(Montreal) Quebec is “losing control” over the outcome of its public investments in innovation. Supported by taxpayers’ money, the opportunities for Quebec researchers too often end up in the hands of foreign companies, deplores a report from the Institute for Research in Contemporary Economy (IREC).
This is particularly the case for the digital economy, where American giants dominate, specifies IREC researcher Éric N. Duhaime in an interview. “We do not seem to benefit perfectly, fully, from all the benefits of this innovation research carried out in Quebec,” says the author of the study.
The 70-page report calls it a “nightmarish” situation. In 2020, only 40% of patented innovations designed by Quebec researchers were done on behalf of a person or organization in the province. “It is clearly a form of loss of influence, of loss of control, over our capacity for innovation,” judges Mr. Duhaime.
Despite public investments, Quebec is losing control over scientific breakthroughs that “could have spin-offs here.” “Sometimes, it can even prevent us from doing further research on these objects in the future because the intellectual property becomes foreign. »
Universities struggle to monetize their participation when they transfer their intellectual property to the private sector, whether through a patent or the creation of a new start-up company, believes Mr. Duhaime.
Transferring research to the private sector is a costly operation for universities due in particular to the legal costs necessary for the process, argues the researcher. “It’s a zero-sum game most of the time. If we achieve [budgetary] balance, we are happy. »
There are exceptions. The report gives the example of ACELP, a speech compression technology used by mobile telephony developed by the University of Sherbrooke. This project would have generated benefits of nearly 225 million for the university thanks to various agreements signed with telecommunications companies.
The researcher also deplores the fact that in Quebec there is no systematic inventory of research transfers from universities to the private sector, which makes the picture of the situation incomplete.
“We are surprisingly referred to an American association which does this work for universities in the United States,” says Mr. Duhaime. It also includes Canadian universities and three Quebec universities (McGill, University of Montreal and University of Sherbrooke). »
“With the amounts we invest in innovation in Quebec, we must give ourselves the means to see clearly what is happening with all these technological developments,” he continues.
The researcher does not believe that the Quebec Strategy for Research and Investment in Innovation (SQRI2) for the years 2022 to 2027 will correct the situation. This policy lacks “a clear, firm framework” regarding intellectual property resulting from research financed with public funds, according to him.
Mr. Duhaime pleads in favor of a “compensation principle” in the grant criteria, which would ensure that research funded by the public sector has spinoffs in Quebec.
He proposes the creation of a sovereign patent fund, as exists in France, Japan and South Korea. “The general idea is to say: we put in the same pool all of our patents which will be administered by an organization. Then, governments, civil society organizations and local businesses can draw from this pool by paying reasonable licensing fees. »
