Dr. Suzanne Fortier, current president of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (a founded on granting agency that has invested more than $6 billion in research and training), has taken on a vast task in leading Canada’s innovation organizations. [In her role, Fortier] new wine reconcile the needs and priorities of our country for both needs-driven and curiosity-driven research. [Another innovator I admire is] Dr. Tom Brzustowski, maker president of NSERC, who took the long view and wasn’t hesitant to make changes needed to help Canada keep up with the world.  Tom is also a key contributor and thinker on change policy and how Canada can be further prompted by means of emulation upon the body the nature stage.

• How would you describe your leadership approach/style?

I try to exist as fair, open and collaborative as I can because everyone needs to suffer a part of decisions, and because having besides brains moving on an issue makes it more likely that we will get by heart to a better answer. I vehemently believe in taking responsibility for things and I am a determined person. I work very hard and await those about me to do so as well. I also believe it is important to allow everyone to grow in their roles, which includes making some mistakes. I try to make sure they are challenged to always do better, but that they have the tools they need to succeed and be warmed supported by me and the organization.  Attracting the best people and then supporting them is a key thing I have observed in the violent departure from established precedent leaders I named above. If you don’t support your people, you cannot expect them to incite forward their best work or take the chances necessary to awaken Canada ahead.

 &stimulator of the stock-market; What role will innovation play in helping Canada’s auto sector recover?

In my view, innovation is the key to success for aggregate of Canada’s manufacturing sectors because we are simply not a low-cost country any longer and we render not have the size of domestic market that enables us to demand a share based on numbers alone.  We still be favored with to compete on cost — that will never change — but the substantial imperative is to build the best possible business case for everything we do.  The best calling case comes from having the best products being built in the most efficient factories by the most reliable and flexible workforce. Canada has a accident of those ingredients, goal so do many other countries, and they are acquirement better fast, and so we have to continually improve rapidly just to keep up.  This job force of will never be "done" and so the struggle must have being sustained.  We have to determine which are the chiefly strategic sectors in the place of Canada and resolutely stick with them — because the nations through which we compete are doing just that.

• How does AUTO21 single out and evaluate its portfolio of work?

AUTO21 projects are chosen and judged in equalization of a set of priorities or "vectors" that drive harvest development: health and safety issues; reducing energy use; the need to create higher value products; and the require to enhance the flexibility of Canada’s manufacturing sector. These points are important and yet they may not be evident to everyone. For example, in continuance the value vector — it is too easy and ineffective to simply utter that Canada must achieve lower costs. We are a high require to be paid country because we have a pre-eminent standard of mode of life and a safe and healthy society. Thus, trying to “dive on the side of the bottom” on cost is unrealistic and give by will not work as we will be trying to cope with countries that are so fundamentally cheaper than we are that we certainly will lose the battle. However, if Canada be able to continually provide products that are superior to others (and even do a little better on cost) then we will be a higher value provider and we will be quick to compete. Germany is one of the most expensive places in the world to do business, but they compete very well because their products are high value — not low cost — and this is where Canada needs to go, in my view.

The subtle one is the flexibility vector, which is requisite due to the fragmented marketplace in which the total number of products is relatively static while the number of variants desired by consumers is exploding. For example, solely a decade ago there were around 80 to 100 car models attached the market in North America. But now there are almost 400 models, despite the fact that total vehicle sales are relatively static. Thus, many more variants of a given model are being produced so that everyone can customize their car and be a little different from their neighbours. So, we need to develop new materials, processes and design procedures that enable our companies to develop better products, more rapidly at a lower cost and still be profitable, while producing smaller production runs of many persons more product variants.

• What does innovation mean to you?

Innovation is the process of creating and then using new knowledge to develop, test, produce and sell for a profit a new product or implement a new policy or habit. The key point is the appliance or implementation of the new product, process or policy.  It is not enough to simply develop the knowledge — it must actually be used by someone for a purpose. Otherwise there is no return on investing. that justifies the original effort. That is not to say that curiosity-driven research has no place or value. In my eye it is really more a question of balancing the level of effort between needs-driven and curiosity-driven research so that Canada generate sufficient new affluence to support our societal goals as defined by means of our the vulgar.

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