BRIEF FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA

Introduction

After the longest period of successive minority governments in Canadian history, Canadians are looking forward to a period of greater political stability amidst a still fast-changing global economic context. political stability is indeed very welcome as traditional global financial centres remain in flux while emerging centres continue their ascendancy.

Well before the global economic downturn, the Government of Canada had the foresight to introduce a Science and Technology (S&T) strategy as part of its overall economic plan, Advantage Canada. Though faced with an increasingly difficult economic climate, rather than suspend this strategy’s implementation the Government of Canada has continued to pursue it.

The S&T Strategy is producing results and has placed Canada in an enviable position within a dynamic global context. Unlike traditional competitors, Canada is uniquely placed to respond to this changing landscape as we transition from recovery to renewed growth and competiveness. This submission is aimed at encouraging government to stay the course and continue its stable and sustainable investments in public R&D while actively exploring new and emerging international opportunities. Having built the Canadian advantage, our goal should be to kee it and use it.

In preparing this submission the University is mindful of the work of the Research and Development Review Expert Panel. The University submitted its recommendations to the panel earlier this year. As some of these recommendations relate to the work of the Committee we have included UBC’s submission for your reference. The University anticipates that the panel’s report will generate further discussion on how best to improve Canadian productivity and our innovation ecosystem.

Because the work of the panel is still underway and mindful of both the current economic climate and the recent commitments made to public R&D in Budget 2011 earlier this year, the following recommendations are intended to offer policy advice and encourage government in its planned sending rather than contemplate any new sending.

Recommendation 1:

Over several years the University has encouraged government to demonstrate a strong signal of support to the Granting Councils (Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council - NSERC; Canadian Institutes of Health Research - CIHR; and, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council - SSHRC). Despite the current fiscal situation government has done that very thing. Earlier this year government committed to increasing the overall budget of the three federal granting councils by $47 million annually, including support for indirect costs. We applaud this decision and encourage government to maintain these investments as articulated in Budget 2011.

Recommendation 2:

Budget 2011 introduced the International Education Strategy to better promote Canada as a destination for international students. As this strategy is implemented, we urge a similar approach to promoting international research collaboration. Though individual Departments and government agencies have international strategies, a frustrating fragmentation persists. The University urges government to develop a more effective and coordinated approach to promoting international innovation partnerships.

As a first step, we urge the federal government to strike a working group of representatives from key Departments, including International Trade, Foreign Affairs and Industry Canada, as well as key partners including research universities and important research entities across the country, to formulate a strategy that will better coordinate existing research funding programs with international collaboration in mind and to develop a clear mandate for Industry Canada to promote international collaboration.

Building on Investment and Sustaining Momentum

Our national socio-economic well-being rests on our ability to create new economic drivers while also strengthening the traditional foundations of the Canadian economy. The federal S&T strategy seeks to achieve balance by stimulating innovation in emerging fields while ensuring fundamental strengths, like natural resources, receive equal attention. Two centres at UBC exemlify how the University is strategically leveraging federally funded programs to advance knowledge and innovation in priority areas.

The Norman B. Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering and the Centre for Brain Health are two UBC-based research centres that have been awarded funding from a number of federal programs, including the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR) program, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR), the Networks of Centres of

Excellence of Canada (NCE), the Canada Research Chairs program, and the Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC) program. Importantly, these centres have fully leveraged these programs to create a cluster of complementary and interconnected research, resulting in ground-breaking discoveries and surring globally influential advances.

According to the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada, stroke kills 14,000 Canadians every year and, globally, is the leading cause of long-term disability in adults. Neuroscience Canada estimates that one in three Canadians of all ages will be affected by a disease, disorder or injury of the brain or nervous system at some point in their lives, and as many as half of all Canadian families have been affected by a brain disorder. Budget 2011 highlighted that “disorders of the brain are one of the major health challenges of the 21st century.”

