Technology and the Canadian Forest-Product Industries ... - ArtSites

limited R&D base, but they do emphasize value-added products forwhich connections between R&D and marketing are important. Inaddition, research into wood-based chemicals, which some observersforecast as a major growth area, would be useful to firms contemplatingexpanding in this direction.Paprican and Forintek could also playa greater role than they donow in training and transferring MSc and PhD graduates to industry.The need is for industry to generate the demand. To the extent thatthe Canadian forest-product industries become more committed toflexibility and value-maximization, the demands for science andengineering graduates in production and marketing, as well as R&D,should increase.In seeking to serve the technological needs of the Canadianforest-product industries Feric, Forintek, and Paprican have necessarilybeen involved with the equipment supply industry. The linksbetween the cooperative laboratories and equipment suppliers tendto be ad hoc. The lack of strong links between the cooperative laboratoriesand equipment supply companies stems from the technologicalconservatism of the latter. Consequently the cooperative R&D laboratories,particularly Feric and Forintek, have often encouraged theimportation of "best practice" technology in a way that has reinforcedthe technologically dependent position of the equipment supplyindustry. On some occasions, technology developed by the cooperativelaboratories has been manufactured by a subsidiary of a foreignfirm that subsequently further developed the technology.This author therefore recommends that the mandates of Feric,Forintek, and Paprican be expanded to include the promotion ofthe technological strengths of the Canadian equipment supplyindustry, including the development of "core" firms.Four suggestions may be offered in this regard. First, Feric, Forintek,and Paprican should seek more formal R&0 links with equipmentsuppliers, in particular, suppliers with Canadian-based R&D groups.Second, the cooperative R&0 organizations should ensure that whenthey commercialize technology in the form of equipment they shoulddo so in such a way as to promote the technological capabilities andindustrial strengths of Canadian-based equipment suppliers. In thisregard, Paprican's recent experience with licensing Papritection to aToronto manufacturer should be reviewed carefully with a view toestablishing a "model" form of agreement. This licensing agreementincorporated a sliding-scale royalty payment formula that providedfor increasingly smaller royalties to be paid by the manufacturer over114