Chris Henderson (Darren Brown, OBJ).

The Ottawa Partnership (TOP) is asking the business community and the city's fragmented research and innovation sector to come together for a more comprehensive and concerted approach to building a strong local economy.

The call comes after a delegation of local business leaders spent last Monday in Toronto with Premier Dalton McGuinty and Cabinet to discuss ideas about improving the city's economy. Prominent on the agenda was the idea of creating a "hub," which would bring together the city's areas of innovation and commercialization and address global market development and critical talent shortages.

TOP co-chair Chris Henderson, who is also CEO of the Delphi Group, said he was impressed with the premier's willingness to engage in a discussion with Ottawa representatives.

"We're the province's second-largest economy and by working proactively with us on key issues such as talent and technology that's what government needs to do," he said. "I'm encouraged by the meetings we had and I think the next step will be closing fast our relationship with the province and other stakeholders on creating this next generation hub of commercialization and innovation for Ottawa."

He said there is no doubt that the city has the necessary assets in place to increase the level of innovation and new discovery, with its national labs, businesses and universities and colleges.

"But, I don't think we know how to exactly do this," he said. "We'll have to work hard to make the city as strong as (Cambridge, Mass.) or Stanford and if we don't do that, then I think we're in real trouble. This is why I'm making a call to the business and the innovation community, saying we need good ideas about how to create new innovation platforms."

Mr. Henderson says the second element of this network is addressing the talent agenda and the critical shortage already facing many schools and companies.

"First of all, we've got to make sure our universities and colleges have a stable economic base and they're getting there, but not quite yet," he said. "I also don't think we know exactly how the interface between business and the universities and colleges is going to work so that the critical talent, meaning qualified PhD and graduate students, can be found."

Jeffrey Dale, OCRI president, was also a part of the delegation and he said he was impressed by the "unprecedented access" they were given.

"The premier said he doesn't believe this has ever happened before where a city has come in and been able to have a dialogue with the leaders of the province. It was very positive."

Mr. Dale said one of the key points discussed was how the Ontario government is already strongly supporting similar initiatives within Toronto, such as the Medical and Related Sciences Discovery District (MARS) and the Toronto Region Research Alliance.

"But what we were saying is the Ontario Innovation Corridor stretches from Ottawa through to Windsor and you need to build capabilities and innovation hubs into the eastern and western parts of the province," he said. "Our strengths are different than those in Toronto – each city is different and we each provide value to the province."

Mr. Dale also said the provincial and federal support will only take the initiative so far because the "hub" concept can only proceed if Ottawa's business leaders come onboard.

"The energy has to come from the business community because they're the ones who make commercialization happen," he said. "We're now going to focus our energies on engaging the business community about this concept because it resonates with some of the TOP people we deal with. Let's get the business leaders from the top technology, bio-technology and environment companies and ask them what makes sense for Ottawa?"

He said the primary goal now is to define the concept for a hub and what would it mean to the area. The group plans to ask the province and the city within the next month for some funding in order to create a business plan. Mr. Henderson said they are aiming to complete the planning stage for the hub by the end of this calendar year.

He said he thinks this idea will capture the imaginations of the city's business leaders because it's a concept whose time has arrived.

"This is new green field territory, I think," he said. "We know there are 95 centres of research in Ottawa and most of them don't have a clue what the others are doing. There's a lot of 'I can't see the forest because I'm stuck in trees' and I think we need some out of the box thinking here."

Mr. Dale said the end-result of this collaboration would be the creation of the brand that would be easy to sell to the global market.

"The hub will allow us to pull all of our assets together and brand it internationally," he said. "The centres that have does this well have international recognition, like Silicon Valley – it's not just a town, it's a concept that everybody understands. This would put us on the map internationally."