Conference Report: Innovation In Canada's Resource Sectors ...

Conference Report: Innovation In Canada’s Resource Sectors10Enhancing Connectivity andCollaborationJust as a culture of innovation across sectors needs to beestablished, enhancing connectivity and collaborationwithin specific industries needs to be a core goal of anydiscussion around innovation. Firms within industriesneed to consider how they can work together, whetherthrough sharing best practices, collaborating on projects,or finding other unique arrangements to tackle commonproblems. They must also reach out to other sectors,to ensure that the needs of resource industries areadequately understood and met. Such efforts will includereaching out to financial analysts, regulators, and otherkey influencers who can play roles in advancing resourcesector innovation. Connectivity must be increased acrosssectors, and across geographic locations.Enhanced collaboration, of course, needs to start withinthe resource industries, especially where competitivepressures sometimes create barriers. For example,FPInnovations, the world’s largest private, not-for-profitforest product research organization, brings togetherinternationally recognized research teams to shareknowledge and act on a united basis. Strengthenedengagement, integrated operations, and more efficientknowledge generation and transfer are some of thebenefits that have emerged from such collaboration.Some businesses could begin by looking atopportunities in the areas of safety, environmentaland social performance, where collaboration has notalways presented challenges on the same scale aseconomic competitiveness. However, connections withgovernments, research organizations and universitiesto find best practices and develop new products andprocesses based on shared knowledge should alsobe explored. Such an approach would also offer thebenefit of sharing risk with multiple partners, forexample through co-funding demonstration projects andtesting new technologies. Finally, in order to promoteconnectivity among resource industries and the broadercommunity, there is a need for multi-sectoral translators,interpreters and communicators. These are individualsand organizations who can help explain complextechnical issues as well as policy and regulatory needs,to connect governments, private sector organizations andresearch institutions.“Strengthened engagement, integratedoperations, and more efficient knowledgegeneration and transfer are some of thebenefits of collaboration.”