MaRS Discovery District

''"MaRS" redirects here. For the planet, see Mars. For other terms pertaining to this name, see Mars (disambiguation).

MaRS Discovery District is a not-for-profit corporation founded in 2000. Its stated goal is to commercialize publicly funded medical research with the help of local private enterprises and as such is a public-private partnership.

The name MaRS was originally drawn from a file name, and later attributed with the title “Medical and Related Sciences.” As MaRS also works in other fields such as Information and Communications Technology, Engineering, and Social Innovation, it has since abandoned this association.

Facilities

It is located on the corner of College Street and University Avenue in the city of Toronto’s Discovery District, adjacent to the University of Toronto and its affiliated research hospitals at the University Health Network.

The MaRS development consists of two phases.

Phase I

Phase I includes the ‘Heritage Building’ (formerly a wing of the Toronto General Hospital from 1913 to 2002), the eight-storey ‘South Tower’ and the fifteen-story ‘Toronto Medical Discovery Tower.’ Approximately in size, it contains research facilities, professional services firms, investment companies, technology transfer offices, research and community networking organizations and established global companies. The MaRS Incubator provides lab and office resources for upstart companies, and the MaRS Collaboration Centre provides networking and conference facilities. Phase I began operations in 2005.

Phase II

Phase II, designed by Bregman + Hamann Architects, will constitute a addition to the MaRS centre in the form of a 23-story tower on the complex’s west wing. Construction began in late 2007, and is scheduled to be completed in 2010.

Services

The MaRS Centre

In accordance with its doctrine of ‘Convergence Innovation’, the MaRS centre is designed to maximize socialization, networking and random collisions. Architectural details such as large public spaces, small offices and shared facilities (e.g. break rooms) contribute to this end, as well as events such as monthly tenant pub nights or coffee breaks.

The MaRS Venture Group

The MaRS Venture group provides advisory services to upstart client companies on topics such as constructing business and marketing plans, finding executives and gathering market intelligence. MaRS claims that these address the tasks of acquiring capital and developing business resources that have traditionally proven difficult for hitherto research-oriented enterprises.

Programs and Networks

Through the MaRS Collaboration Centre, MaRS puts on educational seminars, workshops and lectures on topics such as entrepreneurship, best practices and emerging technologies. For example, ‘Entrepreneurship 101’ is a free, not-for-credit lecture series designed for graduate students, post-doctoral candidates, faculty, technicians or other researchers interested in learning the practicalities of developing a company to exploit their research (see link below). Additionally, MaRS offers various online resources, including the MaRS blog, analyst reports, articles and interviews, ‘MaRS picks’ in literature and other media and event listings (see link below.)

Criticism

On April 4, 2006, members of the group “People Against the Militarization of Life” protested in front of the MaRS centre against a tentative deal for MaRS to rent an office to the Battelle Memorial Institute—a research company that has contracts from the U.S. military. MaRS stated that Battelle would be sharing its expertise in medical—rather than military—research, and that MaRS had no interest in military research. The deal later fell through.

MaRS is significant because it marks the Canadian continuation of a trend of increasing private-public sector partnerships, established in the USA after introduction of the Bayh-Dole act. The Bayh-Dole act's goal was to develop more university research into commercial products, but it appears to have resulted in the opposite.

Initiatives and affiliations

• The Toronto Discovery District
• California-Canada Strategic Innovation Partnership
• Social Innovation Generation (SiG)
• Creative Convergence Centres Project
• Premier’s Summit Awards
• Canadian Stem Cell Network
• MaRS Landing
• Stockholm Science City

External links

• The MaRS website
• The MaRS blog Updated daily by MaRS staff and guests on topics including emerging science and technology, entrepreneurship and business, and innovation policy.
• A panoramic view of the MaRS Centre Atrium (Quicktime)
• Press release from the Office of the Premier of Ontario announcing MaRS’ official opening
• The ‘’Now Magazine’’ article on the MaRS-Battelle controversy.
• ‘’The Varsity’’ article on the MaRS-Battelle controversy.
• MaRS' "History of the MaRS Heritage Building"

References