of emerging technologies such as nanotechnology? [emphasis mine]

As President Obama attempts to rally the nation with “This is our Sputnik moment”, Andrew Maynard over on his 20/20 blog tries to work out what innovation means in our current context as compared to what it meant 50 years ago at the dawn of the space race.

Notice the emphasis on innovation. Our US neighbours are as concerned as we are about this and what I find interesting is that there glimmers of a very different approach. Yes, Chyao’s presence was stagecraft but this kind of ‘symbolic communication’ can be incredibly important. I say ‘can’ because if it’s purely stagecraft then it will condemned as a cheap stunt but if they are able to mobilize ‘enough’ stories, programmes, education, etc. that support the notion of US ingenuity and innovation then you can see a cultural shift occur. [Perfection won’t be achieved; there will be failures. What you need are enough stories and successes.] Meanwhile, Canadians keep being told they’re not innovative and ‘we must do something’.

This US consultation may be more stagecraft but it shows that not all consultations have to be as thoroughly constrained as the Canadian one finishing today.  From Mike Masnick’s Feb. 9, 2011 posting (The White House Wants Advice On What’s Blocking American Innovation) on Techdirt,

The White House website kicked off a new feature this week, called Advise the Advisor, in which a senior staff member at the White House will post a YouTube video [there’s one in this posting on the Techdirt website] on a particular subject, asking the public to weigh in on that topic via a form. The very first such topic is one near and dear to our hearts: American Innovation. [emphasis mine] …

And here is the answer I provided:

Research on economic growth has shown time and time again the importance of basic innovation towards improving the standard of living of people around the world. Economist Paul Romer’s landmark research into innovation highlighted the key factor in economic growth is increasing the spread of ideas.

Traditionally, many people have considered the patent system to be a key driver for innovation, but, over the last few decades, research has repeatedly suggested that this is not the case. In fact, patents more frequently act as a hindrance to innovation rather than as a help to it. Recent research by James Bessen & Michael Meurer (reviewing dozens of patent studies) found that the costs of patents far outweigh the benefits.

This is a problem I see daily as the founder of a startup in Silicon Valley — often considered one of the most innovative places on earth. Patents are not seen as an incentive to innovation at all. Here, patents are simply feared. The fear is that anyone doing something innovative will be sued out of nowhere by someone with a broad patent. A single patent lawsuit can cost millions of dollars and can waste tons of resources that could have gone towards actual innovation. Firms in Silicon Valley tend to get patents solely for defensive purposes.

Getting back to Dexter, there is one other aspect of his comments that should be considered, the emphasis on ’emerging technologies’. The circumstances in which we currently find ourselves are hugely different than they were during the Industrial revolution, the arrival of plastics and pesticides, etc. We understand our science and technology and their impacts quite differently than we did even a generation ago and that requires a different approach to innovation than the ones we’ve used in the past. From Andrew Maynard’s Jan. 25, 2011 posting (2020 Science blog),

… if technology innovation is as important as Obama (and many others besides) believes it is, how do we develop the twenty first century understanding, tools and institutions to take full advantage of it?

One thing that is clear is that in connecting innovation to action, we will need new insights and “intelligence” on how to make this connection work in today’s world. These will need to address not only the process of technology innovation, but also how we develop and use it within an increasingly connected society, where more people have greater influence over what works – and what doesn’t – than ever before. This was the crux of a proposal coming out of the World Economic Forum Global Redesign Agenda earlier this year, which outlined the need for a new Global Center for Emerging Technologies Intelligence.

But beyond the need for new institutions, there is also the need for far more integrated approaches to building a sustainable future through technology innovation – getting away from the concept of technology innovation as something that is somebody else’s business, and making it everybody’s business. This was a central theme in the World Economic Forum report that Tim Harper of CIENTIFICA Ltd. and I published last week.

There’s a lot more to be said about the topic. Masnick did get a response of sorts to his submission about US innovation (from his Feb. 17, 2011 posting on Techdirt),

Tony was the first of a bunch of you to send over the news that President Obama’s top advisor, David Plouffe, has put up a blog post providing a preliminary overview of what he “heard” via the Ask the Advisor question, which we wrote about last week, concerning “obstacles to innovation.” The only indication that responses like mine were read was a brief mention about how some people complained about how the government, and particularly patent policy, got in the way of innovation:

Many respondents felt that too much government regulation stifled businesses and innovators and that the patent process and intellectual property laws are broken.

Unfortunately, rather than listening to why today’s patent system is a real and significant problem, it appears that Plouffe is using this to score political points for his boss …

Masnick hasn’t lost hope as he goes on to note in his posting.

For yet another perspective, I found Europeans weighed in on the innovation topic at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) 2011 annual meeting this morning (Feb. 18, 2011). From a Government of Canada science blog (http://blogs.science.gc.ca/) posting, Mobilizing resources for research and innovation: the EU model, by Helen Murphy,

EU Commission Director-General of the Joint Research Centre Robert-Jan Smits spoke about what all countries agree on: that research and innovation are essential to prosperity — not just now, but even more so in the future.

He said European leaders are voicing the same message as President Obama, who in his recent State of the Union address linked innovation to “winning the future” — something he called the “Sputnik movement of our generation.”

Smits talked about the challenge of getting agreement among the EU’s 27 member countries on a growth strategy. But they have agreed; they’ve agreed to pursue growth that is smart (putting research and innovation at centre stage), sustainable (using resources efficiently and responsibly) and inclusive (leaving no one behind and creating new jobs).

