What are your observations about OCE and its operations, as you’ve been acquainting yourself with your new job?
Our mandate has changed slightly, with the new focus from MRI (the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation), our main funder, on allocating research funding dollars on projects that will have the greatest economic outcomes for industry. These are projects that will help create a global competitive advantage and new wealth in Ontario that will result in more high-value jobs. In many ways it’s business as usual, but we’re placing even greater emphasis on research outcomes that will advance industry by turning great ideas into globally competitive products and services.
Could you elaborate a bit on the new mandate from MRI?
Historically the funding we received for research projects was allocated among our five Centres of Excellence that cover key areas of convergence: Materials and Manufacturing, Earth and Environmental Technologies, Communication & Information Technology, Energy and Photonics. Each Centre was responsible for assessing the best projects within their sector of expertise. Going forward, future research opportunities will be assessed not just within the specific Centre where they originated, but by evaluating them among all our potential projects across our Centres. This process will further enhance our efforts to invest in research projects that have the greatest overall potential for successful commercialization. This will be achieved by OCE delivering the Industry-Academic Collaboration Program (IACP) and services that are designed to leverage the full capacity of our research universities and colleges so they can accelerate the process of driving their world-class research discoveries into the marketplace.
What priorities do you see over the short term for OCE?
The short-term priority right now is to make sure we’re hand-in-glove with what the funders, provincial and federal, are looking for, and the way we’re structured to deal with them. And connected with that, we’re developing our business plan to deal with the new directions.
Do you see any areas of new technology with particular promise / deserving special attention? Does OCE do any steering on this subject, or does it rely on researchers to come forth with new technologies?
There’s so much going on now with solar power, green energy and wind turbines. There’s also a great deal of focus on water. Over the past 23 years, OCE has developed a strong reputation for responding to changes in technologies as they occur. And one of the mandates we received from MRI, besides the areas we’re currently focused on, like manufacturing and the others, is to continue to identify and respond to new opportunities as they arise. One of my priorities is to ensure that OCE continues to remain nimble during this transition period, so we can continue to successfully analyze and assess new opportunities that will further advance Ontario’s innovation agenda.
Solar power, wind, there’s a huge push on energy these days. We also see a merging of a lot of sciences these days. We have a centre focused on IT, but we see it being deployed across all areas, for example in smart grid applications. Water and energy are increasingly working together, whereas before water was mostly about environment. So we’re seeing a lot of cross-pollination.
Have you been able to speak much with the individual entrepreneurs as you’ve been fitting into your new role?
I was doing that for many years when I was director of commercialization at the University of Toronto and associate vice president of commercialization at Waterloo, where my job was to deal with the researchers. That’s going to be a big role for us. OCE may be viewed by some as merely a research funder, but in fact we’ve achieved great success in actively identifying specific industry challenges and connecting them with the right academic researchers who are on the verge of developing the “next big thing.” Going forward that role is going to become even more crucial because industry often doesn’t know all of the amazing research that our universities are producing and how it can impact their businesses. It’s part of our job to walk the halls of the research institutions and make sure we know what’s going on, because industry can’t ask for what they don’t know about. So our business model isn’t going to change greatly, but more than ever we need to ensure that the research we fund at our universities and colleges is having a direct positive impact on industry.
Do you have any figures on how much of Ontario’s emerging economy will come from professors in universities who started developing an idea?
I don’t have any specific figures, but I can tell you that there is more available than ever before for commercialization. And I’m talking cutting-edge technologies from Ontario’s universities and colleges that have the potential to establish Ontario as a world leader in several sectors. We’ve always been great at supporting the research, but in the past there’s been somewhat of a disconnect with the commercialization of these technologies for a variety of reasons. The launch of the Ontario Networks of Excellence (ONE) addresses these issues by enabling all the pieces of our innovation sector to work together in a more strategic, coordinated and client-focused way.
Where is the Ontario Networks of Excellence (ONE) at now, since former Minister Wilkinson called for its formation?
What happened was the province got people from industry, academia, and venture capital to move forward with a set of programs and infrastructure. ONE will streamline the innovation process in Ontario, so that it works the way it should. It will be a game changer for Ontario. It’s a rationalization and a coordination of all the resources that have been available in the past and a fine-tuning of where the money’s going to be spent, with OCE supporting the research side and MaRS supporting the small company startup side, as the two key agencies in the network.