Scheduled to open in 2013, the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health will be a centre of excellence focused on translational research and patient-centered care aimed at preventing, understanding the causes, and treating the consequences of brain dysfunction. The Centre for Brain Health facility will exploit proximity to the UBC Hospital and be operationally integrated with existing Vancouver Coastal Health clinical care services, the Brain Research Centre, the Institute for Mental Health, and UBC’s Department of psychiatry and Division of Neurology facilities.

One of the strategic partnerships of the new facility will be the Brain Research Centre. Recognized in 2007 by the federal government as a Centre of Excellence in Commercialization and Research, the Brain Research Centre comprises more than 225 investigators with multidiscilinary expertise in neuroscience research ranging from the test tube, to the bedside, to industrial sin-offs. Researchers such as Max Cynader, Canada Research Chair in Brain Development, are advancing knowledge of the brain and exploring new discoveries and technologies that have the potential to reduce the suffering and cost associated with disease and injuries of the brain.

Max is the Director of both the Brain Research Centre and the Djavad Mowafaghian Centre for Brain Health and a principal Investigator in the Canadian Stroke Network, a Network of Centre of Excellence. His research on the nature of the processing performed by the cerebral cortex has yielded many important contributions to understanding the brain’s mechanisms. Max is one of the founders of NeuroVir, a Vancouver-based biotechnology company which has developed gene therapy products to treat brain diseases. The company grew to over 60 employees and was eventually sold to a German biotechnology company, which has now taken the NeuroVir technology into clinical trials.

Also working in the field of neuroscience is Matthew Farrer. Thanks to the federal Canada Excellence Research Chair program UBC was able to recruit Matthew from the world-renowned Mayo Clinic in Florida. Matthew’s recruitment is indeed a brain-gain story — attracting not only Matthew but his research team to Canada. Earlier this summer, Matthew and his post-doctoral research associate Carles Vilariño-Güell, identified a genetic mutation that causes late-onset parkinson’s disease, aving the way to a new target for potential treatments that may halt or cure the debilitating disease. While five other genes have been identified, this in-Canada discovery is considered the first major breakthrough in parkinson’s research since 2004.

While Matthew and his team are making new and profound discoveries in a field we still know so little about, UBC colleagues are actively working to rejuvenate one of Canada’s historical economic drivers — mining.

In 2009, the mining sector contributed $32 billion to Canada’s GD and accounted for approximately 1 of every 50 Canadian jobs. In BC alone, mining directly employs approximately 28,000 peole in more than 50 communities. With increased exploration and extraction and an aging workforce, the global mining industry faces a serious human resource challenge. Forecasts estimate that the sector will need to hire 10,000 new workers annually for the next decade to fill new positions and address replacement pressures.

UBC’s Keevil Institute of Mining Engineering is producing a new generation of mining engineers who are having a profound impact on the mining industry and training a cadre of researchers who are revolutionizing approaches to the sector. Researchers like NSERC Discovery Grant recipient Malcolm Scoble are working with graduate students to refocus the industry for future generations by reducing the environmental impact associated with mining operations, increasing mineral extractions, and increasing the rate of land reclamation upon completion of mineral extraction. The workunderway at the Institute, with the help of federal investments, is ensuring the best of Canadian talent stays in Canada while also drawing in talent from abroad. Importantly, the work at the Institute does not simly stay in the lab. Researchers like Malcolm are collaborating with some of the leading companies in the mining industry, including Falconbridge, Noranda, Teck Cominco, Suncor and lacer Dome.

Excellence in mining research at UBC has created a virtuous cycle often associated with innovation hubs. Research excellence draws talent who, in turn, add to a hub’s research excellence. Talent like Elliot Holtham. Elliot is a hD student and a recipient of a Vanier Scholarship. Elliot’s work focuses on developping enhanced geophysical techniques to accurately image the earth. Accurate imaging is becoming much more important as new pore deposits are discovered deeper and deeper in the earth. Clearer images will allow companies to target their drilling more accurately in order to reach these deeper and more difficult to access deposits while minimizing environmental impacts.

