7. NRC-CISTI Strategic Plan 2005 – 2010: Exploiting Information for Innovation
Based on the input of its stakeholders, the results of an environment scan that covered the political, business, technology, and policy aspects, as well as an assessment of NRC-CISTI's capabilities and culture, NRC-CISTI has developed the following strategic framework.
Goals, strategic objectives, and key performance measures
The goals identified in this framework represent the key thrusts for NRC-CISTI over the next five years. For each of the NRC-CISTI goals, strategic objectives have been identified and are presented below. For a list of NRC-CISTI's key outcomes for 2010, see Annex 2 .
Goal 1 Provide universal, seamless, and permanent access to information for Canadian research and innovation
Strategic objectives:
1.1 Develop a sustainable partnership model for access to STM information across sectors and jurisdictions
NRC-CISTI's stakeholders envision universal, seamless, and permanent access to the world's STM information for Canada's researchers and entrepreneurs, where and when they need it. Universal means that all users will have access regardless of location in Canada, the sector they represent, or the size of their organization. Seamless refers to efficient ways to find what they want and get it quickly without barriers. To address the barrier of costs to users, affordable access will be the goal, that is, at a reasonable price or in some cases free. Permanent means that STM information resources will be owned and stored permanently in Canada to ensure ongoing access for Canadians.
To realize this goal, NRC-CISTI will work in partnership with other players in the academic, public, health, and industrial sectors to create a coordinated, inter-operative system that will provide cost-effective, user-specific, and easy-to-use access to Canadians. NRC-CISTI will ensure permanent access to and storage of digital information resources and will also offer tools that facilitate access to and analysis of the scientific literature. For materials in print format, NRC-CISTI will maintain its document delivery services and expand partnerships with national and international resource partners and services.
Key to success will be developing a sustainable partnership model for shared access, securing the rights for permanent access, storage, and delivery of information in digital format, and obtaining secure, ongoing funding. As part of its contribution, NRC-CISTI must enhance and diversify its electronic journal collection. NRC-CISTI will work with partners, including the Library and Archives Canada, the Canadian academic library consortia, the Strategic Alliance of Federal Science and Technology Libraries, the health sciences information community, and others to build on current initiatives, such as the Federal Science eLibrary proposal, to make this vision a reality.
To extract the full value from STM information requires aggregation, analysis, and synthesis to develop knowledge that is actionable. Through its research mandate, NRC-CISTI will develop and offer innovative tools for processes, such as data and text mining, that facilitate the discovery of new knowledge and the exploitation of research.
Key performance measures
Canada's scientific infostructure is launched by 2007
The Federal Science eLibrary is operational by 2008
Goal 2 Enable researchers and entrepreneurs to advance and exploit knowledge through accelerated, innovative scientific communication
Strategic objectives:
2.1 Develop and offer innovative publishing processes with supporting systems and tools to accelerate scientific communication
To support researchers, in Canada and around the world, NRC-CISTI will implement robust, innovative publishing systems and develop product offerings and marketing strategies to ensure the widest possible dissemination of their research results. NRC-CISTI will ensure that researchers are offered the systems and tools to communicate rapidly and directly with their community wherever they are located and in the format or media that is appropriate. It will strengthen the peer-review system and support the volunteer researchers who sustain it to ensure the publication of high-quality, validated results. NRC-CISTI will also address the issues of equitable access for transitionary and developing countries to the S&T information that it publishes.
To support NRC's role in community technology clusters and commercialization thrust, NRC-CISTI will work in collaboration with IRAP and other partners to expand NRC-CISTI's program of business-relevant services, such as competitive technical intelligence and patent information analysis. Addressing the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises for actionable information will receive increasing attention by NRC-CISTI over the next 5 years.
Key performance measures
A viable scientific publishing infrastructure is in place to support scholarly communication in Canada by 2010
NRC-CISTI services to support commercialization are available in each region of Canada by 2007
Goal 3 Lead STM information communities across Canada to become a national force for innovation
Strategic objectives:
3.1 Create and mobilize a national alliance to raise awareness of the value of STM information
NRC-CISTI's stakeholders have identified the need for national coordination to mobilize the STM information community to ensure maximum benefit is delivered to Canadians from their investment in STM information resources. They have called on NRC-CISTI to assume leadership to make this happen. As Canada's national science library and largest S&T publisher, NRC-CISTI is well positioned to fulfill this role.
NRC-CISTI will engage other Canadian STM information organizations to form an alliance to raise awareness among decision makers of the value of STM information to research, innovation, and commercialization. The alliance will include key members of the STM information community: libraries and publishers from the academic, health, and industry sectors, and federal and provincial governments. A key anticipated outcome of increased awareness will be sustainable funding for STM information in Canada.
NRC-CISTI will call upon its publishing program, the NRC Research Press, to provide leadership in the area of scientific publishing. As new publishing models and technologies develop, the Press has a role in ensuring that the interests of Canadians are put forward and protected and that not-for-profit society publishers have access to programs that support their role in STM publishing. This will be achieved through partnerships and alliances, both national and international, as well as through the publishing of high-quality, validated research results and the offering of innovative publishing services and systems.
