February 8, 2008

FUELING GROWTH IN ONTARIO’S KNOWLEDGE-INTENSIVE SERVICES SECTOR

Today’s announcement represents part of the second round of funding under the Ontario Research Fund’s Research Excellence program. In this round, the government is investing $19,505,964 to support four world-class projects at the University of Waterloo. Funding will be matched by approximately 40 industry and other partners participating in the projects.

Model-integrated Software Service Engineering  

Helping business stay at the leading-edge

Total project cost: $9,289,438
Provincial funding: $3,096,479
Lead researcher: Dr. Krzysztof Czarnecki

Building on Ontario’s software expertise, researchers at the University of Waterloo will develop a research program in software services to create innovative, marketable technologies and products that allow business to respond rapidly to emerging needs. They will also develop an education initiative in software services to train a new generation of software experts.

Ontario, with its booming Information and Communications Technology (ICT) industry, is in a strong position to compete in the knowledge-intensive services sector.  However, until now the province did not have a cohesive research and educational initiative in software services.  This research project will link together a core of internationally renowned researchers and innovative Ontario companies to tackle key challenges in the area of software services. The research will develop innovative, marketable technologies and provide direct economic benefits to Ontario. 

In addition, this project will also spearhead a timely educational initiative in software services, training 60 to 80 highly qualified personnel at the graduate level, and 50 to 80 highly qualified personnel at the undergraduate level.  These students will be in high demand as professionals, teachers, researchers, and entrepreneurs in Ontario, and fuel growth in the knowledge-intensive services sector.  This initiative will provide international visibility and position Ontario as a leader in the industry.

The result will be made-in-Ontario improvements to software services that can be marketed around the world.

Key private sector partners:
IBM, Google Inc., LogicBlox, MKS Inc., Open Text, Scotiabank

Key Facts:

• In Canada and abroad, knowledge-intensive services are leading the service sector in job creation, R&D spending, average wages and growth.  The software services industry is key part of this phenomenal growth — growing at between 25 and 40 per cent a year, and expected to reach $10 billion by 2009.
• Software services is an industry where a software seller develops a software application and hosts and operates the application for use by its customers over the Internet. Customers do not pay for owning the software itself but rather for using it.
• Software services are generally associated with business software and they are a low-cost way for businesses to obtain the same benefits of commercially licensed, internally operated software without the associated complexity and high initial cost.
• Many types of software services are used by organizations such as banks, governments and other  businesses that have little interest or internal capability in software deployment, but do have substantial computing needs.
• Application areas such as Customer Relations Management, Video Conferencing, Human Resources, Accounting and Email are just a few of the initial markets. 
• Innovation in this sector is driven by a special blend of expertise that combines technical ability with business acumen and an understanding of social systems. This new discipline has been named SSME: Services Sciences, Management and Engineering.

Ontario Research Fund – Research Excellence Program

This second round of funding under the Research Excellence program will invest  $114,709,614 to support 19 world-class projects at nine Ontario universities, institutes and hospitals. Funding will be matched by 107 major industry and other partners participating in the projects.

For more information about the Ontario Research Fund, please visit www.ontario.ca/innovation.

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