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OCE streamlines program offerings and teams with MaRS to deliver province's new Market Readiness Program

The Ontario Centre of Excellence (OCE) has unveiled a new uniform program structure across its five research centres and has been given an enhanced mandate to help deliver the provincial government's new $46-million Market Readiness Program (MRP). The decision to strengthen OCE's program delivery and further integrate the organization into the province's emerging research and innovation strategy and reflects Ontario's aggressive move to position itself as a key Canadian engine of innovation.

The restructuring is organized around three general themes — research, commercialization and talent (see chart) and caps a year-long process of identifying best practices within OCE with a view to harmonizing, integrating and streamlining its program offerings. The increased emphasis on multidisciplinarity encourages researchers to expand the breadth and scope of their work to all areas that the province has identified as key opportunities for future economic growth.

"Our job is to drive technologies into the marketplace and smooth the transition of talent from academic settings to the world of business. We want to enhance receptor capacity so we have 12 new initiatives that we will use to engage industry and the research world in the innovation agenda of Ontario," says OCE president and CEO Mark Romoff. "This will ensure that every opportunity is viewed from the perspective of the full OCE and engages every facet of the business equation from beginning to end."

The new program structure has been under development for the past year. A team was formed to look at the full range of existing programs and determine which activities are best practices that could be rolled out across the entire corporation.

OCE BOOSTS OUTPUTS

Key indicators demonstrate that OCE has been effective in stimulating company and job creation. OCE funding has achieved a leverage of 150% and created 20 spin-offs in the last 12 months alone. After the lengthy disruption caused by the consolidation of four separate Centres into a single corporate structure, it is now ready to exploit the new synergy for even greater impact.

"The spin-offs came out of our market readiness and accelerator programs," says Romoff. "With start-ups, we get engaged at the front end and work to help identify a CEO and senior management. Our commercialization program has performed well over the past few years."

The OCE does not provide a budget breakdown for the 12 new initiatives, but Romoff says the revamped organization has considerable flexibility when it comes to allocating its resources. By allowing the OCE a high degree of control over the budget allocation process, he says it can shift resources to respond to opportunities, capitalizing on the best ones by moving resources accordingly.

TAKING ON NEW RESPONSIBILITIES

While the re-organization of program delivery is not accompanied by new funding, the OCE is expanding its reach and influence through the MRP, delivering $46 million over four years in conjunction with the MaRS Discovery District. The MRP will disburse $29 million through its Investment Accelerator Fund and $17 million through a Business Mentorship and Entrepreneurship Program. Romoff says the OCE and MaRS are currently developing a governance structure and designing specific initiatives to achieve the desired outcomes, with a view to launch both programs this fall.

"This is incremental funding to accelerate commercialization of good ideas and start-ups. We need to put a mechanism in place that is transparent, and has clear criteria and outcomes and allows both programs to ramp up quickly," says Romoff.

In the coming weeks, the Ontario Research and Innovation Council, chaired by Dr Adam Chowaniec, will deliver its recommendations to the premier for building a strong culture of innovation in the province. And for its part, MRI will release a draft version of a new strategic plan for research and innovation, with a public release slated for later this year. The OCE is likely to figure prominently as a key implementation agent as efforts to develop a knowledge economy gather momentum.

"The OCE is at the heart of the province's innovation agenda," says Romoff. "It is the premier research-to-commercialization entity in Ontario. It's our ability to identify industry challenges and convert them with the best solutions. No other organization in Ontario, or anywhere else for that matter, has the same approach to innovation. "