The goal is ambitious: the EU aims to create nearly four million new jobs in Europe and increase the EU’s GDP by 700 billion Euros by 2025.

What I’m trying to say is that innovation is a big conversation and I hope that the expert panel for Canada’s current consultation on this matter will go beyond its terms reference to suggest that ‘housecleaning and tweaking’ should be part of a larger initiative that includes using a little imagination.

Canadian R & D funding review and intellectual property as the Coalition for Action on Innovation in Canada

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Rob Annan at the Don’t leave Canada behind blog has issued kudos along with some measured comments about the government’s Oct. 14, 2010 announcement of an expert panel to discuss ideas for greater Canadian business innovation and to review Canada’s research and development (R&D) funding for business,

“Through this panel, our government is taking action to improve its support for innovation and to ensure that investments are effective for Canadian businesses and workers,” said Minister of State Goodyear. “We are committed to helping Canadian businesses acquire the tools they need to grow and create new jobs; this panel will help achieve that goal.”

…

“Canadian business spends less per capita on research and development, innovation and commercialization than most other industrialized countries, despite the Government of Canada investing more than $7 billion annually to encourage business R&D,” said Minister Blackburn [Jean-Pierre Blackburn, Minister of Veteran Affairs and Minister of State Agriculture (Quebec)]. “This review will help provide recommendations on how the government can bolster Canadian businesses, create jobs and bring new ideas into the market place for the benefit of all Canadians.”

The panel will conduct a comprehensive review of all existing federal support for business R&D to see how this support could be enhanced to make sure federal investments are effective and delivering maximum results for Canadians.

The Research and Development Review Expert Panel is composed of six eminent Canadians chosen for their experience in business, academia and government as well as their knowledge of R&D and innovation practices and policies.

The panel’s chair, Thomas Jenkins, is Executive Chairman and Chief Strategy Officer of Open Text. The other panel members are Dr. Bev Dahlby of the University of Alberta, Dr. Arvind Gupta of the University of British Columbia, Mrs. Monique F. Leroux of the Desjardins Group, Dr. David Naylor of the University of Toronto and Mrs. Nobina Robinson of Polytechnics Canada.

I’m not familiar with anyone on the panel although I have heard of Open Text and the Desjardins Group.

Rob notes, a type of research which has been excluded from the review, in his Oct. 15, 2010 posting,

So, basic research funding through the tricouncil will be untouched by the review. Which is good, since that isn’t where the problems in our innovation pipeline are to be found (there may well be all sorts of problems with basic research funding, but that’s a task for another panel…). It’s in effective knowledge transfer and business R&D where the problems seem to lie. [emphases mine]

As per Don’t leave Canada behind, a group of business people headed up by John Manley and Paul Lucas, Coalition for Action on Innovation in Canada, announced on October 14, 2010 (the same day as the expert panel was announced) a plan with recommendations to achieve the same goals. (You can download the plan from here.) From Rob’s posting,

A coalition of Canadian business leaders and high-profile academic administrators is working to frame the discussion. The blue-chip membership released a set of recommendations yesterday (the timing not coincidental) for how it wants the government to act. My sense is that their plan includes too much of “more of the same” recommendations – expanding SRED, expanding tax credits for innovation investment – rather than any really innovative ideas.

Like Rob, I too took a very quick look at the plan. I agree that there’s a lot of the ‘same old, same old’ recommendations and what popped out for me was the insistence on this,

Adopt the world’s strongest intellectual property regime.

A robust climate for innovation is only possible if Canada’s regulatory processes encourage the development and launch of innovative products and if our laws ensure that inventors and those who invest in their ideas can fairly reap the rewards of their work. Canada should aim for a reputation as the best place in the world in which to research, develop and bring to market new products and processes. To achieve that goal, it is imperative that Canada seize current opportunities to improve its protection of intellectual property and thereby create a more attractive environment for investment in innovation. Beyond legal and regulatory changes, businesses need consistent, timely and relevant treatment of intellectual property developed at post-secondary institutions. IP policies at institutions and granting agencies, including those dealing with disclosure and licensing, must facilitate collaborative research and encourage innovation. The business and academic sectors should launch a national dialogue aimed at creating a clear and consistent framework for IP agreements between individual companies and institutions.

The word ‘strongest’ in these contexts tends to be a synonym for control by whichever interest holds the patent. Heavy (strong?) control over IP (intellectual property) will mean less innovation and competition. Take for example India and its anti-retroviral drugs (my posting of Oct. 1, 2010 featuring an excerpt from Jenara Nerenberg’s article on the Fast Company website),

… The massive, low-cost ARV [anti-retrovirus] production industry in India has been made possible by the country’s patent laws. “Indian laws did not grant patents on a product, but only on a process to make it, which helped its drug firms to make cheaper versions and improved formulations using alternative methods,” SciDev.net reports.

…

But not everyone in the world sees those laissez faire patent laws as a good thing. India is in ongoing discussions with the World Trade Organization and the EU, but there is fear that increased patent requirements may dismantle the country’s thriving ARV production industry.

Note the difference between ‘strong’ and ‘laissez faire’ and the results in India. Personally, I’d like to see the world’s most balanced and flexible IP regime.  If you have ideas about what you’d like to see considered in the review or recommendations of your own, check out Rob’s blog and contribute to his comments section where you’ll find some of my comments (once they’re moderated).