Waterloo Region is known as a high-tech and manufacturing centre, but it's also home to another growth industry - think-tanks.

More than 150 research institutes and think-tanks, ranging from high-tech to political, theoretical to practical and famous to obscure, call Waterloo Region or Guelph home.

Drawn by a culture of scholarship and innovation, they also help that culture thrive.

The synergy is a major reason that the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS) chose to set up shop in Waterloo. ACUNS supports graduate-level workshops, a doctoral scholarship and an award-winning quarterly publication, the Global Governance Journal.

- John Tennant, Business Edge
CEO of Canada's Technology Triangle

The secretariat relocates every five years to cities that submit successful bids. Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU) won the nomination in 2002 over Yale University and Columbia University and will host the secretariat until 2008.

"Wilfrid Laurier was selected because Waterloo had a growing community of active scholars and researchers working on UN-related issues," says Alistair Edgar, ACUNS executive director.

He adds that in addition to WLU and the University of Waterloo offering "excellent senior administrative support, WLU committed to give me time to serve as the executive director of ACUNS should our bid be successful, which was a significant financial commitment. We also had local financial support from Jim Balsillie at Research In Motion (RIM)."

Among the best-known institutes is the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, an independent research institute hoping to push back the boundaries of theoretical physics, that was established by RIM's other co-CEO, Mike Lazaridis.

Other institutes and think-tanks covering a wide range of subjects are associated with WLU, University of Waterloo, University of Guelph and Conestoga College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning.

"One example might be the Institute for Quantitative Finance and Insurance (IQFI) at the University of Waterloo," says John Tennant, CEO of Canada's Technology Triangle, a business organization that promotes the Waterloo Region. He adds that Phelim Boyle, IQFI's scientific director, recently was named financial engineer of the year by the International Association of Financial Engineers.

"An area of internationally recognized leadership for the University of Waterloo is cryptography," he says, "and the Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research brings together faculty and students in computer engineering, physics and pure mathematics."

To Tennant, the think-tanks and institutes represent a thriving local industry, employing hundreds of administrative staff and attracting millions in research funding as well as bringing some of the best minds in the world to Waterloo.

"These institutes bring together and promote collaboration among researchers with common or related interests and goals," he says. "In many cases, researchers associated with an institute have faculty responsibilities and other affiliations with the local universities.

"The Waterloo Region is building toward a critical mass that will attract some of the world's top researchers," Tennant says.

An example, he adds, is the Centre for Internation-al Governance Innovation (CIGI), a world-leading think-tank examining global governance issues. Its research fellows include include Canada's former UN ambassador Paul Heinbecker and former UN deputy secretary-general Louise Frechette.

CIGI was founded in 2001, with its original staff of three housed in a former railway station in Uptown Waterloo. Today it employs 50 people. RIM co-CEO Balsillie was also involved in the founding and supporting CIGI, as was Open Text Corp., the University of Waterloo and WLU.

"Our research is internationally focused, including Canada's role in international relations," says Colleen Fitzpatrick, CIGI's director of media relations. "We advise decision makers, including policy makers, practitioners, researchers, governments, non-governmental organizations and academics."

Fitzpatrick says the centre also serves the community by providing free public lectures each month. Recent speakers have included former federal cabinet minister Marcel Masse, now the Canadian executive director for the World Bank, and John Holmes, Canada's ambassador to Iraq and Jordan.

CIGI also supports youth-education programs in the region, such as the graduate programs in International Public Policy at the University of Waterloo and WLU, as well as an annual Global Youth Forum for high school students, a World Bank seminar for graduate students and a Canada-U.S. youth summit.

"The centre was set up in Waterloo because the area provides a wealth of opportunity for partnerships, especially from the business and high-tech community," Fitzpatrick says.

"We benefit greatly from our relationships with the University of Waterloo and Laurier. CIGI also announced substantial support last fall for graduate programs on international public policy at the University of Waterloo and at Laurier.

Our $3.5-million graduate programs initiative was made possible through a generous donation by CIGI founder, Jim Balsillie."

In addition, CIGI recently received $7 million from the provincial government for its IGLOO project, a global online community which hopes to "bring together great minds from around the world to help find global solutions to the problems facing our world today," Fitzpatrick says.

While the University of Waterloo and the University of Guelph attract a total of nearly $100 million per year in sponsored research, Tennant says the most important product coming from the local think-tank industry is collaboration and the innovation that springs from it.

"Collaboration across many disciplines attracts active investors, government funding and it allows research to uncover new opportunities for investment," he says. "This is a key element in the region's entrepreneurial spirit that makes Canada's Technology Triangle a leading region for successful new start-ups. The University of Waterloo accounts for more than 20 per cent of the successful technology-based spin-outs from Canadian universities."

Tennant says the research and collaboration is already producing breakthroughs such as the environmental work of John Cherry and Robert Gillham of the Waterloo Institute for Groundwater Research who were recently honoured by the Royal Society of Canada.

"They made significant contributions in using sealable-joint steel-sheet pile cells to clean up solvent contamination in our groundwater. This process is now known as the Waterloo Barrier," he says.

Another benefit resulting from the think-tanks and community support was the recent nomination of the City of Waterloo as one of the seven most intelligent communities in the world by the Intelligent Community Forum (ICF).

The ICF is a New York and Toronto-based non-profit group that focuses on job creation and economic development in high tech.

Waterloo and Cleveland were the only North American cities nominated. The winner will be announced at the ICF annual convention in New York on June 9.

(James Bow can be reached at bow@businessedge.ca)