Research Strategy

Enhancing Knowledge On Infrastructure
A Strategy For Research

Table of Contents

A Strategy for Policy Research

Tab 1: Framework for Analysis: Infrastructure as an Instrument of Government

Tab 2: Preliminary Themes and Questions for Research

Tab 3: Workplan

Footnotes

A STRATEGY FOR RESEARCH

Research is at the core of the knowledge that informs and supports public policy- and decision-making. As the federal government seeks to "put in place a ten-year programme for infrastructure to accommodate long-term strategic initiatives essential to competitiveness and sustainable growth"1 , forward-looking horizontal research on infrastructure issues is more important than ever.

This document outlines a strategy for research for Infrastructure Canada. It develops the rationale for a two-pronged strategy aimed at: addressing key gaps in our understanding of infrastructure; and establishing a vibrant, multi-disciplinary research community able to support future policy- and decision-making. The integrated approach set out for meeting these goals combines knowledge generation with dissemination and community-building activities. It is explicitly designed not only to address research goals, but also to provide fundamental support for the carrying out of the department's policy and operational responsibilities and thereby enhance overall organizational effectiveness, in the immediate and longer-terms.

As Tab 1 explains, the research strategy is grounded in a framework for analysis that sees infrastructure as one of many alternative instruments available to government to advance collective social, environmental and economic objectives. This lens, combined with an initial review of the current state of knowledge about infrastructure, implies a number of key themes, questions and activities for research, which are presented in subsequent tabs. Tab 2 provides an overview, by theme area, of important questions for research and Tab 3 a detailed workplan.

BACKGROUND

Infrastructure is "the basic or underlying structure on which an organization or system is built and which makes it able to work". Since the 1920s, the term has been used to refer collectively to the transportation and communications systems, water and power lines and public institutions such as schools and post offices that are required for the functioning of an economy and society.

The importance of infrastructure for the long-term economic growth and quality of life of Canadians is reflected in the federal government's historic role in infrastructure development. The building of railways, canals, ports, the TransCanada Highway, the St. Lawrence Seaway and airports has been central to federal nation-building. Many view the provision and maintenance of quality public infrastructure as one of the most important responsibilities of government.

In recent years, the role of government in infrastructure has evolved significantly. No longer is government itself automatically the lead provider and maintainer of roads, bridges, ports and the like. Instead, it is increasingly recognized that infrastructure is a multi-faceted instrument of government, which can be used to advance collective priorities regarding economic growth and quality of life in many different ways (see Tab 2 ). Direct funding programmes are often designed to leverage public and private investment in needed infrastructure projects and other kinds of policy, research and communications initiatives can be used to influence infrastructure planning, innovation and use in all sectors.

Infrastructure Canada was established to provide a focal point for federal government involvement in infrastructure. Beyond its responsibilities for programme delivery and oversight, the department has a unique opportunity to play a leadership role in policy development and, equally important, ensuring through a strategy for research that the necessary knowledge foundation is in place to inform both policy development and operational decision-making, in the immediate and longer terms.

RATIONALE

Enhanced understanding of infrastructure issues is essential for achieving the federal government's goal of having modern and efficient 21stcentury infrastructure across the country. This is true for a number of reasons:

• The policy environment for infrastructure has changed dramatically in recent decades. This is the consequence, for instance, of technological and materials advances, the heightened profile of issues such as climate change and the dual forces of globalization and continental economic integration, the introduction of new environment, safety and health regulations and other governance reforms (e.g. regarding citizen engagement and taxation) at all levels of government, especially the municipal, the development of new costing and management approaches for infrastructure projects. These changes have direct implications for the role of government in infrastructure, as well as the appropriateness and effectiveness of alternative policy measures.
  
  
• Pressures on existing infrastructure continue to mount due to increased movement of goods, services and people. At the same time, consistent with a general OECD wide trend, public capital investment as a percentage of GDP has dropped steadily since the mid 1970s. Recent studies estimate that infrastructure demand in Canada presently outpaces available funding and capital investment by approximately $90-billion.2 Left unaddressed by innovative demand- and supply-side measures by government and others, the research suggests there will be adverse consequences for competitiveness and quality of life.
  
