Who Is Minding the Store? Innovation Strategy and Agro-Biotechnology Research in Canada */Qui S'occupe Du Magasin? la Strategie D'innovation et la Recherche Agrobiologique Au Canada *
Bibliographic record
Abstract
The merits of basic research for national innovation systems are well established. It is understood that basic research creates the knowledge, infrastructure and human capital needed to stay at the front of the innovation pack. In the current age of knowledge-based economies experts assert that basic knowledge is critical for sustained economic development as it affords competitive advantage. However, policy shifts in countries such as Canada and the US that tie public research dollars to applied output may be undermining future national innovative capacity. This paper explores these questions using the case of the Canadian agro-biotechnology industry. The research results highlight the role of corporations as a distorting influence on the direction and form of research in Canada. The findings expose tensions between the public good and public policy. They raise questions about the conflicts between on the one hand, the lack of public support for agro-biotechnology and on the other hand, government policy that funds industry defined agro-biotechnology research. The research also raises questions about the wisdom of policy that emphasizes applied over basic research, potentially compromising the future innovative capacity of Canada. RESUMES Les merites de la recherche fondamentale dans le cadre des systemes d'innovation nationale sont bien etablis; on sait en effet qu'elle genere des connaissances, de l'infrastructure et du capital humain qui permettent de rester en tete de file au niveau de l'innovation. De par le fait qu'elles constituent un avantage competitif dans une ere ou l'economie est fondee sur le savoir, les experts affirment que les connaissances de base sont essentielles au developpement economique durable. Toutefois, dans des pays tels le Canada et les Etats-Unis, les changements de politique rattachant les fonds publics de recherche a la productivite appliquee pourraient etre en train de menacer la capacite future d'innovation nationale. Notre etude vise a explorer ces problematiques a l'aide de l'exemple de l'industrie d'agrobiotechnologie canadienne. Les etudes ne manquent pas de souligner le role des multinationales comme influences modifiant la direction et la forme de la recherche au Canada. Elles revelent des tensions opposant le bien de la societe et les politiques publiques et soulevent des interrogations quant aux conflits entre d'une part un manque de soutien pour l'agrobiotechnologie, et, d'autre part, des politiques gouvernementales qui visent a financer la recherche agrobiotechnologique telle que definie par des corporations. Les etudes soulevent egalement des questions quant au bien-fonde des politiques qui favorisent la recherche appliquee au detriment de la recherche fondamentale, au risque de compromettre la capacite future en innovation du Canada. Basic Research: Why Bother? Basic research is an essential constituent for future innovation, and is therefore linked to economic prosperity. As a critical component for all other future research--both additional fundamental and applied--basic research is a key economic propellant so that understandings that come from [basic] science seldom lead immediately or directly to the solution of practical problems. Rather, they provide the knowledge and the tools [including human capital] to wrestle with them more effectively. (Nelson 2004: 457). In pointing to the merits of basic research, Desai (1993) explains: Both basic and applied research are subject to externalities, and both justify subsidies. But obviously, subsidies will have a much greater effect on the scale of basic research; applied research can survive without subsidies as long as corporations find it profitable (Desai 1993: 250). The fundamental role of basic research and the national benefits of funding this activity from public money become clear when one reflects on contributions from corporations and universities to innovative capacity. Stanford and MIT exemplify the role that university basic research plays as a foundational to future innovative capacity regionally and nationally. …
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.027 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.002 | 0.009 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one teacher head, not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".