The expert panel’s mandate and process
As an independent Expert Panel, we were mandated to provide recommendations on:
- Emerging policy issues relating to intellectual property and commercialization capacity inside Ontario’s postsecondary education sector to improve innovation outcomes, including research commercialization, monetizing and protecting intellectual property, and supporting commercialization including start-ups and scale-ups for the benefit of Ontario’s economy.
- How intellectual property assets developed in postsecondary education institutions can be commercialized to support the government in achieving its mandate of creating sustainable, competitive and long-term economy in Ontario.
- How to strengthen the relationship between the government and Ontario’s postsecondary education, start-up and technology sectors in order to promote the generation of intangible assets that can be commercialized for the long-term economic benefit of Ontario.
Our work was also supported by a secretariat composed of public servants from the Ministry of Colleges and Universities (MCU) and the Ministry of Economic Development, Job Creation and Trade (MEDJCT). The secretariat provided administrative and coordination support for the related in-person consultation sessions, as well as research support and other assistance as required by the Expert Panel.
Starting in Spring 2019, we designed a broad and extensive engagement strategy to receive ideas, perspectives and general inputs from across Ontario’s innovation system. The engagement with stakeholders began with the launch of an online survey, open to the general public, which solicited feedback on three questions related to the generation, commercialization and protection of IP in Ontario postsecondary institutions and across Ontario’s innovation network. From May 17th until July 15th, 2019, the online survey received 90 responses.
A second part of the stakeholder engagement process involved the design and dissemination of an in-depth questionnaire distributed to two distinct sets of Ontario IP stakeholders.
- Ontario postsecondary technology transfer offices (TTOs) and/or college-based business and industry liaison offices. This stakeholder group included 21 universities and 24 colleges. This questionnaire focused on the development of a deep understanding of organizational mandates, capacity and expertise with respect to intellectual property.
- 17 provincially funded Regional Innovation Centres (RICs), 65 campus-linked accelerators and associated On-Campus Entrepreneurship Activity (OCEA) centres,18 medical-research organizations and 12 research institutes / sector-specific organizations. This questionnaire focused on the development of a deep understanding of organizational mandates, capacity and expertise, and programming for start-ups and SMEs with respect to intellectual property.
Respondents were provided three weeks to provide their their responses to us; a total of 90 official responses were received.
The final phase of our engagement strategy took the form of in-person consultations, undertaken on a regional and stakeholder-type basis, from August 27, 2019 to October 2, 2019.
We hosted 14 in-person consultations in the following cities (noted in chronological order): Toronto, London, Windsor, Ottawa, Thunder Bay, Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie. The following lists the full schedule of consultations by region and stakeholder type:
| Date and location | Participating organizations |
|---|---|
| August 27, 2019 (AM), Toronto | University TTOs (GTA, Southern Ontario) |
| August 27, 2019 (PM), Toronto | College TTO/industrial liaison offices |
| August 28, 2019 (AM), Toronto | RICs, CLAs, OCE |
| August 28, 2019 (PM), Toronto | Medical Research Organizations |
| September 16, 2019 (AM), London | University TTOs (Southwestern Ontario) |
| September 16, 2019 (PM), London | College TTO/industrial liaison offices |
| September 20, 2019 (PM), Windsor | RICs, CLAs, MITACs, other stakeholders |
| September 23, 2019 (AM), Ottawa | University TTOs, RICs and Medical Research |
| September 23, 2019 (PM), Ottawa | College TTO/industrial liaison offices |
| September 24, 2019 (AM), Ottawa | RICs, CLAs and Medical Research |
| September 30, 2019 (AM), Thunder Bay | All stakeholders |
| October 1, 2019 (AM) Sudbury | University TTOs, RICs, CLAs and Medical Research |
| October 1, 2019 (PM) Sudbury | College TTO/industrial liaison offices |
| October 2, 2019 (PM) Sault Ste. Marie | All stakeholders |
The in-person consultations consisted of:
- A brief introductory presentation about our mandate and the findings to date including the results of the online survey and questionnaires.
- A plenary discussion catalyzed by the question:
How can we govern IP protection and the commercialization of IP in Ontario to maximize the benefit to all Ontarians (community, economy and jobs)?
. - An open discussion with session participants about challenges and gaps within the current environment in relation to IP generation, commercialization and protection.
- An open discussion about potential solutions.
During the course of our work, we undertook research and analysis to arrive at our understanding of the IP landscape and to inform our recommendations. A total of 87 institutions and organizations participated in the in-person consultations. (See Appendix B for a list of participating institutions and organizations.)