INST Committee Report

CHAPTER FOUR: OTHER PLAYERS IN CANADA’S INNOVATION FRAMEWORK

During the hearings, concerns were expressed that important contributors to Canada’s “innovation framework” are not receiving adequate consideration under the present system for allocating federal research funds. Two categories of stakeholders in particular were discussed: highly qualified personnel and college researchers. In this chapter, the Committee addresses how the federal government, via the granting agencies, can help to realize the potential that these two groups have in building Canada’s R&D capacity.

Highly Qualified Personnel

Many witnesses described the importance of investing in the training of highly qualified personnel to ensure that Canada has the supply of skilled researchers necessary to remain competitive and move ahead on global innovation scales:

… [M]aybe the more important outcome of NSERC funding is the highly trained people we produce. These are the people who go on to work in universities, in industry, and in government. And they’re the people who will have ideas of the future. They will be the people who create new companies and other real innovations. I think it’s been identified that in order for Canada to move ahead of other countries in this area, it’s the people and their skills that we really need. [Elizabeth Boston, NSERC, 39:17:10]

Some witnesses expressed concern that Canada will not have enough skilled researchers to advance or even maintain the knowledge-based economy in future years, especially in emerging areas of research. These witnesses pointed to the problems that many universities have in attracting top-quality students into graduate studies:

I’m more concerned about the fact that we are not attracting the best people into our PhD programs. PhD stipends, or salaries if you like, are so uncompetitive in my field [design engineering] compared to industrial salaries that it’s absolutely economically a disaster to do graduate studies. [Peter Frise, Professor, University of Windsor, 58:10:50]

The training of highly qualified personnel to provide the next generation of skilled researchers is part of the missions of all three federal granting agencies. Competitive scholarship and fellowship programs exist at all three agencies; they generally consist of a review of proposals by the applicants’ universities, and, for most programs, review by a selection committee of researchers (appointed by the granting agencies) of all applications received from the universities by the agencies. For fiscal year 2000-01, expenditures on the training of highly qualified personnel totalled $96.9 million at NSERC (about 19% of its budget), $33.5 million at SSHRC (approximately 26% of its budget) and $33 million at CIHR (about 9% of its budget).

In March 2002, NSERC announced that part ($6.5 million) of the 7% (or $36.5 million) increase to its annual budget beginning in fiscal year 2002-03, which was announced in the federal budget of 2001, would be channelled into its training programs for highly qualified personnel. The CIHR’s training budget will increase in 2002 with the introduction of the Strategic Training Initiative in Health Research. The initiative, which began on a small scale in fiscal year 2001-02 with contributions from CIHR of approximately $1.7 million, will be in full operation in fiscal year 2002-03 with a CIHR allocation of $14.3 million. The initiative will provide training grants (up to $300,000 per year) to institutions to pay for stipends and travel for trainees (undergraduate through postdoctoral level) conducting research in all areas of health research. Preference will be given to innovative, interdisciplinary programs, and applications are especially sought in areas where the applicants can demonstrate the need to develop research capacity.

At NSERC, scholarships for undergraduate and graduate (Master’s and PhD level) students are available, as well as fellowships for postdoctoral fellows. At all levels, scholarships and fellowships are available at NSERC that allow students to conduct some or all of their research in an industrial setting. At SSHRC, a doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships program is offered. Doctoral research awards, combined MD/PhD studentships, and a variety of fellowship programs for postdoctoral researchers and health professionals are offered by CIHR.

Success rates and stipend levels vary among programs and agencies. At the graduate level, the annual stipend ranges from approximately $17,000 to $19,000 and the success rate (data from competition year 2001) ranges from a low of about 38% at SSHRC to a high of approximately 65% at the NSERC. The success rate for obtaining an NSERC Industrial Postgraduate Scholarship, where scholars spend a minimum of 20% of their time at a sponsoring company on activities related to their thesis project, is considerably higher (in the range of 90 to 95%).³⁷ Stipends for postdoctoral fellowships range from $35,000 per annum for two years at SSHRC and NSERC, to $38,500 (for PhD holders) or $48,500 (for health professionals) at CIHR. The success rate for obtaining postdoctoral fellowships ranges from a low of 25% at SSHRC to a high of 37% at NSERC (data for competition year 2001). The success rate for receiving an NSERC Industrial Research Fellowship, which provides financial contributions to support recent doctoral graduates engaged in industrial research, is much higher — in the range of 80%.³⁸ Since an initial “triage” of applications occurs at the universities for most of these awards, the actual success rates are generally lower than the figures reported here. Students and postdoctoral fellows are also supported through the research grants of individual researchers, but the annual stipends are usually smaller than those listed above. Representatives of SSHRC point to the relatively low success rate of its doctoral fellowship program and the lack of a Master’s level scholarship program as further evidence that it is under-funded in comparison to the other granting agencies.

