Trinidad and To­ba­go stands at a crit­i­cal eco­nom­ic cross­roads. Tra­di­tion­al growth dri­vers are un­der in­creas­ing pres­sure, while the struc­ture of glob­al val­ue cre­ation has fun­da­men­tal­ly changed. For decades, much of our eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty was built around ex­trac­tive in­dus­tries and nat­ur­al re­sources such as co­coa, sug­ar, oil and gas. To­day, how­ev­er, the high­est lev­els of val­ue are no longer gen­er­at­ed pri­mar­i­ly through pro­duc­tion it­self, but through re­search and de­vel­op­ment (R&D), in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty (IP), de­sign, down­stream mar­ket con­trol, and tech­no­log­i­cal in­no­va­tion.

Man­u­fac­tur­ing and as­sem­bly have be­come in­creas­ing­ly com­modi­tised. Com­pet­i­tive ad­van­tage now re­sides in knowl­edge own­er­ship, pro­pri­etary tech­nol­o­gy, in­no­va­tion sys­tems and the abil­i­ty to con­tin­u­ous­ly com­mer­cialise new ideas. Un­for­tu­nate­ly, we have his­tor­i­cal­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed on­ly mar­gin­al­ly in this high­er-val­ue seg­ment of the glob­al econ­o­my.

Yet this re­al­i­ty of­ten ob­scures an im­por­tant truth: we al­ready pos­sess sig­nif­i­cant pri­vate sec­tor tech­ni­cal ca­pa­bil­i­ty. Sev­er­al lo­cal firms have spent years qui­et­ly in­vest­ing in in­ter­nal R&D func­tions, tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise, prod­uct de­vel­op­ment, and in­no­va­tion ac­tiv­i­ties. What re­mains ab­sent is a suf­fi­cient­ly co­or­di­nat­ed na­tion­al mech­a­nism ca­pa­ble of con­sis­tent­ly trans­form­ing in­dus­tri­al re­search in­to scal­able com­mer­cial out­comes.

This is one of the rea­sons the In­no­va­tion As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go has es­tab­lished the In­dus­tri­al Re­search and Com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee.

Com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion gap

The Com­mit­tee’s ob­jec­tive is straight­for­ward but strate­gi­cal­ly im­por­tant: to cre­ate a fo­cussed, ex­ec­u­tive-lev­el mech­a­nism that helps firms over­come the prac­ti­cal bar­ri­ers pre­vent­ing re­search-dri­ven ideas from reach­ing the mar­ket.

Across mul­ti­ple sec­tors, com­pa­nies con­tin­ue to ex­pe­ri­ence re­cur­ring ex­e­cu­tion chal­lenges. These in­clude:

* Dif­fi­cul­ty mov­ing from con­cept to mar­ket-ready prod­ucts;

* Un­cer­tain­ty sur­round­ing com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion path­ways;

* Un­der­util­i­sa­tion of ex­ist­ing R&D in­cen­tives;

* Weak in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty de­vel­op­ment and mon­eti­sa­tion strate­gies;

* Lim­it­ed col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween in­dus­try, acad­e­mia, and gov­ern­ment; and

* In­con­sis­tent ap­proach­es to in­no­va­tion man­age­ment and scal­ing

These are not the­o­ret­i­cal con­cerns. They are op­er­a­tional re­al­i­ties ex­pe­ri­enced dai­ly by firms at­tempt­ing to in­no­vate with­in T&T’s eco­nom­ic en­vi­ron­ment.

Im­por­tant­ly, lo­cal or­ga­ni­za­tions have al­ready demon­strat­ed what is pos­si­ble when in­dus­tri­al R&D is ef­fec­tive­ly ex­e­cut­ed. Com­pa­nies such as SM Jaleel & Com­pa­ny, CGA Caribbean and Ramps Lo­gis­tics have shown that re­search-dri­ven, in­no­va­tion-led growth can gen­er­ate ex­port ex­pan­sion, prod­uct dif­fer­en­ti­a­tion, op­er­a­tional re­silience, sig­nif­i­cant fi­nan­cial re­turns and long-term com­pet­i­tive­ness.

The chal­lenge is not whether the ca­pa­bil­i­ty ex­ists. The chal­lenge is how to scale it na­tion­al­ly.

The miss­ing voice of in­dus­tri­al R&D

A ma­jor weak­ness with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­no­va­tion ecosys­tem is the lim­it­ed vis­i­bil­i­ty and rep­re­sen­ta­tion of re­search-ori­ent­ed pri­vate sec­tor firms in na­tion­al in­no­va­tion gov­er­nance struc­tures.

