Down the Rabbithole: from research, to innovation, to strategy

Earlier this year, the Advisory Panel on the Federal Research Support System released a report on the state of research & innovation (R&I) funding in Canada. In a foreword to the full document, the panel sounded a warning:

Canada does not have the requisite structures in place to leverage R&I to its full potential, and this shortcoming puts us in a “precarious situation.”

In a podcast interview earlier this year, where he discussed some of the report’s key findings, panel chair Frédéric Bouchard made a clear and compelling case about the challenges we’re facing. And the overarching impression that he left me with was this: these challenges that we’re feeling in the research & innovation ecosystem—they’re actually the visible signs of a deeper issue. Canada’s R&I aches and pains are actually the symptoms of an underlying strategy disorder. And in the face of unprecedented environmental, social and health challenges, our country’s lack of a cohesive vision for the future is putting us at real risk.

Let me explain.

Canada's strategic vacuum

Canada invests a lot in R&I — over $40 billion each year , in fact. And yet we’re below the OECD average, and it’s getting worse. (This in spite of hundreds of millions of additional dollars committed by the federal government just 5 years ago.) So what’s going on? How can we be putting that much money into research but still be falling behind in innovation?

Simply put, there is no wider mission or plan underlying our research spending. Canada invests heavily in research through investigator-driven mechanisms, with comparatively little through mission-driven research mechanisms. And where we do fund mission-driven work, our missions are all wobbly and amorphous. This lack of clarity leaves researchers needing to do a lot of the heavy lifting to articulate how their work is in the interests of Canada—because there isn’t a clear vision articulated of Canadian interests, or Canada’s future, for those researchers to tie back to in making their case.

Strategy is about a clear, coherent and consistent set of choices that will (if our assumptions about the world hold true) help move us towards the goal that we want to achieve. And of course our choices mean nothing if we don’t put them into practice through our behaviour, our actions.

What are some of the factors Bouchard laid out that point to beyond R&I, to a deeper lack of strategy? Here are some that stood out to me in particular, because they suggest that underlying strategy is lacking:

• ?? International partners don’t consider Canada to be a “priority research partner nation.” Why not? Because they don’t see a clear trajectory to our research efforts and don’t trust that we’ll sustain the necessary commitment to see joint research efforts through to completion. We lack the consistency that leads to reliability.
• ?? There’s no incentive for businesses to invest in research. Canada has had perpetually low research & development investment from the business sector , with a huge portion of spending (relative to other countries' ratios) coming from the government instead. As Bouchard points out, there’s a simple reason why businesses aren’t investing proportionately in R&D here: because they can afford not to! Canada is not creating an ecosystem to promote the emergence of its future economy, which means that for businesses there is little incentive to adapt their trajectory to the national vision (and little disincentive to stand pat). We lack the coherence of choices that gets everyone rowing in the same direction.
• ?? We treat R&I as a “luxury good” of an advanced economy, when in fact, it’s a crucial engine of continuing development—one that’s necessary to propel our economy forward. This conception of R&I as merely a privilege of wealthy nations may stem from the lacklustre impact of Canada’s R&I investments. But the underlying truth, which remains unspoken, is that without a clear direction for our economy, R&D will only ever be able to deliver mediocre value. Without a destination, no wind is ill or favourable; it just blows (I’m pretty sure that’s how Seneca said it). We lack a clear destination.

One final point I want to highlight is Bouchard’s note that in the United States (and elsewhere), defense strategies and industrial strategies are integrated with research & innovation strategies. This flows naturally from the point above about R&D being an important engine conducting us towards our future. And the inverse is also true—

Research strategies need to be integrated into strategies for the economy, defense, the environment, and more. But that’s impossible if there is no broader vision: there’s simply nothing for R&I to tie back to.

Renewing innovation in Canada

Bouchard’s major conclusion is that Canada needs to be more ambitious—and I agree. He made that remark about research & innovation, but I’d take it even further. What we need is leadership, and this needs to extend beyond R&I.?

