CIC provides services to help innovators and innovation partners in three key areas: 1) They evaluate opportunities for innovators and provide third-party validation to help innovators reach the market faster and increase their chances of success. 2) They measure and improve the performance of innovators and innovation programs to help partners monitor progress and evaluate programs. 3) They facilitate the development of innovation policies and programs to catalyze local innovation by sharing best practices from over 150 programs across Canada.

1. Services for Innovation Partners Andrew Maxwell Director Business Partnerships Canadian Innovation Centre

2. Background Generic Services for Innovation Partners Typical engagements Canadian Innovation Centre Overview

3. CIC has provided services to both innovators and innovation partners to help: Evaluate opportunities and provide third party validation Help innovators achieve a faster time to market and increase their likelihood of success Measure and improve the performance of innovators and innovation programmes Facilitate the development of innovation policy and programmes designed to catalyze local innovation Increase awareness of Canadian and global best practices Helping innovation partners for 30 years increase the success rates of their innovators

4. CIC provides a series of market validation studies to innovators (detailed in innovators section), which are of enormous direct value to innovation partners. The benefits of providing these studies, to innovation partners are: Provides verifiable data on the market need for the product or service, the competitive position and the likelihood of commercial success, enabling innovation partners to select which of a number for projects should be funded. Market entry and market readiness studies, focus the attention of innovators on the markets most likely to be easy to enter or sustain, providing confidence to innovation partners that resources will be deployed widely The process of creating these studies, with its peer review approach and the engagement of the innovator, forms a vital change in attitude, which aligns the business development opportunities of the stakeholders, and builds confidence for third party investors. Evaluate opportunities and provide third party validation

5. CIC provides a range of standard/custom studies for innovators, which support to innovation partners by: Utilize a significant knowledge and expert base to provide valuable input to innovators Identify specific actions and potential partners who can increase the return on investment Validate the decision making process of management by providing third party validation Enhance the likelihood of receiving third party investment. Help innovators achieve a faster time to market and increase their likelihood of success

6. The development of milestones within a business plan provides innovation partners with the opportunity to: Monitor progress of pre-revenue companies against agreed milestone objectives Provide feedback on key factors of company growth for innovators Provide a mechanism to evaluate the overall performance of innovation programmes and to investigate the benefits of programme improvements Provide continued justification for initial investments and a critical view on which programmes are not working. Measure and improve the performance of innovators and innovation programmes

7. CIC has enormous experience of both programme and policy development in this area, accessing this knowledge will help to: Align the competing objectives of innovation partners and their stakeholders to facilitate cost effective and aligned programmes Provide a higher level of visibility to the programme development process to build credibility Enhance both programme effectiveness and participation rates Facilitate the development of innovation policy and programmes designed to catalyze local innovation

8. CIC's National Mandate and its work to develop and share best practices in this area provide innovation partners with: Access to a national and international database of current programmes and best practice, from which local programmes can be developed Build on the knowledge and experience of designing and implement over 150 innovation systems across Canada Leverage national networks to identify potential for sharing resources, knowledge and collaboration opportunities on a national basis Provide recognition for the development of new local best practices to increase awareness of innovation programmes in the community. Increase awareness of Canadian and global best practices

9. Created unique Critical Factor Assessment programme for regional development agency to use as the basis for funding market study . Developed market validation programme for deployment by national research funding organization to be used before funding decision made Developed technology alignment assessment study for seed investor to use before seeking third party investment Developed assessment process to develop market entry strategies for University/hospital technology transfer offices. Examples of study programmes for innovation partners

10. Provide benchmark report on the actual impact of a prior innovation programme, five year after investment, in order to make recommendations for future programme changes Created unique programme to enhance regional receptor capacity and first customer adoption Reviewed a variety of competing programmes in a specific areas and to recommend an alignment progress Examined awareness and take up of a new innovation programme to seek how it could be more widely deployed and the impact further leveraged. Examples of recent programme development and evaluation activities

11. CIC's National Mandate and its work to develop and share best practices in this area provide innovation partners with: Access to a national and international database of current programmes and best practice, from which local programmes can be developed Build on the knowledge and experience of designing and implement over 150 innovation systems across Canada Leverage national networks to identify potential for sharing resources, knowledge and collaboration opportunities on a national basis Provide recognition for the development of new local best practices to increase awareness of innovation programmes in the community. Examples of recent workshops and strategic programme reviews

12. Created a performance measurement system for a national seed investor to track performance of investee pre revenue companies. Facilitates provincial workshop on developing and deploying a project assessment tool kit Facilitated policy development at ADM level, to align the various objectives of provincial innovation programmes. Examples of recent best practice deployment

13. Developed national Canadian curriculum for technology entrepreneurship Develop investment guidelines for use by participants in national television show Facilitated development of tools for use by a number of provincial innovation agencies Create a database of Canadian Innovation programmes to provide base data to innovation partners. Created a new “Stage Gate” evaluation process for deployment by provincial agencies in evaluation between opportunities. Provided key note speaker to national conference on innovation Examples of recent study programmes for innovation partners