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Value Addition to Genomics and GE3LS (VALGEN)

156VAL
  • Project Leaders: Peter Phillips, David Castle, Keith Culver
  • Institutions: University of Saskatchewan
  • Budget: $260000
  • Program/Competition: Large Scale Applied Research Programs
  • Genome Centre(s): Genome Canada
  • Status: Closed

Research in genomics progresses at a rapid pace, and drives innovation in key areas of economically important research. The VALGEN project was designed to understand and respond to the governance challenges and opportunities of applied genomics for bioproducts and crops. They found that intellectual property policies and strategies needed to be re-assessed from Canadian perspective and a standpoint of collaboration rather than competition and that Canadian regulation cannot be isolated from global systems, and policies that ignore the international perspective are likely to fail. This led to five state-of-the-art collections of evidence for the policy and regulatory system, expected to become the ultimate resource for policy decision-makers around the globe. VALGEN is now known internationally as a ‘hub’ for decision-makers and academics to re-evaluate and improve policies and practices and to ensure that efficacious and valuable technologies reach the market place. The VALGEN project produced 50 policy briefs, 12 policy interventions, and numerous books/journals/presentations. VALGEN researchers leveraged infrastructure investments and new grants/contracts worth more than $60M (a 12:1 leveraging ratio) and created a novel foresight scenario-based methodology to explore commercialization strategies for three projects: TUFGEN (flax), PhytoMetaSyn (synthetic biology) and MGBC2 (cellulosic ethanol).