In a recent article, Ross Cooper of Excellence in Manufacturing Consortium (EMC) discussed how the slow days of summer are ripe for SR&ED activities as companies are slowing or shutting down production and attending to pesky ongoing production, machinery and process issues as well as integrating improvements to increase efficiency for the rest of the year.

Eligible Activities
Some summer shutdown activities that may qualify for SR&ED if they meet the eligibility criteria (see below) include but are not limited to:

- Resolving production issues
- Preventative maintenance
- Production and process trials
- Modifications to equipment to:  Reduce environmental impacts, Increase production efficiency, Reduce downtime, Improve operator safety

Eligibility criteria
An eligible SR&ED project demonstrates 3 critical elements:

1. Scientific or Technological Advancement
The generation of new information or the discovery of technical knowledge (not available in the public domain) that advances the understanding of the underlying technologies, or extends their capability beyond their original design.

Keep in mind that this is not the same as improvement of technology infrastructure through acquisition and straightforward deployment of tools developed by another company. Also, generation of new functionality, novelty, or stylistic improvement does not qualify as technological advancement unless the changes trigger issues with the underlying technology, then any new knowledge gained by overcoming or attempting of overcome those uncertainties or obstacles constitutes Technological Advancement.

2. Technological Uncertainties or Obstacles
This means that there is no obvious or readily available solution to the problem in the underlying technology. If you can find a solution online or through normal investigation, it does not qualify.

It is also important to distinguish “technological” uncertainty from other types of uncertainties that are irrelevant to SR&ED eligibility. These are:

• Financial or funding considerations
• A lack of requirements
• A  lack of formal or vocational training in a field of science or technology

If, however, qualified technical staff (who are educated/ trained in the relevant field) are uncertain on how solve a technical problem then technological uncertainty is most likely involved.

3. Technical Content
The activities carried out must be performed systematically to resolve the technological uncertainties.

Several different approaches might exist and must be investigated before arriving at an acceptable solution. Random or blanket attempts at a solution (where almost everything is being attempted) do not qualify as SR&ED and are not systematic.

However, when results from failed approaches are used to help determine the next solution to be attempted, the generation and retention of technical knowledge is demonstrated by applying knowledge from a previous attempt and the next approach can be chosen with the highest likelihood of a positive outcome.

Eligible documentation
Determining now which potential SR&ED projects are in the summer pipeline will yield a great return on time invested. It will also provide an opportunity to simplify the tracking process and ensure that relevant documentation is preserved for your claim. Documentation is critical as financial and technical reviewers have been burned before with fraudulent claims are now on the look- out for this critical information to provide evidence of the work done during the hours claimed.

Relevant documentation includes but is not limited to:

• Records of resources allocated to the project or time sheets
• Design of experiments
• Project records, laboratory notebooks
• Design, system architecture and source code
• Records of trial runs
• Progress reports, minutes of project meetings
• Test protocols, test data, analysis of test results, conclusions
• Photographs and videos
• Samples, prototypes, scrap or other artifacts.

You can find further information about qualifying SR&ED projects in the SR&ED section of our website or by contacting us.

Water is essential for sustaining life, as well as our economy. With less than one percent of the world’s fresh water currently accessible for direct human use, water supplies are now a major global concern impacting not only our daily lives but also our business strategies.

Throughout last week, thousands of individuals had gathered for the 2012 Green Week conference in Brussels and around Europe with the goal of addressing resource efficiency and a focus on the conservation of water, one of our most precious yet scarce resources.

Over the years, Green Week has flourished into the biggest annual conference on European environment policy, and is dedicated its focus this year on assessing the facts and opportunities that water consuming sectors present in order to develop a “coherent approach to maximize the benefits of current policy framework and minimize conflicts between water policy and other policy objectives” as stated by Janez Potočnik, European commissioner for the environment in his welcoming message.

According to a water scarcity fact sheet provided by the European commission, approximately 247,000 million cubic meters of water are annually extracted from ground and surface sources such as lakes and rivers just in the EU. 44% of abstracted water is used by the energy production sector for cooling processes, although most of the water is returned to the source at a slightly higher temperature. An additional 24% of the abstracted water is consumed by the agriculture and food production sectors, 17% for public water supply and 15% percent for industry and manufacturing.