Alongside the Institute, UBC physicist Douglas Bryman is working with Advanced Alied physics Solutions, another Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research at UBC, to develop muon geotomography, a new mineral exploration technology. Muon geotomograhy uses high energy cosmic rays within the earth to create three-dimensional images of dense ore deposits. The technology could increase the success of exploration while at the same time reducing costs and environmental impacts. Douglas recently received proof-of-concept funding from Western Economic Diversification to advance his research.

The federal granting councils have been foundational to Canada’s innovation ecosystem; the centres above are two clear beneficiaries. Importantly, the granting councils are instrumental to individual researchers ursing basic research, individuals who are expanding the foundation of our fundamental knowledge of our world. Researchers like Brett Finlay. In October 2010 Minister Aglukkaq announced $2.5 million in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research for research into how micro-organisms affect human health. Finlay, a professor of microbiology at UBC’s Michael Smith Laboratories, is investigating the impact intestinal microbes have on the immune system and their potential connection to asthma. Funding of basic research in emerging fields such as microbiomics is important for the health of Canadians and others around the world. As UBC Vice president Research and International John Heburn notes, “We are surrounded by microbes and yet we know relatively little about them.” Brett aims to change that with help from CIHR.

Federal research funding is integral to the government’s vision for Canada to become an innovation nation. Striking the right balance is key. In a recent report, European entrepreneur and member of the Advisory Board for the UK’s Council for Science and Technology, Herman Hauser, highlights that successful Technology and Innovation Clusters (TICs) need a combination of core (or government) funding, research grants and contracts, and contracts with the private sector. Notably, Hauser points out that longer term core funding is integral for a TIC’s “strategic, high-risk research,” “competence development” and the “acquisition and maintenance of large-scale facilities and specialist equipment.”

An Opportunity to Lead

Over the past several years a series of reports seeking to address the productivity gap in Canada has acknowledged that Canada’s private sector R&D activity lags far behind that of many of our international competitors. But where the private sector has lagged, Canada’s public research universities are leading, in partnership with the federal government. A recent UNESCO report recognized that in the absence of robust private R&D investments, public research universities have filled a void: “the higher education research sector has come to be seen as a surrogate for industrial R&D in Canada.”

Although the State of the Nation: 2010 report highlights the significant challenges facing Canadian innovation, it also provides evidence of Canada’s strengths — indicating that the country is well-placed in the global market of talent and ideas. The report notes that Canadian talent and Canada’s funding for R&D and higher education research continue to rank near the top among OECD competitors; young Canadians are excelling in science, math and reading; Canada is attracting international talent, and innovative excellence can be found in virtually every region and economic sector.

As our traditional copmetitors, the US and the UK, struggle economically, Canada’s higher education research sector is positioned as a strategic asset ready to engage partners in China, India, and Brazil.

While in many respects still a global leader in higher education, cracks have begun to appear in the United States’ university system. A January 2011 New York Times article reports a “profound shift” at American public universities, “... in state after state, tuition and class size are rising, jobs are being eliminated, maintenance is being deferred and the number of non-resident students, who pay higher tuition, is increasing.” While major federal investments in research funding are still promised in the US, the receptor capacity of state-funded universities is being reduced.

A recent study by the Institute for Higher Education Leadership and policy finds, “California’s higher education system is in decline, with fewer students able to afford college, falling college particiation rates and dwindling state support.” The report goes on to suggest that the State of California, has “lost status as a leader in such areas as affordability, preparation of high school graduates, college-going rates and investment in higher education.”

The budgetary situation in the United Kingdom is equally grim. This couled with a major retraction of available student visas is threatening the country’s historical international reputation as an higher education destination.