  
• The concept of infrastructure itself has evolved. The infrastructure required to support the efficient functioning of a knowledge-based economy and society characterized by increasingly tight economic linkages with its neighbour to the south differs from that of earlier times. Broadband telecommunications systems are one of the best examples. Some experts (e.g. Vining and Richards, 2001) advocate extending the concept of infrastructure to include what they call intangible infrastructure that is education, training, research and development and other activities that enhance productivity through a focus on human capital development.3 There is also growing appreciation of: the important non-economic and indirect effects of investments in infrastructure (e.g. impacts on environmental quality and public health, safety and security), as well as of the linkages between different kinds of infrastructure (e.g. railways and roads), between infrastructure and other dimensions of economic and societal behaviour (e.g. productivity and household transportation patterns) and, as a result of globalization and regionalization, between domestic and international infrastructure (e.g. border crossings, transboundary surface transportation and airports). In these circumstances, it is clear that many of the basic assumptions underlying our understanding of infrastructure must be re-examined.
  
  
• The nature of infrastructure projects has also changed over recent decades. Today's projects now tend to feature increased technical, planning and legal complexities. They are typically based on public-private partnership approaches due, in part at least, to the financial resources required. By at least one estimate, the planning phase for projects is often 7-8 times longer than it was in the 1970s (OECD, 1993). These developments point to a heightened importance for governance issues in the infrastructure area.
  

Moreover, despite the long history of federal involvement in infrastructure issues, it is increasingly acknowledged that there are significant weaknesses in the knowledge base available to support policy- and decision-making . These take two forms: gaps in our substantive understanding of infrastructure; and an under-developed network of research expertise.

On the knowledge front, there is remarkably little consensus in critical areas. While progress has been made, our understanding of the magnitude, condition and life expectancy of the current stock of infrastructure in Canada, of the scope of current and future needs and of the total value of current and future investments is incomplete. This is as true on a national basis as it is for different regions of the country for different sectors. The knowledge foundation necessary to carefully identify and analyze possible desired states for Canada's 21stcentury infrastructure is consequently not in place.

In addition, social science-based and truly horizontal insights into infrastructure issues which combine technical and non-technical (e.g. economic, policy and management) perspectives are rare. Data and methods for measuring the economic, social and environmental impacts of infrastructure investments remain inadequate and our understanding of the various governance arrangements available to help optimize government's use of infrastructure is limited. Nor have lessons learned in Canada (e.g. through earlier infrastructure initiatives or pilot projects) and other jurisdictions been adequately identified or assessed. Better knowledge on all these fronts and others is essential for evidence-based policy- and decision-making.

Finally, despite the existence of recognized pockets of mainly technical expertise on infrastructure issues both inside and outside government and some significant recent developments such as the National Guide to Municipal Infrastructure exercise and CERIU's annual Urban Infrastructure Week, a cross-cutting or multi- (or even trans-) disciplinary community of expertise has not yet emerged. The knowledge available to policy- and decision-makers therefore tends to be technical and sector-specific, rather than non-technical, horizontal and readily usable for their purposes. Furthermore, in the absence of a strong network of researchers inside or outside government, the conditions necessary for collaboration and a matching of supply and demand for policy- and operationally-relevant research are not being met. A basic mapping of the existing community, followed by a detailed analysis of how an enhanced community can better support the policy and operational needs of Infrastructure Canada, must be a priority for research.

GOALS

In this context, the over-arching goal for Infrastructure Canada's research strategy is two-fold:

1. to address the gaps in our understanding of the use of infrastructure as an instrument of government; and
2. to ensure this knowledge is available to inform and support policy- and decision-making.

APPROACH

To meet these goals, the research strategy focuses on three closely inter-connected areas: knowledge generation, community-building, and knowledge transfer. Each of these is examined in more detail below.

Knowledge Generation

Knowledge generation entails identifying what is already known about infrastructure; what is not known and therefore needs to be learned or discovered; and what is known but is not yet being adequately taken into account in policy- and decision-making. Addressing the knowledge gap will therefore involve mining and analyzing existing data and research, sometimes in new ways, and creating new insights. It will involve making better use of intelligence collected through the department's on-going operational and policy activities (e.g. SIMSI data and project visits). It will also involve different kinds of research, for instance literature reviews, primary research through surveys and other techniques, action research and best practices.