In comparison, Canadian usage of water is more than nine times greater than that of the U.K., and more than double that of a 16-country average, surpassed only by the United States. Canada’s high usage of water can be at least partially attributed to the low cost of water in such a water rich country. In fact, Canada provides 7% of the world’s renewable supply of freshwater and is therefore, under global hydropolitical pressure to export water, while avoiding negative impacts to the ecosystem and reducing domestic water consumption.

Industry is Canada’s largest water user, employing over half of all water used in Canada for cooling machinery, producing energy, cleaning goods, and as a solvent. Thermal electric power producers account for almost 77% of water usage, followed by the manufacturing industry that accounts for 15% of the water used in Canada mainly for the production of pulp and paper, metals and chemical products. The mining, oil and gas industries make use of just 2% of the total water consumed, while the agricultural industry utilizes approximately 6% of all water used in Canada mainly for the purposes of irrigation; however, when accounting for the fact that agricultural use of water is highly inefficient, returning only 30% of water consumed, agriculture represents the largest Canadian consumer of water (National Roundtable on the Environment and Economy, 2011).

The development of processes with increased conservation of water is now more critical than ever for the Canadian industry, and requires a dedication of corporate resources to conduct research and development of more efficient and sustainable methods of production for reduced water and energy consumption. To mediate the costs of research and development of energy efficient industrial production methods, Canada offers one of the most lucrative Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax incentives around the world allocating over $3 billion to companies in Canada who are creating new or improving existing products and processes.

As one of the highest producers and consumers of water per capita in the world and fueled by generous tax incentives, Canada is optimally positioned to develop the most innovative, efficient and sustainable methods for the conservation of water.

Read more about the SR&ED in various industries

The 2012 U.S. National Bioeconomy Blueprint was announced on April 26th with the purpose of assessing strategic objectives to maximise on the U.S. bioeconomy potential and to highlight ongoing efforts to meet those objectives.

However, many are concerned that the blueprint predominantly focuses on economic development while insufficiently addressing regulations to minimise social and environmental impact.

The blueprint attributes growth in the current U.S. bioeconomy sector to the development of three foundational technologies including genetic engineering, DNA sequencing, and automated high-throughput manipulations of biomolecules. It goes on to emphasise the reliance of tomorrow’s bioeconomy on the development of emerging technologies such as synthetic biology (engineering of microbes and plants), proteomics (study and manipulation of proteins in an organism), and bioinformatics (application of computational techniques to biological and related data).

The National Bioeconomy Blueprint describes five strategic objectives with the potential to generate economic growth and address societal needs.

1. Support R&D investments that will provide the foundation for the future U.S. bioeconomy in order to overcome market failures that occur when private investors are unable to collect on the full benefits of their investments and provide smaller investments in technology than the socially optimal level. This is dependent on the expansion and development of essential technologies, integration of approaches across fields and the implementation of improved funding mechanisms.

2.  Facilitate the transition of bioinventions from research lab to market, including an increased focus on translational and regulatory sciences. This relies on acceleration of progress to market to move innovation beyond the laboratory, enhancement of entrepreneurship at universities to facilitate the path from research to commercialization, and the utilization of Federal Procurement Authority to drive the creation and growth of new bioeconomy markets.

3. Develop and reform regulations to reduce barriers, increase the speed and predictability of regulatory processes, and reduce costs while protecting human and environmental health. This involves improved regulatory processes and regulations to enhance predictability and reduce uncertainty in regulatory processes and requirements as well as collaboration with stakeholders to inform efforts, stream­line processes, reduce costs and response times while simultaneously maintaining  safety and benefit to public health.

4.  Update training programs and align academic institution incentives with student training for national workforce needs at the K-12 and undergraduate levels. This will result from employer-educator partnerships and redeveloped training programs.