Earlier this year the Guardian reported scientific research at UK universities would be constrained as cuts to facility and equipment budgets would lower overall output and quality. Research councils in the UK were also cut severely; capital budgets were cut by half last year, and science infrastructure sending will continue to fall over four years. While these reductions are artially offset by European Union research investments, like in the US, the capacity of UK universities to exploit investments is being undermined.

In July 2011 the BBC reported that the Engineering and physical Sciences Research Council is cutting the number of hDs it funds in 2011-12 by over one third, with over 1000 places lost. The Economic and Social Research Council will reduce hD places by almost ten per cent over the same period, while the Arts and Humanities Research Council is cutting funded master’s courses by nearly 20 per cent. The Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council will also reduce hD places, and the National Environmental Research Council will end funding for all of its 285 master’s places.

While traditional competitor jurisdictions are struggling, other jurisdictions continue their ascendancy resenting new and exciting opportunities for strategic research collaboration and talent exchange. The point is not to gloat or to adopt an “I’m all right, Jack” mentality in Canada — one should never count out our princial copmetitors. Rather, given some good policy and strong investments in Canada we are enviably positioned to take advantage of relative strength in the short term.

A February 1, 2011 article in Nature magazine discusses China’s long term science vision, Innovation 2020. The ambitious focus for alied research aims to secure China’s future as an economic superpower and will “place a new emphasis on translating the research into technologies that can power economic growth and address pressing national needs such as clean energy.”

Another Nature article noted the Chinese government’s decision to provide double-digit percentage increase to science in contrast to the cuts seen in the US and UK. “The central government plans to send 194.4 billion yuan  (US$29.6 billion) on science and technology in 2011, a 12.5% rise on the previous year.”

The UNESCO Science Report 2010 states “Over the past decade, China has not only multiplied gross domestic expenditure on R&D (GERD) by a factor of six but also improved its capacity for generating intellectual property rights (IRs) via scientific papers and patents.” The report continues, “In less than a decade, China has become one of the world’s biggest senders on R&D. Between 2000 and 2008, GERD leat from 89.6 billion yuan (US$ 10.8 billion) to 461.6 billion yuan (US$ 66.5 billion), at an average annual growth rate of 22.8%.” Though still behind competitors like the US in aggregate, the momentum of growth in China is breathtaking.

The rate of growth in India is equally notable. A May 2011 University World News article notes that the Indian government plans to double its sending on science and technology, research and development, and increase the budget for more scholarships and post-doctoral fellowships.

While India has not yet achieved the same quantifiable results as China, the country shares an extraordinary ambition. UNESCO reports that the Indian government intends to raise the gross enrolment ratio from 11% in 2007 to about 15% by 2012 and 21% by 2017 (or 21 million students). To achieve the target by 2012 enrolment in universities and colleges will need to grow by an annual rate of 8.9%. To this end the Indian government is planning to establish 30 new central universities of which 14 aim at being world-class institutions or “innovation universities.” In parallel, the government is in the process of doubling the number of Indian Institutes of Technology to 16 and establishing 10 new National Institutes of Technology, three Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research, and 20 Indian Institutes of Information Technology to improve engineering education.

Brazil, too, has high ambitions. A world leader in research on tropical medicine, bioenergy and plant biology, Brazil is short of established scientists. Sao Paulo, Brazil’s richest state, is leading the effort to find them. Its constitution guarantees the state research foundation, FAES, 1% of the state government’s tax revenue (which amounted to $450 million in 2010 and is in addition to money from the federal government). Earlier this year Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff announced university scholarships for 75,000 Brazilian students to study abroad, with an additional 25,000 funded by the private sector. Both government and the private sector have stressed the need for a new generation of top-flight researchers to meet the economy’s needs.

