Conference Board says Canada can’t count on clusters

Canada’s fledgling technology clusters run the risk of turning parts of Canada into the equivalent of modern mining towns, weakening growth and even leading to an economic downturn, a recent Conference Board report warned.

In “”Clusters of Opportunity, Clusters of Risk,”” the authors

warn policy-makers not to assume concentrations of inter-related technology firms will lead to the kind of prosperity they sometimes promote. The federal government, for example, has set a target of creating 10 internationally recognized technology clusters by 2010 as part of the Innovation Strategy.

Gilles Rhéaume, the Conference Board of Canada’s VP of policy, business and society, said it didn’t make sense to try and use public funds to build up clusters from scratch. Instead, the report recommends reviewing regulatory and taxation policies to remove impediments to cluster formation and to invest in road systems and airports to ease access to markets.

The success of any cluster, Rhéaume said, depends on the knowledge creation and knowledge diffusion within it. It also depends on how clusters interact globally.

“”As clusters mature, sometimes there’s overconfidence that is built within the firms of that cluster. They can tend to become more insular, in the sense that they know it all, they have the magic formula, they don’t need to go elsewhere.””

The Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance included the promotion of technology clusters in a TechAction report it put together last year. Barry Gander, CATA’s executive vice-president, said the report highlights what the industry association has been hearing.

“”We’re really glad the Conference Board is talking about this,”” he said. “”The key to making a cluster work is coordinating among the people in the cluster and from the cluster outwards. You can’t have an island. Islands don’t work.””

In the fall, CATA will launch a new series of TechAction meetings across Canada with forecasts of economic growth in each community, which may aid in cluster development, Gander added.

IT clusters may be more at risk because they have been around longer, Rhéaume said. The Conference Board found clusters within younger industries, such as biotechnology, tend to generally be more focused on international collaboration.

“”Government can’t force them to share knowledge. It can only provide the means of networking,”” he said. “”The other thing is the support of a strong university base that can supply that knowledge to firms within the cluster, at least to maintain that local buzz.””

Among its other recommendations, the Conference Board said government should do more to promote clusters and to encourage them to make use of public sector procurement strategies to purchase goods and services. One of the challenges in looking at clusters, Rhéaume said, was a lack of available data. “”In our survey we found a lot of stuff that wasn’t available from places like Statistics Canada,”” he said.

The study is part of The Canada Project, a series of research initiatives designed to determine how the government can improve the national standard of living.

Would you recommend this article?

Share

Thanks for taking the time to let us know what you think of this article!
We'd love to hear your opinion about this or any other story you read in our publication.


Jim Love, Chief Content Officer, IT World Canada

Featured Download

Shane Schick
Shane Schick
Your guide to the ongoing story of how technology is changing the world

Featured Story

How the CTO can Maintain Cloud Momentum Across the Enterprise

Embracing cloud is easy for some individuals. But embedding widespread cloud adoption at the enterprise level is...

Related Tech News

Get ITBusiness Delivered

Our experienced team of journalists brings you engaging content targeted to IT professionals and line-of-business executives delivered directly to your inbox.

Featured Tech Jobs