‘Science Can Help to Bring Countries Together in Different Ways’

Professor Jonathan Linton, Power Corporation Professor for the Management of Technological Enterprise of the University of Ottawa, Canada, and Editor-in-Chief of the ‘Technovation‘ journal gave a presentation ‘Centers of Excellence. Research Strategy and Portfolio Planning’ at the XIV HSE April International Aca­demic Conference on Economic and Social Development. He gave a special interview to the HSE news service.

Jonathan Linton

Professor Jonathan Linton, Power Corporation Professor for the Management of Technological Enterprise of the University of Ottawa, Canada, and Editor-in-Chief of the ‘Technovation‘ journal gave a presentation ‘Centers of Excellence. Research Strategy and Portfolio Planning’ at the XIV HSE April International Aca­demic Conference on Economic and Social Development. He gave a special interview to the HSE news service.

— How can Foresight and Roadmapping contribute to university and public research institution management?

— The purpose of Foresight and Roadmapping is to understand what the barriers are to opportunities in the future, in market areas or in different areas of technology. Interestingly it’s typically not been seen in university environments. It is more often found in think tanks, research institutes and private research labs.

The HSE shows interest in Foresight and Roadmapping and thus it provides advice more directly to industry and government than a lot of universities do. The HSE is one of a few very strong universities in that regard.

— Are there comparable situation in North America?

— In North America typically Roadmapping and Foresight are used in corporations. The government hasn’t gone into this area much. In North America the business schools cannot focus on Foresight and Roadmapping because it’s too technical. Engineering schools don’t see it as part of their mission either. These things are very much technological and so are sometimes overlooked by universities.

For example, I’ve heard one discussion in America about the shortage of good Research &Development ( R&D) managers. The small companies say ‘Before we hire PhD scientists we hire R&D managers’. So, the government and related organizations look and ask, where are R&D managers trained?. A few places, like big organisations, train R&D managers internally. But there are no universities which provide this kind of training. So, there is a gap in Foresight and Roadmapping . This gap is significant and the impression I have is that there is a similar gap in Russia too. This is a gap which I think is common for all economies.

— What are the critical factors for making international scientific cooperation successful?

— One needs to support at the top and at the bottom. Very often you see cooperation agreements signed by governments but there are no links at the working level for scientific cooperation. The working links are critical. And the links higher up are critical. For example, one barrier you will find at the senior level is that funding will not be allowed for cooperation with other countries. Or there will be funding from one country but it will require funding from another country and so on. There’s too much bureaucracy.

Science can help to work not only to leverage resources but also to bring countries together in other ways.

The trick is avoiding barriers. Academics are looking for partners and they can work unless barriers are put between them. It’s much easier to collaborate with people in different countries than it was years ago because of inexpensive communication technology, like Skype for example.

— Which initiatives would you welcome and support to strengthen cooperation between HSE and Ottawa University?

— My cooperation with the HSE started last year when I delivered a lecture on ‘Real Options as Decision Support for Science, Technology and Innovation Policy’ organized by the Research Laboratory for Economics of Innovation, at the HSE Institute for Statistical Studies and Economics of Knowledge. Thanks to technology I was able to deliver the lecture from the University in Ottawa to students in Moscow and on other HSE campuses in Russia. There was a tricky situation with the different schedules of daylight-saving time in Russia and Canada but we managed to overcome it and I gave the lecture on time.

The April conference is a great opportunity to meet people and establish working relations. The more opportunities there are for making contacts the more likely the programmes we have can grow and develop further. You need to make a lot of contacts. It doesn’t happen overnight. You need to cast your net wider and deeper.

There is an overlap between Canada and Russia. I would say that telecommunication and logistic are two areas we need to develop in our countries, both of which are so rich in natural resources.

— How can we steer and evaluate Centers of Excellence and Universities?

— Canada didn’t like the centers as it is a very egalitarian country. Universities compete but funding for the university which is considered to be at the bottom is quite generous. The top universities are funded quite poorly. Research funds in Canada are given in small amounts to a wider number of researchers. So a very strong university would have more money but not to the extent that you would see in the United States in MIT or Harvard, for example. Canada is very different in that way.

The current approach is to focus not on centers of excellence but on networks of excellence. Part of it is because it’s an egalitarian approach. Partly it’s a political problem associated with centers of excellence because we have such a big country that putting a center of excellence in one location creates unhappiness in another. Whereas when you have a network of excellence you may have resources at one location but you have connections between many different locations. So it’s a multiple approach and it includes the whole country. It’s been funded as the network of excellence.

Anna Chernyakhovskaya, specially for HSE News Service

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