This article is the executive summary of the Improving Demand-Driven Innovation Policies in Canada report. You can access the full version of this Policy Lab report here.
This project deals with ways to stimulate innovation within the context of the Max Bell School’s Experimental Policy Lab capstone project in collaboration with the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED). As requested by the client, the project focuses on the federal government’s demand-driven levers of innovation policy and how ISED can refine its policies to tackle Canada’s major innovation challenges. The student team’s recommendations focus on addressing one such challenge, namely Canada’s commercialization gap: although Canada is a world leader in scientific research and boasts one of the world’s most diverse populations, it fails to translate new ideas into revenue-generating ventures.
A crucial step in the process of turning ideas into commercial products and services is the concept of intellectual property. Working in collaboration with ISED, the student team chose to focus its research on this field and to review existing government tools that aim to spur innovation by leveraging Canada’s IP assets. The 2018 National IP Strategy calls for new approaches to IP management and innovation policy; as such, it represents a policy window for the student team to influence policy. Specifically, the student team recommends changes to one of the strategy’s cornerstone projects: ExploreIP.
ExploreIP is Canada’s new IP marketplace which contributes to the diffusion of technology in Canada. The tool is still in its development phase and its project team is actively looking for new ideas to incorporate into its platform. Based on economic analysis and on the latest research on innovation policy, the student team recommends making several key modifications to Explore IP that could transform the tool into a valuable collaboration platform. These recommendations include making fundamental changes to the marketplace framework, such as including privately-owned IP assets, and adding new sections to the website to help a broader set of users connect with one another and make better use of government services.
Although the brief mostly focuses on improvements to a specific tool, it also explores ways in which Canada’s innovations policies can be reflective of broader societal demands. Policies that focus on creating technological clusters and improving access to international markets have contributed to significant economic gains, but also to the perception among some that these gains have not been shared equally and have contributed to the “rural-urban” divide. More recently, governments have scrambled to meet the demands imposed by the COVID-19 crisis, and protests for racial equality have raised questions about the inclusivity of Canada’s policies. There is a need to make the government more responsive and open to the needs of society, especially to members of underrepresented groups.
By making marginal improvements to existing tools and reviewing our innovation policies to make them more inclusive, we take small steps towards making our society not only more equitable, but also more efficient. Research suggests that innovation policies that improve access to an innovation system and promote collaboration between existing actors can lead to better innovation outcomes. With t his in mind, we hope that our recommendations for ExploreIP can serve as a case study in how the government can continue to improve its policies by making them more demand-driven, open, and inclusive.
This Policy Lab was presented by our MPPs on July 9, 2020. Watch the video below:
About the Authors
Ana Gama Dias
MPP Class of 2020
Mauricio Horn
MPP Class of 2020
Eunice Mercado-Lara
MPP Class of 2020
Momanyi Mokaya
MPP Class of 2020
François Provencher
MPP Class of 2020
