Innovacorp is committed to strengthening Nova Scotia’s post-secondary research commercialization capacity and entrepreneurial activities. It has been a strategic priority presented in our annual business plan for the past several years. Following are highlights of our recent efforts in this area:

Innovacorp provides tailored, hands-on business advisory services to faculty, researchers and students pursuing commercialization opportunities. A network of advisors, mentors and service providers complements our in-house business expertise. Innovacorp works closely with university and college industry liaison offices (ILOs) in this process.

Through the Early Stage Commercialization Fund (ESCF), Innovacorp reviews, advises and supports the early stage technology commercialization of post-secondary institution research with a high probability of commercialization in the subsequent five years. The ESCF provides funding and go-to-market expertise to research projects across the province.

Innovacorp uses its experience and expertise to influence post-secondary curriculum development in the areas of business and strategic planning and commercialization strategies.

Innovacorp has been influential in planning the approach and curriculum of Dalhousie's new Corporate Residency MBA program, and remains a member of the program’s advisory council, a strategic forum of business leaders from across Canada for improving and growing the program over time. We will also be one of the program’s employer partners, taking our first intern in 2010.

Innovacorp continually improves its level of assistance in the promotion of business-building curriculum through direct interaction with educators and students themselves in the classroom setting. Our team members are frequent guest lecturers and have delivered numerous entrepreneurial business case presentations to, and led related discussions with, students across the province.

We proactively assist in matching co-op students from across all disciplines with our clients, bringing value to the client and the student. For example, Innovacorp is engaged with NSCC’s Human Resource Management program to provide students with practical, hands-on work experience, while identifying and addressing the immediate HR needs of select Innovacorp clients. Further, Innovacorp welcomes inquiries from students nearing graduation and recent graduates about potential opportunities with our clients and contacts in the community.

Innovacorp’s board of directors comprises a group of highly engaged business and community leaders from across Nova Scotia. The president of Dalhousie University, Dr. Tom Traves, along with professor and past president of Cape Breton University, Dr. Jacquelyn Thayer Scott, bring a strong academic perspective and voice to Innovacorp’s board.

In April 2011, Innovacorp will relocate its existing highly successful BioScience Enterprise Centre, currently located on the Halifax waterfront, to a newly constructed facility adjoining the Life Sciences Research Institute (LSRI) on the Dalhousie University campus. Innovacorp's presence on the Dalhousie campus will serve as a catalyst to increase the commercialization of research being conducted at the university. Further, the new facility's location adjoining the planned Life Sciences Research Institute and close to universities, hospitals and the National Research Council will maximize synergies with industry, academic, and institutional research activities that will benefit high potential early stage Nova Scotia technology companies.

Innovacorp’s team members are regularly asked to serve as judges in student business/entrepreneurial competitions in the region. Recent examples include: St. FX University Student Business Concept Competition (2009); 7th Annual CIBC Business Plan Competition at the Fredericton campus of the University of New Brunswick, Acadia Challenge (2009); NSCC’s Centre of Geographic Sciences (COGS) Business Idea Competition; Cape Breton University’s Student Undergraduate Research Forum (SURF) and Showcase (Undergraduate Science and Technology Showcase); National Student Entrepreneur Competition; and Saint Mary’s University’s “What’s the Big Idea?” annual competition. Innovacorp is also a financial partner in many such competitions.

Innovacorp is a frequent guest speaker at university and college events. For example, in late 2008, Innovacorp's Dan MacDonald spoke at the Ottawa launch of the new issue of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada’s (AUCC) publication, Momentum. AUCC is the voice of Canada's universities, representing 92 Canadian public and private not-for-profit universities and university-degree level colleges. AUCC’s Momentum publication reports on Canadian university research and knowledge transfer. In early 2009, we presented to NSCC's deans and principals, giving an overview of Innovacorp's HPi business model and discussing existing and potential synergies between Innovacorp and NSCC. In fall 2009, Innovacorp addressed the vice presidents of research of Canada’s G-13 universities on the topic of research commercialization.

Innovacorp systematically monitors the types of research happening at our province’s post-secondary institutions, proactively searching for projects with high commercialization potential and reaching out to assist in the go-to-market process.

Innovacorp is often invited to participate on review panels of national and regional organizations that grant funds to fuel research commercialization. For example:

• Innovacorp’s Dan MacDonald was part of the Canadian Foundation for Innovation’s (CFI) Special Multidisciplinary Assessment Committee that helped select the top R&D projects from across the country to be awarded CFI funding in 2009. CFI is an independent corporation created by the Government of Canada to fund research infrastructure. Its mandate is to strengthen the capacity of Canadian universities, colleges, research hospitals, and non-profit research institutions to carry out world-class research and technology development that benefits Canadians. Since its creation in 1997, CFI has committed almost $5.2 billion in support of 6,353 projects at 130 research institutions in 65 municipalities across Canada.
• For several years, Innovacorp’s Lidija Marusic has been part of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) Proof of Principle peer review committee. CIHR is the major federal agency responsible for funding health research in Canada and aims to excel in the creation of new health knowledge and to transfer that knowledge into real world applications.
• Innovacorp’s Stephen Hartlen participates as a member of the review panel for the Springboard Fund Awards, providing input and recommendations on applications. Each year, the Springboard Fund Awards provides up to $30,000 in funding for early stage inventions and investment-ready technologies, to provide academic scientists with the needed seed money to commercialize their research.

Innovacorp understands that our universities and colleges’ most important output is highly qualified students and future leaders. We also understand that collaborating effectively with post-secondary institutions and the business community can improve linkages and leverage between these all too often separate worlds.