Report cards

Innovation is a difficult sell. At best it’s happening in a garage somewhere: a uni dropout in Connies, developing a billion dollar app that I don’t understand, and won’t impact me directly. At worst, it’s Uber: a disruptive force that no one told me was coming, and has now cost me my job. For the individual, innovation sits somewhere between irrelevant and adverse.

Over the last couple of weeks, Canada and the USA each released a report card on their respective governments were addressing innovation and science. A fortnight ago, the Canadian Government released their 100 page Building a Nation of Innovators. This was followed last week by the White House’s 28 page Science and Technology Highlights. Both reports speak to their respective narratives and the case for why innovation, science and technology are so important for their citizens.

Reading the report cards side by side shows a how different the two countries’ approaches to innovation policy is, as well as the yard sticks they use to measure impact. 

Canada’s vision for their innovation system uses language that is not unlike that of NISA or the ISA 2030 plan: emphasising an end goal of prosperity and growth. While the US has some similar tenants (good jobs for example), American exceptionalism is at the forefront; ultimately the US wants to “win” the innovation race (whatever that means).

• The Office of Science and Technology Policy is charged with advising the President on how his Administration can effectively support the development and application of science and technology (S&T) for the benefit of the American people, the creation of new jobs and industries, the security of our homeland, the well-being of our Nation, and the prosperity of our people. The Trump Administration is ensuring the future is built in America by American workers for the good of the American people and true to American values.

• Innovation is the key to competitiveness, productivity, economic growth, creating good jobs, and overall making life better for all Canadians. To become one of the most innovative countries in the world, Canada must build a culture of innovation, where Canadians can embrace change and have the right skill sets and tools to leverage emerging opportunities to compete in the global economy.

The US doesn’t have a national innovation strategy per se. Rather it has a series of national strategies developed around technologies and issues. They are generally complementary and on occasion cross reference one another, but they’re far from a joined up approach to solve an overarching problem. Canada’s Innovation and Skills Plan on the other hand, attempts to do just that. Themed around people, the ecosystem, finance and regulation, the Plan umbrellas large and small policy initiatives around a central narrative.

• OSTP has had an eye to the future, developing national strategies on education and emerging technology that have positioned America for success for generations to come. We restructured and streamlined Federal interagency collaboration on Research and Development (R&D) through the National Science and Technology Council. And we developed a new vision for ocean science and technology and released national strategies for 5G, advanced manufacturing, quantum information science, and STEM literacy for jobs of the future.

• The multi-year Innovation and Skills Plan is Canada’s response to this new reality, redefining the innovation ecosystem. The Plan builds on Canada’s innovation strengths and addresses areas of weakness along the innovation continuum: from people and skills, through to fundamental and applied research, building innovation ecosystems, commercializing ideas and starting-up companies, to exporting and scaling-up globally competitive companies across all sectors of the economy.

In some ways its not fair to directly compare the initiatives of the two countries. The difference in scale both limits and avails the policies that the two nations can pursue. Constitutional powers and federal structures also play a role in what can and can’t be done.

For most of the policy measures, its still far too early to really know what impact they’re having on the economy. Most are long term investments that will take many, many years to pay off. Nonetheless, Canada’s report card is littered with indicative facts and figures about the number of firms enrolled in programs and the number of jobs expected to be created. They really double down on the difference being (attempted) made. The US’ report meanwhile – which, to be fair is less of a glossy – is an impressive list of “getting on with the job” statements: “Driving innovation in bioscience”, “Achieving energy dominance”, “Developing the next wave of AI technologies”. These statements might have less relevance to the average Jane, but do play well into the America first rhetoric.