R
rdaner
Guest
This will be the first major building on the St. George campus in over 5 years. Is this going in the parking lot to the south of the Rotman Buýlding?
Ontario kicks in funding for business think tank
GORDON PITTS
Since he became University of Toronto business dean eight years ago, Roger Martin has been vexed by Ontario's fragile standing in the global economy. Now he has $60-million from the provincial government for building a world-class think tank to study how countries or regions can seize competitive advantage.
Mr. Martin said the Ontario economy will be a prime beneficiary of the Centre for Jurisdictional Advantage and Prosperity, housed in a new, $120-million building to be erected beside the existing Rotman School of Management.
The building, which will also accommodate a 50-per-cent expansion in graduate programs, will double Rotman's footprint on the U of T central campus.
"Where the centre is located matters because Canada will get the benefits first," Mr. Martin said yesterday. But he added that the only way for the centre to be globally relevant is to be academically open to international thinking.
Mr. Martin's 10-year plan is to establish a research body for studying comparative advantage that is just as important in its field as the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research, in Cambridge, Mass., is to the study of economics.
"It seeks to answer the question of what a jurisdiction has to do to attract, retain and grow fantastic companies that succeed in the world," said Mr. Martin, a former senior management consultant with Monitor Group, also of Cambridge, Mass.
He sees the centre housing a permanent team of scholars and a rotating roster of visiting fellows, plus a network of international affiliates.
After working on the project for almost seven years, Mr. Martin got the go-ahead this week for a new building when the Ontario budget announced $50-million in aid, to be added to $10-million in previous public funding and an expected matching sum from private donors.
More than half of the $60-million in private funding has been raised already in a campaign led by Geoff Beattie, president of Woodbridge Co. Ltd. ( a major shareholder of The Globe and Mail); financier Joseph Rotman; and philanthropist Marcel Desautels. The latter two are already large benefactors of the school.
The new centre will be built beside the current Rotman building.
Ontario kicks in funding for business think tank
GORDON PITTS
Since he became University of Toronto business dean eight years ago, Roger Martin has been vexed by Ontario's fragile standing in the global economy. Now he has $60-million from the provincial government for building a world-class think tank to study how countries or regions can seize competitive advantage.
Mr. Martin said the Ontario economy will be a prime beneficiary of the Centre for Jurisdictional Advantage and Prosperity, housed in a new, $120-million building to be erected beside the existing Rotman School of Management.
The building, which will also accommodate a 50-per-cent expansion in graduate programs, will double Rotman's footprint on the U of T central campus.
"Where the centre is located matters because Canada will get the benefits first," Mr. Martin said yesterday. But he added that the only way for the centre to be globally relevant is to be academically open to international thinking.
Mr. Martin's 10-year plan is to establish a research body for studying comparative advantage that is just as important in its field as the U.S. National Bureau of Economic Research, in Cambridge, Mass., is to the study of economics.
"It seeks to answer the question of what a jurisdiction has to do to attract, retain and grow fantastic companies that succeed in the world," said Mr. Martin, a former senior management consultant with Monitor Group, also of Cambridge, Mass.
He sees the centre housing a permanent team of scholars and a rotating roster of visiting fellows, plus a network of international affiliates.
After working on the project for almost seven years, Mr. Martin got the go-ahead this week for a new building when the Ontario budget announced $50-million in aid, to be added to $10-million in previous public funding and an expected matching sum from private donors.
More than half of the $60-million in private funding has been raised already in a campaign led by Geoff Beattie, president of Woodbridge Co. Ltd. ( a major shareholder of The Globe and Mail); financier Joseph Rotman; and philanthropist Marcel Desautels. The latter two are already large benefactors of the school.
The new centre will be built beside the current Rotman building.