Calvin Milbury hopes New Brunswick improves its standing the next time the Conference Board of Canada ranks the innovation performance of Canadian provinces. And the President and CEO of the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation is taking steps to improve the performance.

For example, NBIF is participating in the Conference Board’s conference on innovation in Fredericton next month.

In September, the think tank released its report card on innovation, which considered such metrics as R&D spending, venture capital investment and entrepreneurial ambitions. None of the Atlantic Provinces raced home to show the report card to their parents.  Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador scored a D, while New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island were dead last with a D-minus. Canada overall received a C.

“We consider the report to be a wakeup call and we need more partners involved in innovation to move things forward,” said Milbury in an interview on Wednesday. “But we also don’t want to discount the work that’s been done.”

NBIF Doubles VC Totals Over 2 Years

Conference Board chief economist Glen Hodgson and Daniel Munro, Principal Research Associate of Public Policy, will be in Fredericton to take part in the Economic & Innovation Outlook 2015: New Brunswick conference on Dec. 1. Information and tickets are available here.

In the interview, Milbury highlighted steps being taken to improve innovation in the province, but he also did not dismiss the problems that exist.

“There’s an investment gap and there’s a requirement for businesses to invest in R&D,” he said, adding that more businesses have to invest in R&D and bring new products to market. “A lot of good can come out of it,” he said.

NBIF has addressed this issue by expanding its voucher program, in which businesses receive a voucher from NBIF to fund research that could lead to new products. The research must be carried out at a New Brunswick institution. Already 40 businesses have received the vouchers and Milbury described it as a small step to improve matters.

NBIF – which is a client of Entrevestor -- also encourages innovation through its Research Innovation Fund, which awards as much as $200,000 to researchers coming to New Brunswick universities. The fund is designed to award enough money to attract top-flight researchers and purchase the equipment they need to proceed with their work promptly.  

The foundation announced this week it had awarded $670,000 to attract eight professors under the fund. Milbury said that the fund has awarded $2.9 million since it began in 2003, and 85 percent of the researchers are still in New Brunswick. The professors that received the grants have attracted an additional $40 million in funding from other sources, he said.

“This program is one that has flown under the radar but it’s one where we get one of the biggest bangs for our buck,” said Milbury.

He added that the startup community is creating more companies and attracting more investment than ever, and that NBIF has more than doubled its investment in startups in the last two years.

“What we want to feature is that there’s a lot happening in the province,” said Milbury. “I think these efforts will show up in the next report card that will come out in a couple of years’ time.”