the ideator group.
from idea to impact.
Turn research & innovation potential into success.
Build the pipeline to winning results — across any field, across the post-secondary sector, with expertise, with experience, with proven methods.
what we do.
Research & innovation strategy — principles-based strategy your institution owns and actually executes.
Major funding-bid strategy — a senior read on whether a big bid will fly, and how to win it.
Partnership & mission development — partnerships brokered, and doors opened, that you can't reach alone.
Leadership mentoring & board education — a trusted guide to the landscape and how to navigate it.
how we work.
We don't arrive with a template or a hunch. We build strategy the way the best research is built — grounded in evidence, shaped by wide and candid consultation, and tested against a clear read of where a field and its players are heading. What turns those inputs into a strategy that holds is judgement earned by having done the work: knowing which signals matter and which don't. The result is principles-based — resilient by design, so it keeps navigating even when conditions change — and genuinely owned by the people who have to deliver it.
Read the landscape. Absorb any field or vertical and distil its essence — and its trajectory. Not just where things stand, but where they're heading.
Set the course. A principles-based strategy, built with a researcher's rigour and resilient when conditions shift.
Build and free the team. De-silo, create the safety to speak plainly, and turn hard decisions into genuine buy-in.
Navigate to the destination. Execution that holds under pressure and delivers measurable results.
who we are.
Our lead is Malcolm Campbell, a research and innovation leader with more than three decades of experience across universities in Canada, the United Kingdom, France, and the United States. He has served as Vice-President Research at the University of Guelph, Vice-Principal Research at the University of Toronto Scarborough, and Provost and Vice-President Academic at Laurentian University.
A scientist by training — with a PhD in biochemistry and a research career in molecular genetics and genomics generating more than 14,000 citations — he pairs deep research credibility with a record of building and leading large, complex enterprises. He serves on provincial and national boards, including as Interim Chair of the Ontario Centre of Innovation. He is based in Guelph, Ontario, and works with institutions across Canada and internationally.
what we deliver.
While our work centres on the post-secondary and research sector, the same method serves mission-driven institutions more broadly — from cultural and scientific organisations to not-for-profits.
Research & innovation strategy
The strategy for your research and innovation enterprise — built to be executed, not shelved. Strategic research and innovation plans; moving reforms like full research-cost recovery or governance renewal from plan into practice; a resilient course through a shifting funding landscape. For vice-presidents research, provosts, presidents, and boards.
Major funding-bid strategy
A senior, strategic read on a major bid — will it fly, and how should it be positioned to win — from someone who has led one of the largest in the country and adjudicated nationally. Not compilation or project management: the critical-friend judgement on where to place the institution's bet. For research leaders facing a competition that matters.
Partnership & mission development
Access an institution can't build alone — brokered partnerships and led missions to government, industry, and international partners, from Horizon Europe to key markets and sectors. Relationships that would take years to build, opened through a network built over a career. For teams and consortia growing their sphere of impact.
Leadership mentoring & board education
For leaders stepping into senior research and innovation roles, a trusted, experienced sounding board through a demanding first year. For boards and executives, a clear read of a complex landscape and the principles to navigate it. Drawn from having held these seats — in good times and through crisis. For those seeking tools to navigate complexity and uncertainty.
track record.
Nearly fifteen years leading research and innovation at scale, after decades working in the research ecosystem, in Canada, the US, UK, and Europe.
Built and led the engine we’ve helped others build.
A $1.4-billion annual return, secured for the long term. Led the team behind a research and innovation partnership that returns roughly $1.4 billion a year to the provincial economy on a $70-million investment — and negotiated the two consecutive agreements that locked that return in place over a decade.
A record $182-million research enterprise. Led the team that grew the university's annual research income to its highest level ever, and led the bid that won a $77-million national award — the largest research grant in the institution's history.
Zero workplace transmission through COVID. Assembled and led a 22-person team that kept a 500-person, multi-site research operation — including two provincial diagnostic laboratories and fifteen field stations — running safely throughout the pandemic.
An 8% rise in confirmed domestic enrolment during an insolvency recovery — by de-siloing a fractured team and giving it a strategy it could deliver.
Through provincial and national board service, keep current line of sight on where the landscape is heading.