Dr David Strangway

Canadian Foundation for Innovation
From the ALERT editorial, March 4th 2004.

Dr David Strangway, Chief Executive and President of the Canadian Foundation for Innovation is in the luxurious position of having been assigned NZ$3.9 billion to spend on strengthening Canadian research capability. While this figure might seem remarkable from a New Zealand point of view, more remarkable is the fact that this has been done without any national research priority setting.

The government has taken a hands-off approach and the investments are investigator-led. Each university, hospital or college was asked to come up with its own research plan, which gets them thinking about how to strengthen their own capabilities. The applications for funds are then aligned to the plans of each institute.

Another key point is that Canada, long seen as less entrepreneurial than the US, seems to be doing rather well at commercialisation. Per dollar spent on research, Canadian universities produce twice as many spin-off companies as US universities. Dr Strangway believes that this is because Canadian universities are not already surrounded by keen, receptive companies to take up the IP generated by research.