Innovation for the 99% / Innovation pour les 99%

David Phipps, RIR-York

The Government of Canada has reviewed business innovation and released a report containing recommendations for business innovation leading to wealth creation. David Phipps ResearchImpact-RéseauImpactRecherche re-imagines these recommendations for the 99%.

Le Gouvernement du Canada a évalué l’innovation des entreprises et a publié un rapport contenant des recommandations portant sur la création de richesse par l’innovation en entreprise. David Phipps du RéseauImpactRecherche- ResearchImpact repense ces recommandations pour les 99%.

On Tuesday October 18 the Federal Government released its Expert Panel Report on the Review of Federal Support to Research and Development (R&D). Titled “Innovation Canada – A Call to Action” the report was the culmination of a review of federal support for business led R&D. It made a number of recommendations for federal action. It is clearly a report designed to maximize wealth creation in Canada.  The Chair of the Expert Panel, Tom Jenkins, was explicit about this in his remarks to a packed luncheon at the Delta Chelsea Hotel. ResearchImpact-RéseauImpactRecherche (RIR) was there.

Canada, like many nations, is experiencing protests to raise awareness of the 99%, or the growing gap of income disparity. This report was released to a room full of black, grey and blue suits on the same day that a group with more colour in their clothing and skin was marching on Bay Street. I found these two events to be an incongruous juxtaposition. To be fair, Tom Jenkins mentioned cross-sectoral collaboration in his remarks but this is as close as he came to mentioning Canada’s vibrant community sector which is actively supporting the 99%.

When will we see a national call to action for social innovation, a form of innovation that seeks to create new solutions to persistent social, cultural and environmental challenges? We have often written that knowledge mobilization (the process) results in social innovations (the outcome). Some of Canada’s universities such as those in the RIR network are investing in KMb services. RIR supports a national call to action for innovation for the 99%? The Canadian Task Force on Social Finance was a good start. It focused on innovation in impact investing which is necessary, but not sufficient, for social innovation.

Had the federal government undertaken a review of federal spending on social programs and produced a report it would contain recommendations for action.  Imagining such a report, the recommendations from Innovation Canada – A Call to Action are reinterpreted here for the 99%.

Recommendation	Re-imagined Recommendation
Create an Industrial Research and Innovation Council (IRIC), with a clear business innovation mandate (including delivery of business-facing innovation programs, development of a business innovation talent strategy, and other duties over time), and enhance the impact of programs through consolidation and improved whole-of-government evaluation.	Create a Community Research and Innovation Council with a strong focus on campus-community collaboration. Have a three tiered strategy including research, training and knowledge mobilization. This strategy would include a focus on metrics to be able to measure and report on success. This Council would work closely with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Canadian Federation of Humanities and Social Sciences and the United Way-Centraide Canada as well as other leaders in Canada’s social/community sector.
Simplify the SR&ED program by basing the tax credit for SMEs on labour-related costs. Redeploy funds from the tax credit to a more complete set of direct support initiatives to help SMEs grow into larger, competitive firms.	Create a tax system that provides incentives for investment in social innovation and social enterprise (see the Canadian Task Force on Social Finance). Revise laws governing non-profits such as Ontario’s Not-For-Profit Corporations Act which now allows not-for-profits to make a profit from commercial operations so long as those are reinvested into the organization.
Make business innovation one of the core objectives of procurement, with the supporting initiatives to achieve this objective.	Reframe spending on social programs into an investment in (“procurement of”) social services. Demand a social return on investment and create incentives so that continued investment is dependent on success as demonstrated by agreed upon metrics.
Transform the institutes of the National Research Council (NRC) into a constellation of large-scale, sectoral collaborative R&D centres involving business, the university sector and the provinces, while transferring NRC public policy-related research activity to the appropriate federal agencies.	Learning from the NCE New Initiatives in Knowledge Mobilization, invest in an expanded mandate for the National Research Council and the Networks of Centres of Excellence to support national networks of social innovators that include community, university/college, government and private sector partners.
Help high-growth innovative firms access the risk capital they need through the establishment of new funds where gaps exist.	Canadian Task Force on Social Finance – one place the social sector seems to be leading.
Establish a clear federal voice for innovation, and engage in a dialogue with the provinces to improve coordination and impact.	A federal minister for innovation must have two portfolios for commercial and social innovation but two portfolios that are not siloed. These two portfolios must enable collaboration across sectors.

This is what I imagine these recommendations to be. Recommendations for the Government of Canada to invest in innovation for the 99%. I suggest Canada saves the money it would have spent on a social sector R&D review and invest it in seeding action on some of these recommendations.

researchimpact cartoon / une bande dessinée du réseauimpactrecherche

First posted by Research Counseling on October 21, 2011.

http://researchcounselling.wordpress.com 

Mental Health for York and York / La santé mentale à York et York

By David Phipps, RIR-York

On Friday October 7, 2011, York University’s Faculty of Health and Faculty of Education invited researchers and educators to meet with representatives of York Region’s community mental health agencies. It was intended to be a day of priority setting for York U and York Region.  It was a day of knowledge mobilization and ResearchImpact-RéseauImpactRecherche (RIR)-York was there.

