Research in Engineering: Sustainable Innovation for Québec's Prosperity

Polytechnique Montréal is pleased to contribute to reflection related to the Stratégie québécoise sur la recherche et l’innovation by submitting a position paper entitled "La recherche en génie, source d’innovation responsable pour un Québec prospère" (in French only).

With this position paper, Polytechnique seeks to raise awareness within the government and stakeholders from the research and innovation ecosystem, of the vast and largely under-exploited potential of innovation, wealth creation, and solutions to various societal issues that can be found in its laboratories.

Each in their own way, recommendations formulated in this paper target the realization of the potential of innovation arising from research activities carried out by our professors and their students, in collaboration with partners of the socioeconomic milieu.

Developing the ability to innovate

 As a technological university, we believe that our contribution to the aforementioned ecosystem can be optimal if we excel in our two core missions of education and research, all of which is focused on benefiting society. In large part the ability to innovate relies on the acquisition of cross-disciplinary skills. In our experience, the students best prepared to innovate and provide concrete solutions to the challenges of the day, are those who know how to navigate the meeting of disciplines, while also possessing specializations.

 Yet as the title of our paper indicates, it is within the search for quality that innovation originates. We cannot stress enough the importance of preserving the professors’ capacity to carry out research focused on free discovery, equipped with substantial resources - including cutting-edge research infrastructure and adequate personnel to use these valuable tools.

 Promoting the adoption of technologies resulting from research

From the point of view of its commercialization, or in terms of its adoption by interested parties, technology emerging from university laboratories is often highly risky - which constitutes an obstacle to innovation. This is why it’s crucial to de-risk technologies by promoting and by setting the conditions for their adoption. Notably, this also includes investments necessary for these technologies to come to maturation.

In particular, the innovation system needs facilitators, translators and go-betweens to create "service missions" linking supply and demand, with one foot in the laboratory and one foot in the market. Any public investment in initiatives that make it possible to de-risk technologies that are in the early stage of their development in the eyes of investors is likely to be highly beneficial for all of society.

The environmental, technological, and demographic transitions that we as a society face, are issues to which the innovation ecosystem must pay particular attention. The Polytechnique Montréal community - which has contributed to the economic and social development of Québec since the institution’s establishment nearly 150 years ago - now more than ever has the will and the know-how to successfully respond to these challenges.