Science is becoming increasingly international and transdisciplinary. To encourage a culture of collaboration and enable Canadian researchers to participate effectively in national and international scientific dialogue, NRC-CISTI will offer innovative collaborative tools that meet the needs of these communities.
Key performance measures
A national alliance that includes key members of the STM information community in Canada is active by 2010
Goal 4 Grow as an enabling organization
Strategic objectives:
4.1 Strengthen and augment core competencies to support client-focused initiatives
NRC-CISTI's stakeholders have high expectations of NRC-CISTI and see it as a natural leader of Canada's STM information community. To meet the expectations of its clients and stakeholders, NRC-CISTI needs to ensure that it remains a strong, vibrant, forward-looking organization that continues to grow its human, technological, and information resources.
Competencies
NRC-CISTI's success is created by its competent, committed staff. The capability assessment of NRC-CISTI showed that NRC-CISTI has the internal strength to assume new directions. It found employees to be engaged in their work and highly committed to the organization. They feel that their work offers opportunities to learn and to grow. To meet the challenges presented by technological advances, new processes, and continuous accelerated change, NRC-CISTI will identify the competencies needed and will ensure that its employees have the skills and tools required to carry this Strategic Plan forward.
A key new competency that has been identified is the ability to lead, manage, and grow partnerships. As NRC-CISTI increasingly looks to partnerships and alliances as a means of ensuring integrated access to national and international information resources, these skills will be more in demand and will be a focus for training and development.
NRC-CISTI's stakeholders recognized that the role of information specialists is changing and that they will increasingly be called upon as knowledge brokers. NRC-CISTI will continue to develop and acquire competencies to analyse information and deliver business-relevant services.
Strategic collaborations
A new thrust for NRC-CISTI will be to engage proactively with major Canadian research and development initiatives. NRC-CISTI will target appropriate initiatives, initiate pilot projects, and develop the people who can deliver the STM information services that are required to make a valued contribution to the success of these initiatives. As an important partner in these initiatives, NRC-CISTI's contribution will be recognized and funded.
A renewed financial strategy
NRC-CISTI's strategy is focused on service to the Canadian science and innovation community. In order for NRC-CISTI to partner with and serve Canadian organizations, researchers and entrepreneurs, the strategy will require sustained investment.
The key principles governing the financial strategy are:
NRC-CISTI's strategic, operating and financial planning must demonstrate sustainability.
NRC-CISTI will be driven by the needs of clients and partners.
NRC-CISTI will make financial decisions that are informed and conservative, and will manage risk caused by incomplete information, rapid changes in technology and changing markets.
The current financial situation poses challenges to NRC-CISTI, as our reliance on revenue growth is being eroded by changes in the marketplace, with a reduced demand for our traditional services. Revenues from document delivery services are declining and we forecast further erosion due to increased desktop access to electronic journals. The NRC Research Press is also experiencing an ongoing reduction in demand for its print journals. Although new revenues are generated from the electronic journals, growth occurs at a slower pace. In recent years, revenues from NRC-CISTI's business lines have covered 55 – 62% of total expenditures.
At the same time, costs continue to increase as a result of growth at NRC, continuing inflation in serial prices, the need to meet client requirements with new products and services, and the ongoing need to invest in information and publishing technology. NRC-CISTI has managed this situation by undertaking cost cutting measures, increasing productivity, developing new products and services, and expanding its markets in the United States and other countries.
While revenue will continue to play a significant role, NRC-CISTI can no longer rely on revenue growth to finance its activities. New and innovative ways must be found to move forward. This Strategic Plan identifies opportunities for alignment with national priorities and initiatives and stresses the importance of partnerships and collaboration to maximize the benefits of Canada's investment in STM infrastructure and resources. To support its strategic directions, NRC-CISTI will expand current partnerships and develop new ones, within and outside NRC, and nationally and internationally. These partnerships will allow for the sharing of resources, costs, infrastructure and risks, as well as benefits. As value is demonstrated, it is anticipated that new sources of funding will become available.
NRC-CISTI's new financial strategy will be a mix of revenue, shared investments through partnerships, leveraging of resource and infrastructure investments, and government allocation. To fund its mandated activities and service to NRC, NRC-CISTI will seek new resources from NRC and the Government of Canada, including resources to rebuild and cover annual inflation-related cost increases for NRC-CISTI's national STM collection and funds for other activities necessary to support innovation in Canada.
Research program in information science
NRC-CISTI will develop a program that advances research in library science, information science, scientific publishing, and information technology of potential benefit to NRC-CISTI and the library community. This will include the development and prototyping of potential new tools for information analysis, management, and dissemination. To further this research effort NRC-CISTI will work in collaboration with researchers in universities and other organizations.
Key performance measures
A vibrant, highly skilled, and satisfied workforce
Funding for sustained innovation is assured
