Lac Science and Technology

WD has made a range of investments over many years across Western Canada focusing on building physical and human research infrastructure. To the extent that re-engagement in Latin America becomes a priority for WD, it makes sense for the department to build on the key technologies the department has already encouraged. Some of the innovation areas that may hold promise include bio-fuels, ag-biotech, vaccines, and aerospace among others. Working with Western Canadian innovation clusters to enhance science and technology based relationships with LAC counterparts may be an appropriate area of WD activity.

Opportunities in Science and Technology

The National Research Council (NRC) identifies the following general areas of opportunity in Science & Technology for LAC: fuel cells, bio-fuels, aerospace, biodiagnostics, and plant biotechnology. Particular niches may include advanced vaccines work with Cuba and others. Metrology, the science that deals with measurement, may become important. NRC emphasizes that available resources to develop initiatives may be limited.

Despite the quite limited outreach by Western Canada's innovation clusters to Latin America, there are some cases where potential in LAC is recognized by innovation clusters and there is growing interest within Western Canada in the potential opportunities LAC could provide. The bullets below introduce some promising areas:

• The NRC Institute for Fuel Cell Innovation in Vancouver is aware of and interested in Brazilian expertise in biofuels, primarily the use of sugarcane to produce ethanol
• For aerospace, Embraer's activities in the Very Light Jet field show particular promise
• The University of Regina's Petroleum Technology/CO2 Sequestration experts feel that there may be some interest in Trinidad and Tobago in enhanced oil recovery
• Canadian technology may be relevant to heavy oil development in LAC
• Genome BC's interests include genome attributes of South American crops, salmonids, and a developing project on grape and wine production in Chile
• The Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization sees potential, particularly in Cuba and Brazil
• The Western Canadian oceanography cluster sees opportunity in LAC and wishes to stay apprised of and be involved in ACOA's upcoming ocean industries development activities

Argentina and Chile exhibit the greatest interest in Canadian science and technology and research and development. Chilean universities are well advanced in R&D, emphasizing water, environment, mining technology, reclamation, and mine closures. In Argentina interest centers on the same themes plus nuclear energy. There is interest in clean coal technology in Colombia. There is huge interest in innovation in Chile, for example computer modeling to forecast potential hazards from mine closures. ⁵²

top of page

Chile Case Study: Improved Competitiveness Through Innovation⁵³

Chile has a strong interest in attracting Canadian investment. Chile provides incentives that target in particular investments that create new technologies and innovation capacity in Chile. Chile's innovation investment priorities ⁵⁴ , in order, are biotechnology, mining, and forestry.

Canada and Chile share interest in applied research in several natural resources fields, namely energy (biofuel), agriculture (including agri-food), forestry (genetics and certification), and mining (bio-processes). In the health field both countries are interested in research on the effects of arsenic on humans, vaccines for animals and humans, and nutraceuticals. Biotech is an important sector in Chile, encompassing ag-biotech, the linkage between mining and biotechnology, and bio-fuels. The food chain is also viewed as an important area with antibiotics of particular importance. Chile, now in a boom economy, needs to increase agricultural production. ⁵⁵

As a result of a royalty payment levy passed by law in mid 2005 on copper exports (five percent tax) the Chilean State has established a fund to improve Chile's national competitiveness through innovation in a number of key clusters. The vision is for Chile to double its GDP per capita to US$25,000 by the year 2020. The pillars of this major national initiative are CORFO, the national development agency, and CONICYT, the National Science and Technology Commission. The 2008 Chilean national budget has specified US$410 million for innovation. Research and development expenditure as a percentage of GDP is 0.5 percent (1996-2002). This level of investment is set to double, with funds destined to innovation for a competitiveness program.

The Chile Council of Innovation for Competitiveness contracted a study that identified eight key clusters requiring in-depth development programs, where the state will have a funding role in favour of innovation. The eight key clusters are:

• Aquaculture
• Offshoring / outsourcing
• Tourism ( wine, skiing, fly fishing, thermal)
• Financial services
• Copper mining
• Processed foods
• Fresh fruit
• Pork / poultry

CONICYT is the agency/advisory body to government on science and technology and is a pillar of Chile's national innovation for competitiveness program. CONICYT supports seven centres of excellence:

• biomedicine
• material sciences
• applied mathematics
• astrophysics
• environment and biodiversity
• oceanography research
• molecular cell studies

top of page

Areas of Scientific Strength in LAC⁵⁶

The Office of the National Science Advisor had a report prepared in 2005 on Scientific Collaboration between Canada and Developing Countries⁵⁷. The report was from a development aid perspective, but the underlying assumption in the report is that collaboration must be mutually beneficial in order to favour sustainable development. The report highlights the intensity of Canada's scientific relationship with Brazil. Brazil's scientific system is maturing quickly thus opening up several fields for mutually beneficial collaboration.

This section attempts to provide some insights into Canada's potential scientific collaboration with the seven countries selected for more detailed coverage. The material selected for use in this report addresses the number of published papers per year in natural sciences and engineering and the Average Relative Impact Factor (ARIF). ARIF is an index computed from citations to scientific papers. Citations are a good proxy for the quality of published research. It is noteworthy that Peru has an ARIF of 1.04, which is higher than the world average.

Observations include Peru's apparent relative strength in clinical medicine and biomedical research, Colombia's strength in physics, Brazil's strength in mathematics, Argentina's strength in engineering and technology, Venezuela's strengths in chemistry and engineering and technology, and Chile's strengths in earth and space and biology. This material is strictly introductory, and for more insight the source document should be examined. Perhaps the principal observation is that, in terms of ARIF at least, Canada is surpassed by one or more LAC countries in three of the eight scientific fields.

top of page

LAC National Innovative Capacity ⁵⁸

This section provides information developed by Michael Porter and Scott Stern on the National Innovative Capacity of the seven selected countries. The countries are ranked by the National Innovative Capacity Index. Information on scientific and engineering staff is also provided. In addition, sub-indexes measuring important components of innovative vitality are shown. The sub-indexes are divided into four groupings: those bearing on innovation-related public policies (e.g. the effectiveness of intellectual property protection and the effectiveness of competition policy); those assessing the cluster innovation environment (e.g. the sophistication of local buyers and the quality of local suppliers); those measuring the strength of linkages; and those bearing on the degree of innovation orientation in company operations and strategies.

Chile and Brazil clearly exceed the other selected LAC countries in terms of national innovative capacity.