• ?? We need clarity about the direction that we’re setting for ourselves as a country, and focus in pursuing that agenda.
• ?? We also need very broad support for this strategy across society, because no group can make this happen alone.
• ???????? And such a galvanizing vision needs to be built together. This isn’t a man-with-the-plan kind of situation.
• ?? We need leaders humble enough to see the limitations of anything they cook up alone, considerate enough to bring people together and help us all navigate what will surely be difficult conversations, and dedicated enough to stick with it when people invariably punish those leaders for trying.

Research & innovation can be an important part of the solution, but it can’t drive.

The research & innovation ecosystem is not actually built to help us define our collective future, though it has a key role to play in helping us to realize that ambition.

Some potential objections, and replies

? ”Aren’t we already doing this? We’ve got industrial policy.”

That’s true, we do have industrial policy . But policy ≠ strategy. Policy is just a set of rules about the action we take. Strategy is about how those actions fit together—as noted above, it’s a set of choices that is clear, coherent and consistent. These choices are informed by a direction that we choose, an objective we set for ourselves. So while yes, we definitely have industrial policy (we are taking some actions and not others), that doesn’t imply that we have an industrial strategy (that our actions make sense together and provide a credible path to our goal).

? ”We don’t want the government ‘picking winners.’"

There are a few layers to the response that I’d give here.?

1?? The first is that “government picking winners” suggests that government is acting alone in determining industrial strategy, and I simply deny that setting industrial strategy (or strategy in any other priority area) is something that government should do in isolation. Government has a key role to play in convening and facilitating conversation, but ultimately it is a societal conversation that needs to take place to set these objectives. Otherwise the strategy is likely to be less informed and to lack the necessary backing to get put into practice.?

2?? The second layer is about the difference between problem framing and solution development. We can come together collectively through the mechanism of government to have a conversation about what problems we want to solve and what goals we want to set for ourselves, and come together through the mechanism of a free market to decide which solutions show the most promise. To complete the analogy, we can use the market to pick winners, and use government to establish the goals and rules of the game. (And by the way, market rules are established and enforced by government already, so what I’m proposing here is just that we do it in a more collective and intentional fashion. We actually can’t operate without rules, we have embedded economies .)?

3?? Finally, I’d point out that the United States is much more intentional about industrial policy than Canada is, and has been for decades. If it’s not too socialist for the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, then it’s surely fair game for genteel, left-leaning Canada.

???? “Can’t the US just do it for us and we’ll get pulled along in their wake?”

No. As the last few years have shown, we should expect the US to put its own interests first. They’re our neighbours, not our parents. We’re likely to enjoy some benefits from being a key ally of a country that’s doing strategy well and has a hugely influential position internationally, and we would be very wise to clearly align our strategy with theirs because ultimately being so close to the US is indeed like sleeping next to an elephant. But ultimately we need to be masters of our own destiny.

Takeaways

While this piece emerged from a conversation about research & innovation, the tune I’m humming here is one of strategy and leadership. It’s definitely got political notes to it, but the overall melody isn’t partisan—it reflects my views on what all political hopefuls should be offering to the citizenry, regardless of which party they might represent. (And in that sense it’s a call for everybody to stop whistling dixie.)

What do I hope that people will take away from this piece?

• I hope that folks with an interest in research & innovation will see the value in Bouchard’s recommendations. The work of Bouchard and his co-panelists offers an opportunity for Canada to take a big step forward in R&I. But their recommendations need to be supported by a deeper, more thoughtful look at strategy. (That’s no knock on them by the way; that deeper look is well beyond the mandate they were given!)
• I hope that people come away with a better understanding of what strategy means. We need a clear vision of what we want to achieve (which R&I supports), and to support that vision with coherent and consistent choices about how we’ll get there.
• I hope that Canadians feel renewed ambition and confidence about what we’re capable of. We’re in an incredibly lucky position, and we’re playing from a very advantageous position—we’ve got such an opportunity to build a future for ourselves! (And we can actually get a lot done, when we put our minds to it, much more than we usually assume is possible.)
• And finally, I hope that some would-be leaders out there find in this piece the last ounce of encouragement they need to start down the path of public service. The ways that the political world has operated may have been well adapted to the challenges of the past. But the challenges of the future call for new ways of working, new ways of leading. If you feel a deep-seated frustration—that better must surely be possible—then I hope that these words might give you a little nudge to roll up your sleeves and make change happen.