In 2014, in­no­va­tion ecosys­tem ex­pert Jean Guinet ob­served that we of­ten treat in­no­va­tion as syn­ony­mous with start-ups and en­tre­pre­neur­ship. This nar­row in­ter­pre­ta­tion may part­ly ex­plain why in­dus­tri­al R&D re­mains un­der­rep­re­sent­ed in na­tion­al pol­i­cy dis­cus­sions and why there are rel­a­tive­ly few in­cen­tives specif­i­cal­ly de­signed to stim­u­late pri­vate re­search com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion.

It may al­so ex­plain why re­search-dri­ven firms have his­tor­i­cal­ly had lim­it­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tion on the boards and ad­vi­so­ry struc­tures of na­tion­al sci­ence and in­no­va­tion in­sti­tu­tions such as the Caribbean In­dus­tri­al Re­search In­sti­tute (Cariri) and the Na­tion­al In­sti­tute of High­er Ed­u­ca­tion, Re­search, Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy (NI­HERST). In many in­stances, these gov­er­nance struc­tures are dom­i­nat­ed by acad­e­mia and pub­lic sec­tor of­fi­cials, de­spite the pri­vate sec­tor be­ing the pri­ma­ry en­gine for com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion and mar­ket de­ploy­ment.

This ab­sence con­tributes to the wide­spread per­cep­tion that mean­ing­ful R&D ac­tiv­i­ty does not ex­ist lo­cal­ly with­in in­dus­try.

The is­sue is al­so vis­i­ble with­in new­er na­tion­al ini­tia­tives. At the re­cent­ly launched Ar­ti­fi­cial In­tel­li­gence In­no­va­tion Cen­tre at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies, the lim­it­ed pres­ence of es­tab­lished lo­cal re­search-ori­ent­ed firms on both the ad­vi­so­ry and ex­ec­u­tive struc­tures is no­table. A sim­i­lar pat­tern can be ob­served with­in the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s Mar­itime Tech­nol­o­gy Co­op­er­a­tion Cen­tre.

Greater par­tic­i­pa­tion from lo­cal in­dus­tri­al in­no­va­tors could sig­nif­i­cant­ly strength­en com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion out­comes while help­ing bridge the long­stand­ing di­vide be­tween re­search in­sti­tu­tions and mar­ket ex­e­cu­tion.

Learn­ing from in­ter­na­tion­al in­dus­try col­lab­o­ra­tion

Iron­i­cal­ly, one of the strongest ex­am­ples of suc­cess­ful in­dus­try-re­search col­lab­o­ra­tion in T&T can be found with­in the Co­coa Re­search Cen­tre at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies. How­ev­er, many of its most vis­i­ble pri­vate sec­tor col­lab­o­ra­tors are in­ter­na­tion­al cor­po­ra­tions rather than lo­cal firms.

Some of the largest co­coa and choco­late com­pa­nies in the world, such as Mon­delez In­ter­na­tion­al, own­ers of brands in­clud­ing Cad­bury and Oreo; Mars In­cor­po­rat­ed, pro­duc­ers of M&M’s and Snick­ers; as well as Swiss multi­na­tion­al firms Nestlé, Lindt & Sprüngli reg­u­lar­ly en­gage with the Cen­tre’s work and par­tic­i­pate in its an­nu­al ac­tiv­i­ties.

The ab­sence of sim­i­lar­ly po­si­tioned lo­cal cor­po­ra­tions high­lights a broad­er struc­tur­al is­sue: T&T has not yet ful­ly in­te­grat­ed in­dus­tri­al R&D lead­er­ship in­to its na­tion­al in­no­va­tion ar­chi­tec­ture.

The In­dus­tri­al Re­search and Com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee aims to help iden­ti­fy firms with ex­ist­ing or la­tent R&D ca­pa­bil­i­ty and sup­port their deep­er par­tic­i­pa­tion with­in the na­tion­al in­no­va­tion ecosys­tem.

A prac­ti­cal co­or­di­na­tion mech­a­nism

The pro­posed Com­mit­tee is in­ten­tion­al­ly de­signed as a prac­ti­cal co­or­di­na­tion and ad­vi­so­ry body fo­cused on ex­e­cu­tion rather than bu­reau­cra­cy.

It will bring to­geth­er se­nior in­dus­try lead­ers to:

* Iden­ti­fy com­mer­cial­iza­tion bot­tle­necks;

* Im­prove na­tion­al un­der­stand­ing of in­dus­tri­al R&D ex­e­cu­tion;

* Share prac­ti­cal in­no­va­tion ex­pe­ri­ences across sec­tors;

* Pro­vide rec­om­men­da­tions to gov­ern­ment on strength­en­ing the in­no­va­tion en­vi­ron­ment; and

* Sup­port more ef­fec­tive col­lab­o­ra­tion be­tween in­dus­try and re­search in­sti­tu­tions

One of the Com­mit­tee’s most im­por­tant prin­ci­ples is con­fi­den­tial­i­ty. Par­tic­i­pa­tion will not re­quire firms to dis­close pro­pri­etary in­for­ma­tion, sen­si­tive in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, or con­fi­den­tial R&D ac­tiv­i­ties. Dis­cus­sions will in­stead fo­cus on ag­gre­gat­ed in­sights, shared con­straints, and prac­ti­cal so­lu­tions that can im­prove com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion out­comes na­tion­al­ly.