Le 7 octobre 2011, la Faculté de la Santé ainsi que la Faculté d’Éducation de l’Université York ont invité chercheurs et éducateurs à rencontrer les représentants des agences de santé mentale de la région de York. La rencontre se voulait une occasion d’établir les priorités pour l’Université de York et la région de York (York x York = York2). C’était une journée de mobilisation des connaissances et RéseauImpactRecherche-York y était.

There were about 40 of us in the room at the Markham Convergence Centre, slightly more community than university folks.  The university members were almost all faculty with a couple of project staff and knowledge brokers thrown in.  The community members came from across the mental health support spectrum and from across York Region. The goal was to start a conversation about mental health in people 0-25 years old. We started from the position that York University is part of York Region.  Not only do many York U staff, faculty and students live in York Region but many high school students with mental health experiences will move from the school system to York University creating an opportunity to provide a continuum of mental health supports and services.

Pat Bradshaw (Schulich School of Business) was retained to guide the group from introductions to decisions. She started us out in assigned roundtable discussions of 4-8 people per table discussing trends, gaps and opportunities for mental health services in York Region. She then used a nominal group technique to move quickly through group report back allowing each group to build on comments previously provided and avoid duplication. The group then used a dotmocracy technique to prioritize opportunities. The fun continued with two “open spaces” (=unconference) where individuals identified issues they felt relevant to the prioritized opportunities and agreed to host and report back on the outcomes of their sessions.

While the notes are still in development what happened was classic knowledge exchange, a component of knowledge mobilization.  Groups of mental health stakeholders came together to share information, develop trust and create relationships that may lead to campus-community collaborations around research, teaching and the student experience.

The facilitated approach was also reminiscent of a Harvard Business Review blog titled, “Hold Conversations, Not Meetings” posted on February 15, 2011.  This blog made the following recommendations to engage in information exchange, not just passive information transfer that more frequently occurs in meetings.

Two Steps Forward for KMb at UQAM / Deux pas en avant pour la mobilisation des connaissances (MdC) à l’UQAM

Luc Dancause and Jérôme Elissalde (RIR – UQAM)

Mobilize This! first published this post in French on September 13, 2011.  We re-publish it here translated into English.

In 2011-2012, almost 200 new researchers will join UQAM. In an effort to provide more support to these newcomers regarding knowledge mobilization, UQAM is launching a new website and a researcher’s guide.

Au cours de la période 2010-2012, l’Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) accueille près de 200 nouveaux chercheurs. Dans une optique de mobilisation des connaissances, l’UQAM lance coup sur coup un nouveau site et un guide destinés à mieux soutenir les chercheurs dans leurs activités.

Building on the excitement of the back-to-class period, the Office of Research and Creativity( Service de la recherche et de la création or SRC) introduced two new tools that will prove useful in the future. First, the SRC launched its new website. The content of the site has been completely restructured and expanded with the goal of making it an indispensable and user-friendly tool for the entire research and creative community at UQAM. From this site, researchers can find all the resources and information they need to manage their research and creative projects.

In a second step, the SRC collaborated with colleagues in the Office of Partnerships and Innovation Support (Service des Partenariats et du Soutien à l’Innovation or SEPSI) to launch the first version of a guide entitled “Guide to Research and Creativity at UQAM: Tools and Resources to Ensure Your Projects Succeed.” This document is a tool to help researchers find their way amongst the many support services offered at UQAM during the many stages of a project, from the early stages of funding, right through to the eventual mobilization of knowledge. Designed primarily as an electronic document, the guide will evolve according to the needs of researchers at UQAM.

From the perspective of knowledge mobilization, the launch of both products allows UQAM to remind researchers that a wide range of support services is already available on campus. The Office of the Vice-President, Research and Creativity, has also implemented a program to support the mobilization of knowledge, bringing together professionals from the SRC, SEPSIS and the Office of Service to the Community (Service aux collectivités or SAC) to both improve KMb services and make them more accessible.

The program to support knowledge mobilization at UQAM provides:

• Consultation on the use of knowledge (knowledge dissemination, transfer, etc.);
• Identification of opportunities (for funding, partnerships, etc.); and
• Support for the development of partnerships and collaborations

In a future MobilizeThis! post, we will take you behind the scenes to the process we undertook in developing the “Guide to Research and Creativity at UQAM: Tools and Resources to Help Your Projects Succeed,”  which was itself an interesting experience in knowledge mobilization within our university.

The Canadian KT Secret Isn’t So Secret

By David Phipps, RIR-York

This blog was first published on October 6, 2011 by Research Into Action – A Knowledge Translation Initiative (RIA)which is housed in the Institute for Health Policy at The University of Texas School of Public Health in Houston, Texas.

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On August 3, 2011 I wrote on the Research Into Action (RIA) blog about the Canadian knowledge translation (KT) secret and then I presumed to give some advice to Americans seeking to maximize their KT infrastructure, “Create an engaged community sector and elect a government that will listen.”  I remain convinced that Canada does have a KT secret but I also see pockets of KT expertise growing at institutions in the UK and the US.