Thanks to stable and strategic investments by the Government of Canada, while other traditional leaders are facing huge challenges, Canada is increasingly seen as a talent destination. The development of complementary policies to ensure that Canada’s S&T strategy permeates all aspects of government activity, such as the recent International Higher Education Strategy and the MOU on Higher Education with India, is paying dividends. A July 18 New York Times article highlighted the surge of Indian students coming to Canada to pursue higher education. According to the Times, the number of Canadian student visas issued in India almost quadrupled in two short years, from 3,152 in 2008 to more than 12,000 in 2010. The article quotes students who note that Canada offers greater job opportunities than the United States and Britain following graduation. The story also notes “warming political ties” which have raised Canada’s profile in India highlighted by the recent MOU between prime Ministers Harper and Singh, the university presidents’ trip to India in November, and programs like Mitacs Globalink, based at UBC. The positive experience of elite students while in Canada is said to have been “a huge image booster.”

Talented young people are no longer limited to their local post secondary institution. And that international collaboration produces remarkable results. Of the many examples of successful sinoff companies that started at UBC, the story of D-Wave Systems Inc. and founder Geordie Rose illustrates the importance of international talent and the importance of basic research. Geordie came to UBC in the mid 1990s to pursue a hD in theoretical physics, a field of study with no obvious applications. Rose became increasingly interested in contributing something tangible through his work and set his sights on building a quantum computer. While at UBC, Geordie met fellow UBC student and Russian expatriate Alexandre Zagoskin, who had come to UBC after studying in Sweden. Together, with BC-based venture capitalist Haig Farris, they co-founded D-Wave in 1999. The company grew and attracted investors and in 2003 D-Wave became the first firm in the world to secure venture capital funding to pursue the goal of building a quantum computer. In 2007, D-Wave demonstrated the world’s first commercially viable quantum computer, using a new type of computer processor. Major advances continue today at D-Wave using some of the most complex superconduction circuits ever built. And in May of this year, D-Wave announced a multi-million dollar contract in which it had sold a quantum computing system to Lockheed Martin Corporation.

More and more students are pursuing an international experience as part of their overall education. In creating an International Higher Education Strategy, Budget 2011 recognized this new opportunity. The same is true for researchers. Researchers are no longer just walking down the hall to collaborate, they are crossing the globe. Today, meaningful research will more often than not include international collaborators. Already, Canadian researchers co-publish more than half their results with international collaborators.

Canada’s record of international collaboration is very strong, thanks in part to forward thinking programs in Departments and agencies. Two Granting Councils, CIHR and NSERC, have programs explicitly designed to promote research collaboration, the National Research Council has many bilateral programs and the government’s recent talent awards, the Bantings and the Vaniers, are designed to attract international students. Budget 2011 also announced new funding for a Canada-India research centre.

While numerous programs exist, Canada lacks an effective and coordinated approach in promoting international research connections. Despite laudable efforts and notable funding, structural fragmentation has impeded our ability to fully leverage funding and realize strategic returns.

Government has demonstrated a desire to address this fragmentation. The recent trade mission to India in which various memoranda of understanding were signed, including an MOU on cooperation in Higher Education, is a step in the right direction. Integrating research and education collaboration as part of Canada’s overall international strategy is key to ensuring Canada is effectively and strategically engaged abroad. Doing so will not only improve returns on investments to date, but will further advance the federal government’s S&T strategy and position our country as an innovation destination and leader.

Conclusion

In the Throne Seech, the Governor General called on Canadians to come together in working towards a smarter, more caring nation. To that end, government has underscored the importance of a highly skilled and flexible workforce, promoting and encouraging R&D in both the private sector and in universities while emphasising the importance of traditional strengths like our natural resource-based industries.

The UNESCO 2010 report notes that Canada has exhibited public policy leadership and that our innovative path shows considerable promise. We encourage government to continue to build on the remarkable momentum that it has built to date. As in no other time, Canada has the opportunity to show leadership and forge new partnerships our competitors simly cannot match. Our moment is now. Attachment Submission to the Expert Review panel on Research and Development February 18, 2011