If there is one thing you are guaranteed in South East New Brunswick, it’s a warm welcome. Enjoying balmy September weather and fantastic landscape, my feeling was that the Greater Moncton area also appeared home to a gem of potential growth of a life sciences cluster.
Catalysed by Tech South East, stakeholders from the area came together recently to progress discussions about how to make this ambition a reality. Inspired by the example of the BioAlliance cluster on Prince Edward Island, there is recognition that development of a cluster requires patience, resource and commitment.
Many of the key elements are already there – higher education institutions (as well as Mount Allison, the Université de Moncton also has aspirations to build a more entrepreneurial culture), some small R&D start-ups, a host of companies related to the life sciences supply chain, hospitals, a supportive economic development agency and a dynamic industry network determined to effect change.
I am often asked to help and advise on how to “do a Cambridge” – especially around student dissertation time, where students (not to mention consultants) the world over are searching for the Holy Grail of how to replicate the Cambridge cluster model leading to the famous Cambridge Phenomenon.
Rather unhelpfully, there is no magic formula. It was a spatial and temporal juxtaposition of inspired people, permissive policies and new opportunities that contributed to the spawning of the Cambridge cluster – and all without public sector funding. Not very helpful for those wishing to replicate the model, as context is everything.
So while a “cookie cutter” model invariably fails, providing an inspiring culture and enabling environment for businesses, government and academia to work effectively together in the so-called triple helix model is a crucial part of cluster development.
It is ironic that one of the Must-Do tourist attractions at Moncton is Magnetic Hill, a bizarre experience where, having driven to the bottom of the hill and stopped, our car seemed to magically freewheel backwards up the hill, apparently defying gravity.
While the economic development trajectory for many cities in the West is undoubtedly uphill, South East New Brunswick is definitely not going backwards.
© Belinda Clarke, 2011
Director of External Relations
ideaSpace Enterprise Accelerator
Cambridge, UK