5. Identify and support opportunities for the development of public-private partnerships and precompetitive collaborations where competitors pool resources, knowledge, and expertise to learn from successes and failures.

In introducing the bioeconomy blueprint panel discussion that followed the blueprint announcement, panel moderator and microbiologist Dr. Bonnie Bassler describes the Obama administration as “committed to investing in biological research with the overarching goal of strengthening America’s bioeconomy”.

While the blueprint recognises that biotechnological experimentation carries inherent potential risks if applied improperly, it contends that that ethical and safety issues raised by major advances are top administrative priorities that “go beyond the scope of this [blueprint].”  Rather, the blueprint is “a guide for departments and agencies to ensure that the investments they make in the sector will be well coordinated and highly likely to generate real economic impact,” according to the White House Office of Science & Technology Policy Director John P. Holdren in his announcement of the blueprint.

Panel member Dr. Rina Singh, spoke on behalf of Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO), which represents many of the largest oil and petrochemical producers, and discussed innovation in industrial biotechnology, or the application of life sciences to conventional manufacturing and synthetic processes, through the use of wild type or genetically enhanced microbes.  Dr. Singh paints a picture of vast manufacturing application possibilities to revolutionize the way we make and use energy, where she envisions biorefineries replacing petroleum refineries, the same way that petroleum once replaced whale oil.

However, many are concerned that the reallocation of efforts to harvest above ground sources of fuel “ignores the lessons to be learned from experiences” and that the reliance on biomass for fuel and raw materials ”will inevitably place an extremely heavy toll on food security, and further escalate forest and biodiversity destruction, land grabbing, and climate change,” according to the Global Forest Coalition 2012 report titled “Bioeconomy versus Biodiversity.”

These concerns were shared by Eric Hoffman, a campaigner with Friends of the Earth who commented that the bioeconomy blueprint “largely seems to be an endorsement for the biotechnology industry to rush ahead without any real oversight.”

A more welcomed blueprint emphasis was placed on efforts to incite collaboration among many various federal and private research agencies alongside the creation of a newly trained workforce in order to achieve novel products, processes and applications.

An example of collaborative potential for innovation was provided by panel member and cellular and molecular pharmacology expert  Dr. Keith Yamamoto who discussed the applicability of precision medicine, which builds on the collaboration of non-traditional fields in the biomedical arena such as engineering and mathematics as well as patient data to generate medical solutions for diagnoses and treatments of diseases that are tailored to individual patients rather than decisions based on statistical risk factors across large populations.

Dr Yamamoto emphasizes that the evolution of such highly specified methodologies heavily relies on a reassessment of academic process in graduate education and non Ph.D. level in order to rapidly create a much needed new work force and a collaborative continuum among discovery researchers, academia, industry entrepreneurs, foundations, government funding and regulatory agents and patients.

The reassessment of academia incentives was also discussed by the 2001 World Food Prize winner and panel member Dr. Per Pinstrup-Andersen who noted that biological science applications have contributed to yearly increases in food sources, provided food security in many parts of the world; however, he remarks that “the job is not done yet” and further research is needed to achieve what he calls “sustainable amplification” of food to ensure people eat enough and yet not too much to avoid burdening the health care system.

Dr. Per Pinstrup-Andersen believes that for progress to occur, there is a strong need to eliminate what he calls “disciplinary silos” which limit research teams by incentivizing research in narrow areas to produce publications and receive funding. He argues that collaboration requires incentives that stretch beyond money, incentives such as promotions, publication and conferences to support collaboration of interdisciplinary teams.

Similar collaborative efforts are at the forefront of Canadian innovation, with federal government incentives supporting the commercialisation of innovation from the lab by increasing its contribution to the National Research Council’s Industrial Research Assistance Program by an additional $110 million each year.  Furthermore, the Canadian federal Scientific Research and Experimental Development (SR&ED) tax incentive program is central in supporting R&D in Canada. As a world leader in health and life sciences, Canada is home to some of the top biotechnology research facilities in the world, which rely on government funding to alleviate the costs of research. In 2010, $768 million was spent on R&D by pharmaceutical and medicine manufacturers, and another $414 million on R&D relating to navigational, measuring, medical and control instruments. Such research was supported by the Canadian government who had contributed $3.47 billion between 2010 and 2011 to support innovative companies through the SR&ED program.

