Quebec forms new Innovation Council amid restructuring of public research development

Pierre Fitzgibbon, Quebec’s Minister of the Economy and Innovation, has announced the creation of a new provincial Innovation Council, with Luc Sirois serving as its director-general and holding the title of Quebec's Chief Innovator. Their mandate will be to boost the development of innovation within Quebec companies and society.

The council will seek to foster more links between public and private partners within Quebec’s innovation ecosystem. Sophie D'Amours, rector of Université Laval and current board chair of Universities Canada, will chair the council, whose members will be made up of university executives, leaders of SMEs and large companies, and venture capital investors.

Despite having made good progress in increasing the number of new entrepreneurs, the process of stewarding companies along the various steps of the innovation chain still poses significant challenges, says Rémi Quiron, Quebec's Chief Scientist, in conversation with Research Money. "It's hard and complicated." But Quirion, a founding member of the council, is optimistic that they can promote meaningful advances. “If we have a think tank that’s more long-term and that will meet regularly, we can try to come up with different ways of doing things,” he said.

One immediate order of business for the council is to facilitate consultations for Quebec’s next innovation strategy, which will launch when the current Quebec Research and Innovation Strategy (SQRI) expires in 2022. Another key task ahead is to simplify access to government help and support for SMEs and university spinoffs: “One thing would be to make it simpler and easier for entrepreneurs to find their way around the innovation world in Quebec and in Canada,” says Quirion.

The chief scientist also cited talent and training priorities, as well as celebrating and promoting innovation in Quebec. “We still have an issue where if someone tries and fails, then that person becomes a bit of an outsider, instead of seeing that maybe they’ve learned something that will help them the second or third time around.”

The formation of the council arrives at a moment when the recent sale of Element AI has cast a pallor on Quebec’s innovation ecosystem. “There was difficulty developing and commercializing products, and being present on the market,” Quirion observed. “Maybe there’s an opportunity to help with that commercialization step.”

On the issue of nurturing homegrown companies, Quirion also thought the new innovation council might work with successful Quebec innovators who have already left the country to grow their companies. ”We should find ways for them to come back,” he said. “Maybe there’s something we can learn from them: why they decided to leave and what’s needed.”

Quirion is realistic that “what happened to Element AI will happen to other companies in Canada and around the world.” But to prevent companies from leaving, it will take long-term vision and support, he says, pointing out that it took massive public investment from European countries over many years to grow Airbus into a multinational corporation with $70.3 billion in revenue. (Airbus is a registered SE, or societas Europaea, corporation.)

For now, the main activity of the council will consist in consultations. However, Sirois will also work closely with the leader of the province's new public research development organization, created from the merger of Aligo Innovation, SOVAR and Univalor. This new body for promoting public research will have a $100-million venture investment fund to spend on pre-seed companies, focused on the early translation of academic discovery.

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