Dr Pierre Bilodeau, Chief Operating Officer, ISTPCanada

ISTPCanada's legacy in support of international S&T partnerships

By Dr Pierre Bilodeau

It is now official, ISTPCanada is no more. ISTPCanada's board of directors recently approved the dissolution of the corporation which should be finalized before summer officially starts. While pundits will no doubt debate for some time the causes and consequences of this decision, there is no question that during its relatively short lifespan the organization has had a profound impact on the Canadian research landscape. Through this communication, I simply wish to highlight ISTPCanada's achievements, summarize the lessons learned, and thank those who actively engaged with us.

Currently, the federal government's International Science & Technology Partnerships Program (ISTPP) represents an important economic instrument, included in both Canada's 2014 Science & Technology Strategy and Canada's International Education Strategy. Budget 2015, released last week, added South Korea to the ISTPP portfolio, in response to a joint commitment to negotiate a science, technology and innovation agreement following the free trade agreement recently signed with Canada.

Forged under this program, ISTPCanada was originally designed on the PRECARN and Canada-Israel Industrial R&D Foundation models to deliver on signed bilateral science & technology (S&T) agreements for Brazil, China and India through ISTPP. With a small dedicated team and limited resources, ISTPCanada selected and funded more than 50 collaborative R&D projects and 60 partnership development activities (PDAs). In total, more than 4000 individuals participated in ISTPCanada funded matchmaking activities, including at least 500 Canadian and foreign firms interested in establishing international S&T partnerships.

ISTPCanada's $15-million investment in collaborative R&D projects resulted in at least $180 million forecast revenues for Canadian companies, in addition to helping generate new jobs, agreements, research publications and intellectual property agreements. I strongly believe that developing ISTPP, testing and improving it over time, and demonstrating its potential with concrete results, represents ISTPCanada's greatest achievement.

ISTPCanada also established and maintained solid working relationships with provincial, federal and international stakeholders. For example, ISTPCanada partnered with three provincial governments (Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario) to offer its existing platform and leverage federal and provincial investments toward common objectives. This represents one of the few examples of federal-provincial collaboration combining resources to strengthen Canada's global outreach in industrial R&D.

ISTPCanada also developed effective partnerships with federal granting agencies — Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and Canadian Institutes of Health Research — connecting Canada's leading discovery-driven research in post-secondary institutions to business innovation. Finally, ISTPCanada was instrumental in developing and nurturing effective working relationships with counterpart organizations in foreign countries.

Flexible mechanism

The not-for-profit status of the organization greatly facilitated flexibility to deal with central agencies in India and China on one hand as well as with decentralized state research foundations in Brazil on the other. Such active engagement and integration into the Canadian innovation system, in addition to a strong reputation on the global stage suggest that ISTPCanada achieved its vision to be recognized as Canada's premier global S&T partnership development organization.

Leading ISTPCanada as its chief operating officer and managing ISTPP has been a constant learning experience from which, among many others, I learned two lessons:

1. Governments have an essential role to play in facilitating and supporting matchmaking activities between Canadian companies and their foreign collaborators to encourage international S&T partnerships.

2. Careful innovation program design is paramount to ensure science and innovation policies are properly interpreted and integrated into specific program objectives and associated performance indicators.

Canadian small and medium enterprises have limited resources to support international partnership development. They probably feel at a loss when trying to identify potential partners, and/or market access in countries like Brazil, China and India. Government involvement, such as ISTPCanada's PDAs, offered a unique opportunity to engage in international partnerships knowing that key stakeholders from both countries would be involved.

Considering the interest and technical expertise found elsewhere in government — scientific expertise in science-based departments, program expertise in the granting agencies, and business development expertise in the Trade Commissioner Service and embassies abroad — governments should better integrate these resources to facilitate and support matchmaking activities on behalf of Canadian companies.

To my knowledge, apart from ISTPP, no other federal programs offer companies support to identify potential partners, help them make first contact, provide funding for organized matchmaking events, and offer financial support to solidify partnerships with significant funding for collaborative industrial R&D projects where federal government investments are leveraged 4 to 1 with industrial and foreign investments. ISTPCanada did all this and more. The torch is now passed, however, to a new delivery agent.

So, at the end of a short but productive run, let me take this opportunity to thank all those who actively and passionately engaged with ISTPCanada. I am forever thankful to the dedicated staff, volunteer board of directors, public sector funders, foreign government partners, Canadian post-secondary institutions, provincial and federal innovation agencies, trade and industry associations, participating Canadian companies and everyone else who believed in ISTPCanada. Despite a certain sadness to see ISTPCanada not being able to move forward within the Canadian innovation system, I hope that the results achieved, the lessons learned and the relationships built can be leveraged and utilized by others in future innovation activities.

Dr Pierre Bilodeau served as ISTPCanada's Chief Operating Officer since January 2014. Previously he served as ISTPCanada's VP Operations since January 2011.