B.C. urged to work with Alberta on R&D

B.C. and Alberta must work together to research and develop new technologies if Canada's economy is to remain globally competitive, says the president of the University of Alberta.

"My message is to build the knowledge economy through investment in the private and public sector," says Indira Samarasekera.

At a recent speech to the Vancouver Board of Trade, Samarasekera called on B.C. and Alberta's provincial governments, universities and energy and environmental industries to converge, collaborate, and connect on new technologies.

By working together, she added, B.C. and Alberta could build a knowledge economy that thrives on information and communications technology, nanotechnology and biotechnology, and one day neuro-technology.

Both provinces rely heavily on last-generation economies, she noted.

"Meanwhile, the rest of the world is ramping up its pursuit of future-generation replacements for what we - sitting fat and happy on - assume will be in demand forever."

Samarasekera spent 28 years as a engineering professor and vice-president of research at the University of British Columbia before she took the helm at the U of A in Edmonton two years ago.

She called on B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell's government to beef up its investment in the research and development (R&D) of new technologies, noting that Alberta's public R&D investment exceeded its western counterparts by 10 times per capita - while Ontario and Quebec have outdone Victoria by four to five times per capita.

"That's a very worrying sign, in that B.C. industries are going to require the intellectual output from research," she told reporters afterward.

While the B.C. government may have wanted to hold the line on R&D spending as it resolved its deficit, that is "no excuse, really," she says. "In the long-term, you've got to invest to reap the benefits."

But Moura Quayle, B.C.'s deputy advanced education minister, defended the government's R&D investment record.

"It depends on how you consider where we put our energies and how we do invest," said Quayle. "I'd like to think we're investing smarter."

She said the B.C. government is building its investment through new technologies, internships and graduate student scholarships.

A former dean of UBC's faculty of land and food systems, Quayle said she was excited to hear the U of A president talk about more collaboration between B.C. and Alberta.

The two provinces are already trying to develop more partnerships through their Trade Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement (TILMA), and the B.C. and Alberta advanced education ministries are also collaborating on programs, Quayle added.

"It's pretty common knowledge across Canada that the prosperity of Canadians and our well being into the future is going to depend on investment in research, investment in innovation and investment in young people," said Quayle.

Samarasekera said TILMA is a good start, but the two provinces have to do more together as China and India gain a huge economic advantage and find new energy sources, or develop their own.

"The days of cheap energy and busts in the energy market are likely over," she told the audience. "The energy boom of the future will be in identifying and developing new energy sources, like alternative fuels, hydrogen and nano-energy. At the same time, there will be a push for conservation of energy, and there will be increasing issues of national security around energy."

Samarasekera said B.C. and Alberta are outperforming the rest of Canada because of high commodity prices, but warned they could suffer in future because of their reliance on wood, pulp and paper, and oil and gas.

She noted B.C. and Alberta have boosted their R&D investments in recent years, but their total expenditures from public and private sources account for only 17 per cent of the Canadian total, while Ontario provides 44 per cent and Quebec supplies 28 per cent.

The U of A and UBC are already partnering on such facilities as the Pacific Institute for Mathematical Sciences, the Banff International Research Station and the Sustainable Forest Management Network.

Meanwhile, the U of A, University of Calgary and University of Lethbridge are teaming up on the Canada School of Energy and Environment, which received $15 million in this year's federal budget.

But according to the U of A boss, China graduates 500,000 engineers per year and the U.S. graduates 50,000, while Canada turns out a fraction of those totals.

She said the two provinces must focus on graduating more PhD students who have entrepreneurial, management and public-policy skills rather than steering them only to employment at post-secondary institutions.

Darcy Rezac, managing director of the Vancouver Board of Trade, agreed B.C. should make a much bigger research investment.

The province has not kept up with research funding levels, he said, because B.C. has been able to "poach talented resources from elsewhere, because this is the best place in the world in which to live and work."

"We have centres of excellence," said Rezac. "We're doing very well with what we've got, but we have the capacity to do far more research (and) turn out many more graduate students and PhDs."

Alan Winter, president and CEO of Genome BC, said there must be a willingness to do joint programs between B.C. and Alberta "because the (Rocky) mountains are a big barrier."

"We do face a lot of common problems, and those problems become opportunities," said Winter.

Genome BC, which manages $700 million worth of life-science projects in forestry, fisheries, environment, energy and other sectors, receives 46 per cent of its funding from the federal government, 23 per cent from the province and the rest from industry, international foundations and other groups.

He said the B.C. government has made significant investments in R&D on a one-time basis, but both Ottawa and the provinces can still do more.

Jock Finlayson, executive vice-president and chief economist for the Business Council of British Columbia, said the U of A president's call for more partnerships between the provinces is "quite timely" considering the recent implementation of TILMA, and B.C. and Alberta's collaboration on such issues as the pine-beetle epidemic.

"Alberta has got a tremendous amount of funding that they've put aside for research - much more than we have been able to do provincially," said Finlayson. "So to some extent, working with Alberta could be a great way to leverage our more limited dollars in British Columbia."

He said most provincial governments have tended to look to Ottawa to provide the bulk of research funding.

But industries on which the province has depended in the past may not be the ones that grow in the future.

"We're getting the message," said Finlayson. "It's a question of what's doable with the dollars."

(Monte Stewart can be reached at monte@businessedge.ca)