The Committee appreciates the importance to Canada’s future in R&D and to its economy of attracting more students to graduate level study. In addition, the Committee believes that more efforts should be made by the federal government at earlier stages in the training “pipeline” to attract students to scientific research. It notes that NSERC already has a program for undergraduate students, the Undergraduate Student Research Awards Program, which provides stipends for students to conduct research for four‑month periods in universities or in industry. The Committee is also in favour of the federal government increasing its role in the promotion of science and the impact of R&D to youth and to the public at large. It is aware of programs that are already in place at the agencies to promote science or to communicate the results of federally sponsored research to the media and general public. For example, the PromoScience Program at NSERC supports programs that promote science to school-aged (elementary, high school and cégep level youth). It funds practical, interactive training programs (e.g., science camps, university science outreach programs, science clubs, and programs that involve students in research). The Committee encourages the government to explore additional avenues (either via the granting agencies or other bodies) for expanding its role in this type of science promotion.

The federal government’s Innovation Strategy also recognizes that developing, attracting and maintaining highly qualified personnel is crucial for Canada’s innovation performance.³⁹ Among other initiatives, the strategy calls for increased financial incentives to attract students to graduate level study. As part of the strategy, the federal government announced a $125 million endowment in February 2002 for the Advanced Research in the Humanities and the Human Sciences Fund to fund up to 100 doctoral fellowships and mid-career awards to exceptional researchers in certain areas of the humanities (e.g., human rights and social justice) that reflect the interests of former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Some members of the Committee appreciate the additional investment in training that the government has made via the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, although the Commitee notes that the monies will support relatively few individuals in a limited number of research areas only.

Some members of the Committee expressed reservations about the appropriateness of the federal government’s injection of $125 million into the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation for doctoral and postdoctoral fellowships in the humanities and human sciences. The reservations expressed by these members arise primarily from the fact that the federal government funds released for this initiative should have gone directly to SSHRC, a public body, and not to a private foundation, which is not held accountable to the public for the funds it receives. Given the chronic under-funding of SSHRC, such an injection of public funds into its coffers would have been particularly welcome. The Committee believes that applications for these fellowships should be peer‑reviewed based on the excellence of the applicant’s record and quality of the proposal.

One witness made the following observation with respect to the training of highly qualified personnel and their importance to the success of any innovation strategy:

Research is the practice of turning wealth into ideas. Innovation is the practice of turning ideas into wealth. And education is the practice of turning people into citizens who can be innovative and generate more wealth. In my view, all three of these issues: research, innovation and education, are inextricably linked and to treat one without the other is not going to generate success for Canada’s future. [Peter Frise, Professor, University of Windsor, 58:09:30]

The Committee shares these sentiments and believes that Canada will not make progress in its goal to become one of the most innovative countries in the world without increased investment in the training of highly qualified personnel. The current level of investment allows the agencies to offer scholarship and fellowship programs that have, in most cases, relatively low success rates and uncompetitive stipends. The Committee suggests that additional investments in research training should be directed through established training programs at the granting agencies that are accessible to a broad cross-section of the student and postdoctoral fellow population. As such the Committee recommends:

RECOMMENDATION 7

That the Government of Canada, given the increases in overall funding levels that should be made to the agencies, encourage the three granting agencies to increase success rates and stipend levels for existing graduate scholarship and postdoctoral fellowship programs. The granting agencies should also create or enhance scholarship programs that introduce undergraduate students to research.

The Committee suggests that the granting agencies direct a portion of any additional funds earmarked for training to the enhancement or promotion of scholarship and fellowship programs in which students or postdoctoral fellows can collaborate on research projects with other stakeholders not based in universities (e.g., industry researchers). The Committee believes that such partnerships are essential to improving and diversifying the skills of highly qualified personnel.