With so much potential innovation on the horizon, global competition is increasing the need to continue investing in research. As such, biotechnology companies conducting R&D in Canada are strongly encouraged to leverage federal and municipal incentives like the SR&ED tax credit to reinvest funds back into research and commercialization which otherwise may not be affordable, allowing them to get ahead of the competition.   

Read more about SR&ED in the biotechnology sector.

The Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) has recently announced the industrial biotechnology companies that have been selected to showcase their new technologies, accomplishments and business models to leading investors and analysts at the BIO 9^th  annual World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing, to be held on April 29- May 2 in Orlando, FL.  

 Company executives from several companies including Virdia, Itaconix, Agrivida, Proterro, CO2 Solutions , Kiverdi , Cellana and Terrabon will make formal 25-minute presentations to spur investment opportunities and business partnerships.

 The BIO congress is a forum for networking and creating partnership opportunities as well as an exhibition of current technological trends and advancements aimed at delivering innovative technological solutions to the global market. Bringing together more than 1,000 innovative minds, this is the world’s largest industrial biotechnology event for business leaders, investors and policy makers in biofuels, biobased products, renewable chemicals, synthetic biology, food ingredients and biomass, with commercialization of advanced biofuels as this year’s prevailing theme.

 This will be the first year presenting an investor discussion panel to examine the biggest investment trends of 2012 and identify  investment opportunities and funding sources for clean tech business. The investor panel will be moderated by John May, of Stern Brothers & Co., and feature industry experts.

 Six breakout session tracks will be additionally featured, providing participants with a smaller group setting to address specific industry topics such as Advanced Biofuel Technologies; Algae and Feedstock Crops; Renewable Chemical Platforms and Biobased Materials; Specialty Chemicals; Synthetic Biology and Metabolic Engineering; and Technical Presentations.

 A strong Canadian presence will be demonstrated at the congress with notable participants such as Ontario Agri-food Technologies, Agriculture & Agri-Food Canada, Ontario Ministry of Agriculture Food and Rural Affairs, Ontario Ministry of Economic Development & Trade, The Chemical Institute of Canada, BIOTECanada, as well as the University of Waterloo and the University of Guelph among many others.

The environment is on mostly everyone’s mind these days. The changes that you make to help our environment don’t have to be massive changes. There are many small things that you can do to help out and make a difference in your office every day.

1. Turn off all electronics and lights overnight. This can waste so much energy. Not only will this reduce the amount of energy that is used in your office, it will also reduce utility costs for your office!
2. Recycle. We’re not just talking paper here – many people will bring cans or bottles of pop or water, cans of soup, etc. to work for lunch. You can also recycle computers, but you probably want to be certain that all sensitive data has been completely removed from your computer before recycling it.
3. Only print out what you need to. Send memos, meeting minutes and meeting agendas by e-mail instead of printing them out and distributing them.
4. Use both sides of paper. If you can, print on both sides of the paper. Personally, I normally keep a stack of paper that I’ve printed on beside my desk as scrap paper.
5. Buy used office furniture and electronics. You can easily find gently used furniture and electronics – especially with our economy is as it is right now, so many businesses are suffering and closing, and selling their own office equipment.
6. Change the way you travel to work. Take the bus or subway; ride your bike. Carpool if you live near someone who works with you. Telecommute when possible. This also goes for meetings – video conference or conference call when you can, instead of traveling to visit someone.
7. Get a programmable thermostat. This allows you to turn down the heat (or up the air conditioning) over night.
8. Have a real plant at your desk. Living plants help reduce air pollution.
9. Buy office supplies that are (at least partially) made of recycled materials as much as you can. This goes for everything from paper to binders.
10. Invest in actual dishes and utensils. Instead of Styrofoam or plastic cups, utensils and plates that will only be thrown out after being in use once, buy actual dishes and utensils that can be washed and used again.