The Com­mit­tee will al­so sup­port broad­er na­tion­al ini­tia­tives aimed at strength­en­ing in­dus­tri­al in­no­va­tion ca­pa­bil­i­ty. These in­clude a na­tion­al adop­tion strat­e­gy for ISO 56001 (the world’s first cer­ti­fi­able in­no­va­tion man­age­ment sys­tem) as well as the de­vel­op­ment of an In­dus­try Chal­lenge and In­no­va­tion Sup­port Mech­a­nism to help firms ac­cess co­or­di­nat­ed ex­per­tise for op­er­a­tional, tech­no­log­i­cal, and com­mer­cial­iza­tion chal­lenges.

Mov­ing in­no­va­tion in­to the main­stream pri­vate sec­tor

The In­no­va­tion As­so­ci­a­tion has al­ready ini­ti­at­ed dis­cus­sions with ma­jor busi­ness cham­bers and stake­hold­ers re­gard­ing col­lab­o­ra­tion on this ini­tia­tive.

For years, the As­so­ci­a­tion has ad­vo­cat­ed for the strength­en­ing of Trinidad and To­ba­go’s in­no­va­tion ecosys­tem while draw­ing at­ten­tion to the coun­try’s de­clin­ing per­for­mance on in­ter­na­tion­al in­di­ca­tors such as the Glob­al In­no­va­tion In­dex.

The As­so­ci­a­tion al­so brings to­geth­er ex­per­tise in in­no­va­tion man­age­ment, in­dus­tri­al re­search, in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, de­sign, and in­no­va­tion ecosys­tem de­vel­op­ment. Its mem­bers in­clude ISO 56001 ex­perts, in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty spe­cial­ists, se­nior cor­po­rate ex­ec­u­tives, and in­no­va­tion prac­ti­tion­ers with re­gion­al and in­ter­na­tion­al ex­pe­ri­ence.

Im­por­tant­ly, many in­no­va­tion ini­tia­tives re­quire a lev­el of strate­gic au­ton­o­my be­cause their ob­jec­tives, cul­ture, and risk pro­file of­ten dif­fer sig­nif­i­cant­ly from tra­di­tion­al op­er­a­tional func­tions in­side or­gan­i­sa­tions. This cre­ates a unique role for in­de­pen­dent in­no­va­tion-fo­cused bod­ies ca­pa­ble of bridg­ing in­dus­try, pol­i­cy, and com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion.

The As­so­ci­a­tion re­mains open to broad­er col­lab­o­ra­tion as dis­cus­sions con­tin­ue and as in­dus­tri­al in­no­va­tion be­comes in­creas­ing­ly in­te­grat­ed in­to main­stream pri­vate sec­tor strat­e­gy.

Build­ing a knowl­edge-dri­ven econ­o­my

If T&T is se­ri­ous about build­ing a knowl­edge-based econ­o­my dri­ven by tech­no­log­i­cal in­no­va­tion, then stronger sys­tems must be cre­at­ed to help firms trans­form ideas, tech­ni­cal ex­per­tise, and re­search ca­pa­bil­i­ty in­to rev­enue-gen­er­at­ing prod­ucts, ser­vices, in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty, and glob­al­ly com­pet­i­tive en­ter­pris­es.

In­dus­tri­al re­search can­not re­main in­vis­i­ble with­in na­tion­al eco­nom­ic plan­ning.

The In­dus­tri­al Re­search and Com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion Com­mit­tee rep­re­sents one prac­ti­cal step to­ward cor­rect­ing this im­bal­ance and po­si­tion­ing Trinidad and To­ba­go to com­pete more ef­fec­tive­ly with­in an in­creas­ing­ly in­no­va­tion-dri­ven glob­al econ­o­my.

Emer­son John-Charles is an ISO Na­tion­al In­no­va­tion Ex­pert and chair of both the In­no­va­tion As­so­ci­a­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Na­tion­al Mir­ror Com­mit­tee for In­no­va­tion Man­age­ment at the Bu­reau of Stan­dards. He al­so led the adop­tion of ISO 56001 as T&T’s na­tion­al in­no­va­tion stan­dard. Learn more about the In­no­va­tion As­so­ci­a­tion at www.in­no­va­tiontt.com.