University of Waterloo’s innovation portfolio evolving to meet the future needs of research and industry

The University’s of Waterloo’s new innovation portfolio is becoming the driver of change for the institution’s new strategy to maximize the economic and social impact of its researchers in an era of disruptive technologies. Led by former IBM executive Sanjeev Gill, the suite of services spans the gamut of supports, from incubators and accelerators to talent development and long-term funding, all of which are anchored in UW’s new five-year strategic plan, Connecting Imagination with Impact.

Artificial intelligence (AI) and cyber security (CS) are only the most high-profile technologies disrupting the world of commerce, prompting companies to look to higher education for partnerships and solutions that will help companies become—and remain—more globally competitive.

“It’s a very interesting time in society and industry right now, especially as it pertains to disruptive technologies... The time we’re in right now [is] almost as disruptive as distributed computing was with the entry of the PC era,” says Gill, who joined UW last January after 21 years at IBM. “We’re finding that corporations—small, medium and large enterprises, including government organizations—are reaching out to universities in a much more holistic fashion to help them navigate through the challenges of these disruptive technologies.”

Gill says most companies no longer conduct the core research and innovation underpinning their product and service offerings, relying instead on their vendor base and academic institutions to perform those functions. The ability of large corporations to deal with the rapid pace of technological innovation is hampered by the time it takes for them to respond. That has placed pressure on post-secondary institutions to adapt. With its long-standing emphasis on entrepreneurship, student training and strong ties to industry, UW is better equipped than most institutions to respond to that challenge.

Another factor pushing corporations to academia is the lure of FANG companies—that is, Facebook, Amazon, Netflix and Google, or high-profile tech firms that attract young researchers at the expense of traditional industries like banking, financial services, retail and even telecommunications. To ensure these industries have access to the necessary talent and technological innovation, UW created GEDI (Global Entrepreneurship and Disruptive Innovation initiative) in 2018 to serve as a portal to its innovation services. Gill says the office also stands for Global Innovation Gateway at Waterloo, reflecting the office’s enterprise-centric focus.

“It really is an office for enterprises to discover innovation—a bucket of research, talent, presence in branding on campus, access to the entrepreneurial and start-up ecosystem,” he says. “We’re always looking to find those unique marriages between industry and constituents within the university … Simply put [GEDI] is a portal by which to enter the university that helps maximize the value of partnerships for all parties.”

At the other front end of the innovation spectrum, UW is also working to evolve its policies and mechanisms for encouraging commercialization. Gill notes that, as one of Canada’s academic research powerhouses, the university receives research funding totalling $258.3 million, with more than 28% coming from industry—all without  medicine, law and business schools.

Building a portfolio for "tough tech" [rs_quote credit="Sanjeev Gill" source="Associate Vice President Innovation, University of Waterloo"]We began to find that there is a group of venture capitalists in the US that is very difficult to find in Canada. These are folks who want to be in the middle of hyper-early-stage research that no one else has even seen.[/rs_quote]

The university has a suite of both traditional and newer commercialization programs ranging from Velocity—the world’s largest free incubator—to the forthcoming Forum Venture Fund, which will seek to tackle longterm research challenges faced by so-called "tough tech" companies. Gill says it’s too early to discuss the features of Forum Venture, as they are still in development. But he acknowledges the concept is inspired by similar initiatives at Cambridge and Oxford in the UK and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of California in the U.S.

MIT launched its groundbreaking fund The Engine in 2016 to “bridge the gap between discovery and commercialization by empowering disruptive technologies with the long-term capital, knowledge and network connections.” The Engine's fund now exceeds $250 million and Gill says it’s proving invaluable in tapping into individual and family funds of high net worth people in the Boston area.

Gill also points to a class of venture capitalists in California who are seeking the type of longer-term investment opportunities represented by tough-tech firms developing longer-term transformative technologies that rely on deep research expertise largely resident in academia.

“We began to find that there is a group of venture capitalists in the US that is very difficult to find in Canada. These are folks who want to be in the middle of hyper-early-stage research that no one else has even seen,” says Gill. “There are firms that, if anyone has even looked at the research, they don’t want to talk to you about it. [These VCs] want to be first at the table, they want to get in very early and they’re perfectly fine with longterm bets.”

Learning to fund early-stage research

Most of the venture capital in Canada is more traditional, going to start-ups where the returns tend to be significantly shorter. Changing that mindset amongst the investor community is an opportunity that UW is well-equipped to undertake, although Gill says that it requires altering a range of attitudes that are notoriously difficult to dislodge, both within the VC community and academia itself.

“What’s generally available [to companies] are programs and funding and VC that are tranches of $50,000  or $100,000 and they’re looking for money again six months later. This becomes so daunting for someone who’s at early-stage research and they know they’ll be in this perpetual model of constantly looking for more. They need a different type of funding model which is longer term and larger tranches of money,” he says. “That’s what we’re looking at to figure out how we solve this problem and we’re looking at multiple paths—supporting early stage research and supporting mechanisms for funding that is actually a key component of our new strategic plan.”

Gill also points to longterm learning within academia and corporations as a key facet of its innovation strategy. He says his innovation group is working closely with corporations to determine the most critical needs of industry and building the right types of education to support those workers.

“Universities have a responsibility to industry in ensuring that Canadians at large don’t become displaced by technology... [and] that they have the right skillsets to continually be able to keep that pace with how quickly technology is changing,” says Gill. “There’s an inflexion point where technology that outstrips the human’s ability to keep up with it. This is very real in companies right now. The constant upgrading and micro-credentialing is so necessary and this is one of the areas that we take very seriously.”

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