Sample Activities:

1. Development of a framework for analysis to guide research and assist in building a strong research partnership with others (see Tab 1)
2. Setting of research priorities in light of a gaps analysis and the department's immediate and longer-term policy and operational requirements.
3. Designing, undertaking, managing and identifying research projects in priority areas (preliminary research suggests several main themes and questions, which are reflected in Tabs 2 and 3).
4. Responding to specific requests for research from departmental colleagues and OGDs (e.g. on performance indicators for infrastructure investments).

Community-Building

Community-building means providing leadership for the development of a research community on infrastructure issues involving other federal departments and agencies (e.g. Agriculture, Environment, Transport and National Research Council), other levels of government, universities and research institutes, the private sector and other experts and which is aligned with needs for research and relevant policy-making processes more generally.

Sample Activities:

• Mapping the current community (OGDs and external) and identifying key gaps
• Hosting of an initial federal experts meeting to validate departmental research strategy, to improve understanding of existing research resources within the federal family and to begin to position the department as striving to become a leader on infrastructure research and policy development more generally
  
• Developing and sustaining bilateral relationships with key members of the research community, inside and outside the federal government, with a view to improving access to research findings, signalling research requirements and fostering active research collaboration and coordination
  
• Establishment of an advisory group to provide the Deputy Minister and the Research Division with advice regarding the department's research priorities (internal and external).

Knowledge Transfer

The term knowledge transfer is refers to the two-way exchange of information that is essential for effective knowledge utilization. Knowledge transfer will be one of the principal vehicles for community-building. Strategies will need to be customized to the needs of in-house clients, as well as those in other federal departments and agencies and other parts of the research community. Moreover, there is an important role for the department to play in sharing the results of research generated through its own research activities, but also as a more general broker of knowledge for the community of experts interested in infrastructure issues.

Sample Activities:

• Dissemination of departmental knowledge products and expertise across the community (e.g. website and Infra-Research newsletter)
• Development of a knowledge transfer strategy, in collaboration with Communications and CIO colleagues and the results of the community mapping exercise
• Development and delivery, in collaboration with Communications and CIO colleagues, of particular knowledge products for different clients (e.g. seminars and workshops with experts, short research notes and more detailed research briefs, Infra-Research electronic newsletter, Research webpage on the departmental website and a virtual infrastructure library for the department).

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES

Given the nascent state of our knowledge about Canada's infrastructure and the community of experts interested in infrastructure issues, there is a significant opportunity for Infrastructure Canada to establish itself as centre of expertise and have an impact on the quality of policy- and decision-making.

At the same time, achieving the goals set out in the research strategy will depend on a number of factors. Success will require, amongst other things:

• establishing the credibility and value-added of the department's research capacity, especially on cross-cutting or horizontal issues;
• not under-estimating the importance of investing up front, in high quality diagnostiques and mappings, to ensure that the foundations are in place for a research programme that is sustainable over time;
• combining short and medium term deliverables that are valued by the full range of clients and that make a measurable contribution to the results being sought through the strategy and the overall effectiveness of the department;
• putting mechanisms in place to advance the department's research objectives with internal and external clients and ensuring their long-term sustainability;
  
• setting priorities, sequencing and identifying key drivers to leverage and focus research efforts; and
• staying focussed on the broad strategic directions set out for knowledge generation, community-building and dissemination, while ensuring sufficient flexibility to adjust course as necessary (e.g. as research is completed, or as policy and operational requirements shift).

TAB 1: FRAMEWORK FOR ANALYSIS: INFRASTRUCTURE AS AN INSTRUMENT OF GOVERNMENT

The research strategy is grounded in a framework for analysis that sees infrastructure as an instrument of government. The framework is inspired by the well-established international body of research on what has come to be called instrument choice and offers a number of advantages as a tool to assist us in thinking about infrastructure and organizing and delivering on a research strategy.

