Innovation Anthology #169: Professor, Faculty of Agricultural, Life and Environmental Sciences

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When it comes to innovation, do you depend on serendipity or do you guide the path to discovery?

The latter holds true for John McDougall, President and CEO of the Alberta Research Council. First, he says, you have to peer into the future to determine what the emerging issues might be.

A few weeks ago, John McDougall met in Jasper with 60 of the brightest people in the world. They addressed the fundamental issues of life and industry – food, water, and energy. The discussion was provocative.

JOHN MCDOUGALL: There was absolute consensus from all parties that there actually isn’t a shortage of food or water or energy in the world. What there is, is an enormous amount of wastage which occurs throughout the systems. So for example anywhere from 20 to 30 to 50 percent of the food that is produced actually never gets used. It’s either destroyed or wasted or whatever along the way. In water, many of our systems are leaky. They’re wasteful. And in energy, the same thing applies.

John McDougall says this foresight exercise could help ARC scientists focus more on developing new technologies to reduce waste in all sectors

Thanks today to Alberta Research Council.

I’M CHERYL CROUCHER

Guest

David Bressler, PhD,

University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada,

Sponsor

Alberta Research Council

Established as the first provincial research organization in Canada, the Alberta Research Council is 85 years old. The Alberta Research Council (ARC) develops and commercializes technologies to give customers a competitive advantage. A leader in innovation, ARC provides solutions globally to the energy, life sciences, agriculture, environment, forestry and manufacturing sectors.
ARC performs about five per cent of the roughly $1.5 billion in R&D done in Alberta each year, and generates revenues of approximately $84 million per year. ARC operates from five sites across the province in Edmonton, Calgary, Vegreville and Devon and employs more than 600 highly-skilled people.

In January 2010, under the new Alberta Innovation Framework, the Alberta Research Council was restructured and incorporated into the new provincial agency Alberta Innovates Technology Futures.

Program Date: 2008-09-23