Is Toronto booming?
Cath Ennis
Thursday, 15 May 2008 00:00 UTC
There’s an interesting article in a recent Nature Jobs section on the recent brain-gain in Toronto.
Any Torontonians care to comment? Does this feel like a real phenomenon “on the ground”? Will the boom benefit the whole of Canada, or just Ontario?
-
Replies
-
Hi Cath, I work at MaRS (www.marsdd.com), mentioned in the article you’re referencing.
We’ve certainly had a few wins lately that have scored some attention.
That said, it certainly isn’t the end of the war. We’re producing some amazing grad students, but the challenge now is to keep them. And we’re working on it—trying to make the city as attractive as possible to them, which is why we’ve got deep roots in community investment as it’s all part of the same goal: improving the innovation and economic outcomes for Canada as a whole.
I don’t think it just benefits Toronto or Ontario, though. Our provincial government just happens to be VERY interested in promoting the innovation agenda. But that doesn’t mean that the learnings and benefits can’t go beyond.
-
Yeah, this does feel that way from within Toronto. I’m at The Hospital for Sick Children (but my lab is at MaRS – we moved here last year and have so much more space than in the hospital! stretches)
SickKids is planning on building a huge new research building by 2012, and in the six years I’ve been here I’ve seen three research buildings pop up at the same intersection (all pictured in the article). But all the old lab space is still there as well, so there is definitely more research going on. -
It must be pretty exciting to be part of the boom!
Larry Moran has also posted about this article on Sandwalk. He actually feels that the number of PIs in the article was exaggerated. There’s an interesting discussion going on over there about the relative benefits of basic and applied research, and the drawbacks of industry funding.
Also, congrats Toronto on leading the new hub race! I guess I’ll be joining that one and the Seattle hub if more Vancouverites don’t sign up ;)
-
Certainly, the craving for commodities all around the world has indeed created a boom in Canada. However, I am not very optimistic with the field I am working in
biotech. It takes a lot more than a few brains to create a real boom in biotech. Players from academia, industry and government are all needed to get involved. I have heard many words but seen little action. MaRS is pretty much a failure in my opinion
conceived as a biotech incubator, MaRS has not proved to be successful in many ways. -
Jun, I found your comment interesting.
Just to clarify, MaRS wasn’t conceived solely as a biotech incubator. The scope is much broader with roughly half of our current incubator tenants designing, developing and marketing products in the information and communications technology sector alone.
Yes, biotech start-ups are located at MaRS — and they are a key constituency drawing on Ontario’s strength in biosciences — but it’s no secret that biotech everywhere faces longer timelines and tighter regulatory requirements than, say, innovative software or hardware development.
Going into only our third year of operations, MaRS has worked with over 300 early stage-companies, providing strategic and business planning, market research etc., and last year alone drew more than 900 registrants to our Entrepreneurship 101 program. Another 100,000 people are attending workshops, meetings, conferences and events here each year as well.
We may not have the next RIM (yet) but a failure? Seems a bit harsh imho…
What for you would constitute real action and make you feel more confident about the biotech industry? What would you define as success? And by that I mean, not just from MaRS, but also from academia, gov’t, industry?
-