BACKGROUND

The instrument choice perspective derives from a commitment by researchers in several disciplines (e.g. economics, public policy and administration, law and sociology) to understanding policy design and implementation and the policy-making process writ large through the lens of instruments of government action , rather than policies and programmes. These instruments include, for example, law and regulation, direct spending, subsidies and grants, organization and privatization, information dissemination and taxation. The basic premise of the instrument choice perspective is that governments face distinct choices in deciding how to implement their policies ; given any particular goal, they must choose between a very broad range of available and potentially substitutable and complementary instruments.4

The origin focus of the instrument choice perspective in the 1980s was on individual instruments and their attributes . Over the past decade or so, scholars and policy-makers alike have concluded that how and why governments choose different instruments and how instruments can be combined into instrument mixes (or ensembles) must be equally important considerations in the design and implementation of public policy. The consensus is that the effectiveness of different instruments in meeting collective goals depends fundamentally upon the environments - economic, political, institutional, values and ideas - in which they are applied.

RATIONALE AND IMPLICATIONS FOR POLICY RESEARCH

The research on instrument choice provides a helpful analytical framework for thinking about infrastructure. Through its lens, infrastructure is one of many instruments with different attributes that governments can use to advance collective priorities such as economic growth, innovation, climate change, security, health and safety and overall quality of life. Furthermore, the instrument itself can take many forms (e.g. direct provision by government of roads and airport, funding programmes to support public-private infrastructure projects and government-led research activities on new infrastructure materials and technologies and the determinants of infrastructure use), with each form able to achieve different kinds of goals. In the instrument choice perspective, the efficient, effective use of infrastructure in all its shapes and forms is quintessentially a problem in design and implementation . There are two fundamental questions: when is infrastructure (compared to other instruments) the right instrument to use?; and, when it is, what form(s) should it take and how should it be implemented in order to ensure the desired results?

An instrument choice perspective on infrastructure has several other advantages. The perspective's insights into the complex dynamics of supply and demand for government's use of different instruments reminds us that the appropriate level of infrastructure "investment" by government should be considered both an empirical and normative question. In addition, the perspective's emphasis on substitutability and complementarity provides a way to think about alternative forms of government action related to infrastructure, how they can be ensembled together (e.g. regulatory standards regarding waste water treatment and investments in water treatment facilities) and the trade-offs that must be made (e.g. between environmental and economic benefits). It also potentially helps us to more fully understand the interconnectiveness of infrastructure projects, systems and measures.

TAB 2: PRELIMINARY THEMES AND QUESTIONS FOR RESEARCH

DIAGNOSTIQUE

General

• What is infrastructure? What is public infrastructure? How are these terms changing?
  
• What are infrastructure "needs"?
  
• What data is currently available to support the development of a diagnostique and research on infrastructure more generally? (Stats Can, OGDs such as EC, TC and IC, OECD, private sector, provinces, municipalities, etc.) Where are the principal gaps?

Baseline

• What is the nature of the current stock of infrastructure in Canada? (e.g. location, types, condition, users, patterns of use, value, effectiveness)
  
  • What does the aggregate versus disaggregated picture look like? What are the advantages and disadvantages of each perspective?
  • What is its nature in selected urban and rural areas?
  • How much is presently being "invested" in infrastructure it? By whom?
  • What different methodologies can be used to measure the stock and its quality and what are their strengths and limitations?
  • How does Canada's stock of infrastructure compare with that in other countries?
    
• What are current needs for infrastructure in Canada?
  
• How does any "infrastructure deficit" in Canada compare with that in other countries?
  
• What collective goals is government currently using infrastructure to advance? How is it doing this?
  
• What are the responsibilities of different governments (e.g. federal, provincial and city) in the infrastructure area? How and why do they make their infrastructure decisions? How do these decisions interact with each other (e.g. complementarity, crowding-out, diversion)?
  
• What roles are other actors playing in the supply and demand for infrastructure?

Environmental Scan: Trends and the Future, Challenges and Opportunities

• What are the major infrastructure trends, past, present and future?
• What are the principal factors that are or will affect future infrastructure supply, demand and use in Canada and the strategies employed by governments and others for addressing them? (e.g. climate change, economic integration, new materials)

INFRASTRUCTURE DESIGN AND IMPLEMENTATION

• What are the results of government's "use" of infrastructure? What are the rates of return? How can they be assessed and measured, ex ante and ex poste?
  
  • What lessons can be learned from previous and ongoing infrastructure initiatives, including CIWP, ICP, CSIF, BIF and SHIP?
    
• What kinds of problems and goals are most effectively pursued through government's use of infrastructure? Through its use of different forms of infrastructure?
  
