Make new media, wireless, broadband and telecom top research priorities: national body urges

New media, wireless, broadband and telecom equipment could see more federal funding for research and development if Industry Canada acts on recommendations released last week by a government advisory body. However, boosting R&D spending for ICT will not be enough to save Canada's struggling IT and telecom sectors, Canada's largest high tech lobby group warns. New media, wireless, broadband and telecom equipment could see more federal funding for research and development if Industry Canada acts on recommendations released last week by a government advisory body. However, boosting R&D spending for ICT will not be enough to save Canada's struggling IT and telecom sectors, Canada's largest high tech lobby group warns.Some 15 months after the release of Canada's Science & Technology Strategy, which tagged ICT as one of four priority research areas for Canada, the Science, Technology and Innovation Council (STIC) has identified which sectors within those broad categories should receive special attention from agencies within the Industry Canada portfolio.Those sub-priorities within the ICT sector are: new media, animation and games; wireless networks and services; broadband networks; and telecom equipment.How can companies operating within these sectors expect to benefit? Mark Henderson, managing editor of Research Money, a national publication covering S&T policy, says it's still unclear how these recommendations will translate into tangible benefits for the ICT sector."Fleshing out the priority areas of Canada's S&T Strategy is obviously a good first step but you still require mechanisms to implement and that's where this government is seriously deficient," he contends. "The government has eliminated or reduced virtually all programs that used to provide pre-competitive assistance to ICT businesses. Technology Partnerships Canada was scrapped and the budget of the National Research Council's Industrial Research Assistance Program (NRC-IRAP) is pitifully small.""Even one of the government's new programs - the Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research - released its first slate of awards and not one ICT proposal was funded," he adds. "The reaction from the community has been so strong that another competition has been launched that gives priority to ICT."The latest data from Statistics Canada show that federal funding of R&D is either stagnant or in decline. If this trend continues, any new money targeted to these ICT priorities will likely come from the existing budgets of agencies such as the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Networks of Centres of Excellence, NRC-IRAP and possibly the Business Development Bank of Canada.R&D only part of solutionMaking ICT - and more specifically new media, wireless, broadband and telecom - research priorities is only a fraction of what is needed to prevent Canada from continuing to look more like a branch office or subsidiary of an American enterprise, according to a report prepared this summer for CATA Alliance by Terry Matthews, chair of March Networks Corp. and a member of STIC.The report, entitled The Challenge of Survival for Canada's ICT Sector, warns that Canada's IT and telecom sector is in "serious trouble", plagued by ineffective investment conditions that hinder start-up companies from going from seed capital for R&D, to secondary financing for commercialization, to an IPO to grow into an international business. It includes 18 recommendations for growing high tech in Canada."The most critical factor impacting the Canadian technology community at present is no doubt the serious lack of access to venture capital, at all stages of the life of a company," the report states. "Canadian capital markets have largely stopped investing in high-tech SMEs (small- and medium-sized enterprises), and Canada still has significant artificial blockages to foreign VC investment."Compounding the problem, it adds, is a high Canadian dollar which is making Canada an expensive country to conduct R&D.CATA president/CEO John Reid agrees the ICT sectors identified by STIC are important, but warns that it can be risky when governments attempt to pick winners. Instead, he says Canada needs the right mix of investment conditions that will allow all types of high tech companies to succeed."What's important is to set the conditions so that the next Google will be created in Canada. If you want to mobilize the creative talent of Canadians it's much more on creating conditions which enable or facilitate people to grow businesses in Canada than it is on selecting key sectors. You have to look beyond ICT to include all advanced tech sectors and how to make them all successful," he tells Tech Media Reports.What's also needed, adds Reid, is for all political parties in this election to articulate a vision that strives to make Canada a more high tech, progressive, innovative and entrepreneurial country. "I really don't see that message coming out in a powerful way form any of our political parties."Henderson agrees, saying federal S&T policy needs to address all the gaps in the innovation cycle if these ICT industries are compete internationally. This includes helping companies develop prototypes, boosting government procurement of Canadian-made technologies, and providing assistance with marketing and distribution to help companies go global. He also urges the federal government to revive its leadership in championing traditional tech strengths."That means telecom, broadband and other areas of ICT that are growing rapidly like new media and animation. In the past few years Canada has lost its world-leading edge in broadband and that has to be addressed," says Henderson.ICT companies among Canada's top R&D spenders#1 Nortel Networks Corp. - $2.199 billion#2 BCE Inc. - $1.394 billion#5 ATI Technologies Inc. - $481 million#6 IBM Canada Ltd. - $360 million#10 Alcatel-Lucent - $187 million#11 Research in Motion Ltd. - $179 million#14 Ericsson Canada Inc. - $152 million#18 Cognos Inc. - $130 million#19 Telus Corp. - $130 millionSource: Top 100 Corporate R&D Spenders List 2007 (Research Infosource)

Make new media, wireless, broadband and telecom top research priorities: national body urges

News | 09/08/2008 7:15 pm EDT

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