Colleges

In terms of contributions to R&D and innovation, Canada’s community colleges⁴⁰ play an important role in applied research, technology transfer and product development. Much of the technology transfer work occurs at the community level with local businesses and colleges working together. Colleges also play an important role in education and research in areas of the country where there are no universities. For example, in Canada’s North, the three territorial northern research institutes⁴¹ are a major focus for northern research activities. A representative from the Association of Canadian Community Colleges (ACCC) testified that the potential of colleges to contribute to Canada’s R&D base goes largely unrecognized by the government:

… [The government] continues to marginalize the important contribution of colleges to innovation, research, and the technology transfer needs of business, industry, and community organizations … We continue to wonder why the recognition and funding are disproportionate to the breadth, depth, and economic impact of the applied research emanating from the college system. [Gerald Brown, President and Chief Executive Officer, Association of Canadian Community Colleges, 43:09:15]

Additionally, colleges feel excluded from many of the programs offered by the federal granting agencies. Historically, college researchers have not been a major focus of granting agency programs. For most programs at SSHRC, applications are accepted from any researcher affiliated with a post-secondary institution. For its two institutional grant programs, an institution must be a member of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) to be eligible to apply for support (AUCC members are universities and university colleges whose primary mission is to provide university degree programs). Until recently, college researchers were not eligible to apply for any of NSERC’s programs. In 1999, NSERC expanded its eligibility criteria so that college researchers from eligible institutions can now apply, as co-applicants with university researchers, for certain types of project research funding. As of June 2002, four community colleges had been declared eligible to participate in NSERC programs: the British Columbia Institute of Technology, the New Brunswick Community College at Bathurst, the Nova Scotia Community College — Annapolis Campus, and Old’s College in Calgary. NSERC has yet to receive applications for funding involving the participation of researchers from other colleges. At CIHR, only researchers at Canadian universities or affiliated institutions can apply as principal applicants for CIHR grants. The agency is considering a significant broadening of eligibility to include any health researcher working in the not-for-profit sector (with the exception of the federal government).

Even when college researchers are eligible to apply for the granting agencies’ programs, ACCC believes that researchers from colleges cannot compete with their university counterparts because of the programs’ selection criteria that reflect the university, not college, environment:

Within the peer-review process, the colleges and institutes are overshadowed by the university-focused process. This process is based solely on university criteria … At the practical level, involving college faculty in applied research has been and continues to be a huge challenge, due to the … high teaching loads of college and institute faculty. [Gerald Brown, President and Chief Executive Officer, Association of Canadian Community Colleges, 43:09:15]

A representative from AUCC suggested that to make the granting agency programs more accessible to college researchers and to reflect the kind of research conducted at community colleges, the structure of programs and selection criteria would have to be altered:

[I]t may be that the kind of research [that the colleges and institutes] are doing would not fit within the criteria or the guidelines of the granting councils, and if there’s a decision to proceed to support colleges, these would have to be adapted to meet the needs of the colleges. [Robert Giroux, President and Chief Executive Officer, Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, 51:10:35]

As an alternative to altering current eligibility and selection criteria at the granting agencies, ACCC proposes that a separate funding pool, what it calls the Canadian College Innovation and Technical Assistance Program, be established to help support the applied research, technology transfer and commercialization work that is carried out by Canada’s community colleges. The components of the proposed program include Chairs for college researchers, fellowships and internships for students, networks of centres of excellence with college and industry participants, and a fund to promote and assist the development of commercial products and processes. The ACCC suggests that the program have an initial duration of five years and that it would require about $600 million of funding over that period.

The Committee believes that altering program eligibility criteria at the granting agencies to allow more access to college researchers would be a symbolic change only; college and university researchers work in quite different environments, and college researchers likely would have difficulty competing with their university counterparts in competitions based on present selection criteria. Similarly, the Committee is of the opinion that it would be difficult for the granting agencies to adapt the selection criteria for most granting programs so that the criteria reflect the situation for both university and college researchers. Instead, the Committee supports ACCC’s idea of establishing discrete funding programs for college researchers and students, and thus recommends:

RECOMMENDATION 8

That the Government of Canada create separate research funding programs administered either by the granting agencies and/or other government bodies to support college researchers and students. The programs’ selection criteria should reflect the situation at colleges and be based on excellence. Appropriations should be made to the relevant agencies to deliver these programs.

The Committee is of the opinion that it would be premature to suggest a funding level and structure for such programs at this time; the federal government and ACCC should work together to plan and develop any initiative. Although the Committee believes that separate funding programs at some level are necessary for college researchers, it also feels that the granting agencies should continue to work to include college researchers in existing programs that support applied research. The Committee strongly believes that the inclusion of college researchers in these programs will increase collaboration between university and college researchers, and ultimately boost Canada’s innovation performance.