• How can potential net economic, social and environmental benefits, rates of return and risks be assessed for the purposes of choosing between different infrastructure measures and projects? Is appropriate data available?
  
• How can the efficiency of infrastructure development be improved?
  
  • How can the use of public and private capital in infrastructure development be made more efficiency?
  • What are the impacts of, for example, regulation, pricing and performance targets on efficiency?
    
• What lessons can be learned from the design and implementation of infrastructure in other jurisdictions? For example, what do they say about the options for reducing requirements for added infrastructure capacity?
  
• What are the key emerging issues for the design and implementation of infrastructure?
  
• What kinds of innovative management practices and systems for asset management are in use? What methodologies are available for costing infrastructure over time? What are their advantages and disadvantages?
  
• How can we measure the good performance of infrastructure projects? What data is available to support this measurement?

GOVERNANCE

• How can the efficiency and effectiveness of government's use of infrastructure be improved through better governance (e.g. accountabilities, coordination, collaboration)?
  
  • What lessons can be learned from previous and ongoing infrastructure initiatives, including ICP, CSIF, BIF and SHIP?
    
• What governance structures (e.g. P3s) are the most effective for infrastructure investments involving diverse partners?
  
  • What roles and responsibilities should the public and private sectors and others have in the financing, building and maintaining infrastructure?
  • How can accountability be achieved?
    
• How are citizens engaged in infrastructure design and implementation?
  
• What are the key challenges and opportunities for communicating infrastructure results?

HORIZONTALITY

• What impact can infrastructure investment have on overarching objectives, in particular quality of life, sustainable development and economic growth? On other goals, such as clean air, competitiveness and trade?
  
• How can government's use of infrastructure be combined with other instruments (e.g. regulation, R & D, communications, pricing) to optimize net benefits for citizens in the infrastructure area and in others (e.g. innovation, security, safety, climate change, quality of life)?
  
• What are the effects (e.g. economic growth, environmental) of infrastructure investment on geographical areas, especially metropolitan areas?
  
• What is the link between public infrastructure investments and other programs or initiatives from other OGDs?
  

SECTORS

Research on specific issues related to the priorities: borders, urban development (and tourism), highway and railway, local transportation, water and wastewater, broadband, borders.

TAB 3: WORKPLAN

Successful implementation of the Research Strategy will require a workplan that addresses the key challenges and opportunities noted earlier. These include:

• establishing the credibility and value-added of the department's research capacity, especially on cross-cutting or horizontal issues;
  
• not under-estimating the importance of investing up front, in high quality diagnostiques and mappings, to ensure that the foundations are in place for a research programme that is sustainable over time;
  
• combining short and medium term deliverables that are valued by the full range of clients and that make a measurable contribution to the results being sought through the strategy and the overall effectiveness of the department;
  
• putting mechanisms in place to advance the department's research objectives with internal and external clients and ensuring their long-term sustainability;
  
• setting priorities, sequencing and identifying key drivers to leverage and focus research efforts; and
  
• staying focussed on the broad strategic directions set out for knowledge generation, community-building and dissemination, while ensuring sufficient flexibility to adjust course as necessary (e.g. as research is completed, or as policy and operational requirements shift).

FOOTNOTES

1Speech from the Throne, fall 2002.

2This figure is based on various needs analyses of the demand for infrastructure. These kinds of analyses have been widely critiqued (see, e.g., Munnell, 1993). The development of alternative and/or complementary measures of the appropriate level of infrastructure investment has been identified by many leading experts as a priority area for policy research

3Such an expanded definition already informs infrastructure policy-making in a few instances, such as the state of Victoria in Australia where the government has also established a Department of Infrastructure.

4The Canadian study by Trebilcock, Hartle, Prichard and Dewees on The Choice of Governing Instrument (Ottawa: Economic Council of Canada, 1982) constitutes one of the pioneering contributions to the instrument choice perspective. For general reviews of the instrument choice literature, see Michael Howlett, "Policy Instruments, Policy Styles, and Policy Implementation: National Approaches to Theories of Instrument Choice", Policy Studies J., 19:2, spring 1991, pp. 1-21, and Lester Salamon, ed., The Tools of Government , New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.

5This summary is based on the results of a literature review and consultations with departmental colleagues and other experts inside and outside the federal government, including several professional associations and university and think tank researchers.