Let me first say what I think makes for a strong and sustainable KT practice. I have recently re-read Sandra Nutley’s seminal book, “Using Evidence.” Although written four years ago, I take away three key messages for those seeking to establish and sustain KT within a research environment:

1. KT is a social process
2. Efforts to enhance KT need to be interactive and focus on the relationships between researchers and decision makers
3. KT is emerging at the level of the individual, the organization and the system/sectoral level.

The RIA project is consistent with these three messages. The RIA team approaches knowledge translation in three ways: 1) through translation activities undertaking contracted research in collaboration with university researchers and public health agencies; 2) through a web portal and social media strategy, and; 3) disseminating key findings to public health stakeholders through tools such as briefing packages and FAQ sheets. Their online portal boasts over 600 members, has a variety of blog posts (like this one), podcasts, and a discussion board. It is this social media feature that allows RIA to complement its knowledge translation products with interactive engagement of stakeholders, and supports the social and interactive elements of RIA’s practice. RIA is a project housed within the Institute for Health Policy at The University of Texas School of Public Health, and it has a mandate to develop new methods of assisting researchers throughout the University of Texas Health Science Center in translating their technical findings into usable advice and practical recommendations. This positions RIA as an institutional KT support service as opposed to the more common model where KT is practiced in the context of an individual research or practice project.

There are two more institutional KT-associated support structures of which I am aware. The University of Brighton Community University Partnership Program (CUPP) is built on a community of practice model. CUPP embeds knowledge exchange within all of its activities. CUPP does not produce knowledge products to transfer the results of university research, but creates opportunities for researchers and community partners to develop relationships that will meet the needs of both community and university partners. Also in the United Kingdom but at the opposite end of the island is the Centre for Research in Families and Relationships (CRFR). CRFR is based at the University of Edinburgh and has partners across other Scottish universities.  From their website, “the mission of CRFR from its inception has been to make research accessible to a range of audiences and to work in partnership with policy-makers and practitioners to ensure that research is relevant and useful to policy and practice communities in Scotland, the UK and beyond”.

Comparing my own home base at York University’s Knowledge Mobilization Unit, the RIA project at The University of Texas, Cupp at U. Brighton, and CRFR at U. Edinburgh, we see four KT-like services in four countries each with their own unique take on the three key messages above.

Organization	Institution	Discipline	Social Nature
CUPP	U. Brighton	Non-specific	Exchange events
RIA	University of Texas Health Science Center	Public Health	Applied research, Social media
KMb Unit	York University	Non-specific	Exchange events, social media
CRFR	U. Edinburgh plus other universities	Family and Relationships	Exchange events

And only one of these is Canadian.

All four of these organizations have evolved independently but I have had the pleasure of interacting with each of them. My goal is to start a conversation where we can begin to share across disciplines as well as across the miles.

Mobilizing Knowledge… with Comic Books? / La mobalisation des connaissances … à l’aide de bandes dessinées?

Dale Anderson, RIR- UVic

There’s lots of ways to mobilize knowledge—open access publishing, briefing notes for policy makers, face-to-face meetings, KMb Expos—all these sound familiar. But have you ever thought of using comic books? One faculty member at the University of Victoria has.

Il y a plusieurs manières de mobiliser les connaissances. Les publications en libre accès, les notes d’information pour les décideurs, les réunions en face-à-face et les Expos-MdC sont des exemples familiers. Mais avez-vous déjà pensé à utiliser des bandes dessinées pour y arriver? Un professeur de l’Université de Victoria, lui, a eu cette idée.

There’s lots of ways to mobilize knowledge—open access publishing, briefing notes for policy makers, face-to-face meetings, KMb Expos—all these sound familiar. But have you ever thought of using comic books? One faculty member at the University of Victoria has. Neuroscientist Dr. E. Paul Zehr drew on the comic book saga of Batman three years ago to demonstrate that extreme and prolonged physical training can produce superheroes of us all. Now with his latest book, Inventing Iron Man: The Possibility of a Human Machine, Zehr explores whether modern-day technology is up to the challenge of inventing a real-life Iron Man.

“Science is inching closer to a point where portions of an Iron Man suit could in fact be made and used,” says Zehr. “But what does connecting the body to this kind of technology actually do to the person inside the suit? What will it mean to blur the line between human and machine?”

His critically acclaimed first book, Becoming Batman: The Possibility of a Superhero, was released in 2008. Zehr’s new book is published by Johns Hopkins University Press and is available now.

Zehr, director of UVic’s Centre for Biomedical Research and a professor in the Rehabilitation Neuroscience Laboratory at UVic’s School of Exercise Science, Physical and Health Education and in the Division of Medical Sciences, is a lead researcher at ICORD and a martial arts expert.

He attended the Comic Con International in San Diego in July 2011, and will be at the New York Comic-Con in mid-October. Comic-Con, a comic book and popular arts convention, frequently serves as the launching pad for upcoming movies and TV series. For more info, please visit: www.inventingironman.com.