Because these disruptions are being pursued within an idea-rich institutional framework at the NRC, where researchers are encouraged to challenge conventional wisdom, the ideas which are creating the new opportunities are largely only able to be exploited by those who see the need to move outwards and onwards. In this way they port from the public side to the private, their intellectual capital, enhancing the inter-relationships and interconnections which tie together the commmunity's identity. These resources are mobilized and applied to real business opportunities, as well as to social needs,quality of life and wealth creating innovations that advance the whole cluster of activities which will ensure the continuance of a highly civilized and wealthy community. These private innovations that can be traced to longer term public investments, also mirror the best aspirations of our own individual imaginations for the future because they affirm the value of community in ways that shape the next forms of our evolving civilization. NRC's role is like that of an icebreaker that moves into solid ice fields and disrupts the binding forces, thereby creating the opportunity to form new and disparate patterns, which can be perceived in new ways.
New routes open up and new configurations of possibility can be contemplated.
Similarly, in technology explorations, the early and bold venturers seek to disrupt the existing patterns - leading to what some observers are now calling disruptive technologies. By being closely linked to technology market partners, NRC plays an important role in advancing the awareness of and learning abilities in firms that can benefit from disruptive technologies. For example, as the new world of internetworked enterprises and virtual organizations emerges and becomes pervasive, there will be many surprises. NRC is already anticipating some of the disruptive ways that these new systems and structures might evolve. Since the early 1990s, NRC has been a pioneer in helping Canada to establish its place on the Internet.