The window into ONE will be the Regional Innovation Centres and Sector Innovation Centres (RICS and SICs). Currently Ontario has economic development corporations like OCRI (see “Ontario’s innovation network,” in the online version of this issue), that help bring businesses and researchers together to help local technology companies thrive. The ONE’s RICs and SICs will be announced later this year. Comprised from a select number of these economic development organizations, they will work together to effectively deliver core programs, build connections and contribute to regional economic development. Together these RICs and SICs will form a mesh network that shares knowledge and resources throughout the ONE. The goal is that no matter where an innovator is located, they will have access to the best resources and expertise available in this province so they can unlock the full potential of their ideas.
Is industry in general sufficiently aware of the resources available? For example, a developer with a small hydro site, who could use some of the latest technology available. Would you be involved in pushing that out to them?
Absolutely. We want to have these companies deal with us, help us identify what their needs are, and we’ll have the feet on the street both at the company and the research institution level.
Much of the intellectual property originated in the universities. The more sophisticated players, and some of the smaller ones, are very much aware of what we do, but we certainly need to do a better job of letting industry know what resources we provide, and we need to make sure we’re involved with as many as possible so as to find the best research in the universities, and the best homes for it in industry.
Is the level of funding available, both through you and directly through the provincial and federal governments, sufficient – and similarly is the level of investment from venture capital sufficient?
Well, there’s never enough venture capital and that will be further reduced once the Labour Sponsored Investment Funds (LSIF) tax credit is eliminated at the end of the 2011 tax year. However, the provincial government is replacing the LSIF with two other programs, one a co-investor, and the other to provide money to other venture capitalists that are having trouble raising funds. But there’s still a real challenge with capital being available at the early stages.
The lack of venture capital investment, especially in early-stage research, is often because the research coming out of our universities and colleges is still not at a stage where venture capitalists feel comfortable supporting. That is where OCE plays a pivotal role by de-risking these ventures through financial support, helping to find the right executive, or providing expertise in guiding a start-up down the commercialization path.
Much of our success comes from reducing the risk in the deals we get involved in by taking the R&D as far as it can go. Once that’s achieved venture capitalists are much more willing to get involved. We’ve launched 121 startups over the years, and they’ve generated $730 million in follow-on investment. It’s very unlikely that would have occurred if OCE wasn’t involved.
In addition to its other functions, OCE has taken on the role of bringing new talent into the various sectors it works with. How is that working?
That works great. We always say the best tech transfer is the people leaving university and getting jobs. Much of that talent, frankly, winds up in the United States. Microsoft hires more from the University of Waterloo than any other university in the world, which speaks to the level of talent we’re producing, but we seem to do a better job placing people in the US than here. We need to deal with that, and I hope that our programs will facilitate keeping these people at home.
Background on Tom Corr
Tom Corr, the Ontario Centres of Excellence new President and CEO, has a long resumé in commercializing innovation in Ontario. He was CEO of the Accelerator Centre at the Waterloo Research and Technology Park and Associate Vice-President of Commercialization at the University of Waterloo. Previously, he was Director of Commercialization – IT & Communications at the University of Toronto.
In his role at the AC, Tom was responsible for overseeing the mentoring, advice, and training that is provided to the 25 early-stage companies that are located at the AC, with a goal of creating successful start-up companies that create economic development for the community and wealth for the company founders and investors. In his role at UW, Tom’s primary responsibility was the management of the protection and commercialization of intellectual property developed by the researchers and students at UW.
Tom’s career also includes over 30 years in the IT sector including positions as Managing Partner at Catalyst Partnership; founder and CEO of Momentum Systems; founder and CEO of Applied Development Corp., and President of Canadian Data Processing Corp.
In addition to his responsibilities at the University of Waterloo, Tom is also an Industry Professor at McMaster University.
Tom’s education includes a Doctor of Business Administration degree from Henley Management College/Brunel University in England, an MBA from the University of Toronto, and an Advanced Post Graduate Degree in Management Consultancy from Henley Management College. Tom has also completed his certification as a corporate director by the Institute of Corporate Directors and holds the ICD.D designation.
For other articles in this feature, see the following related stories:
• Ontario research companies taking on the world
• Ontario Centres of Excellence - ready to respond
• Ontario’s burgeoning research infrastructure
• Stories on the MaRS centre , Making the grid even smarter and biomass work at Atikokan
• How to get more value out of a transmission line / Pushing the limits of what the grid can carry