QUEBEC – The Quebec government has released a new research and innovation strategy, backed up by $888 million of additional spending over three years, part of which will go to information communications and technology (ICT).
Recognizing that research and innovation are more crucial than ever, the strategy will devote $400 million to public and industrial research, and to strengthen measures encouraging the transfer of research findings.
Another $420 million will be spent on research infrastructure, and about $80 million will support research by businesses through changes to existing tax credits.
The strategy, outlined this week by Premier Jean Charest and Economic Development and Innovation Minister Raymond Bachand, was welcomed by the International Institute of Telecommunications (IIT). The Opposition Parti Québécois, however, dismissed it as “improvisation, not innovation”, and said the new spending comes after three years of reduced research investment.
“At a time when international competition is more and more fierce, Quebec must ensure its place among knowledge-based economies. This requires the participation of all sectors, because a society cannot innovate without the collaboration of public research, industry, and the state,” Charest said.
The government’s funding will give priority to “targeted strategic technologies”, such as nanotechnologies, ICTs, optics and photonics, genomics, energy, and leading edge materials, the strategy says. “And that’s because of their potential economic spin-off and the importance to Quebec of maintaining comparative advantages to ensure that federal government investments in these fields are made in Quebec.”
Marketing will be a focal point, the document says, “because without it, research initiatives have no future.” Indeed, over half of the new funding will go towards marketing, meaning the development of research findings and transfers to businesses and organizations.
Louis Brunel, president and CEO of the IIT, said in a statement the new strategy will “positively affect the development of Quebec’s competitiveness in its key technological sectors, including the ICT sector.”
Brunel noted with satisfaction that the strategy adopts one of the Institute’s proposals, giving masters and doctoral students access to grants that will allow them to undertake research internships in industrial settings, including IIT-Research.
IIT-Research is an industrial research consortium focussed on wire-based and wireless communications pre-competitive research.
“This will create a new dynamic in our industries and improve our ability to innovate, as is currently happening elsewhere in the world,” he said. “Despite generous tax credit programs, Quebec’s society had gradually become a major user of technology that was developed elsewhere. The new government strategy should help reverse this trend,” he said.
Glenn Wanamaker is Cartt.ca’s Quebec Editor, based in Quebec City.
