INST Committee Report

INTRODUCTION

In its report, A Canadian Innovation Agenda for the Twenty-first Century¹ released in June 2001, the Committee expressed some broad concerns about how research funds are allocated by the three federal research granting agencies (the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada or NSERC, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada or SSHRC, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research or CIHR). Although generally supportive of the agencies’ work and accomplishments, it was concerned about how the agencies carry out their mandates and about the decision-making processes employed for funding research projects and programs. The Committee indicated that given the government’s commitment to double Canada’s annual investment in research and development (R&D) by 2010, a review of decision-making processes and selection criteria used by the granting agencies is important, before additional investments are made, to ensure that funds are being managed in the best possible way.

The Committee detailed some specific concerns in its report about the allocation of federal research funds by the granting agencies. In particular, the Committee was troubled to learn of the relatively weak research capacity of small universities and the corresponding low success rates of researchers from small universities in obtaining research grants from the federal granting agencies. The Committee was concerned about the concentration of federal research funds in a few large institutions. The Committee also voiced its concerns about the method used to calculate the allocation of Research Chairs to universities under the Canada Research Chairs Program announced in the federal government’s 2000 budget; specifically, it was worried that the allocation of the Chairs based on the past performance of universities in obtaining federal research grant funds would reinforce the existing disparity in research capacity across the country. The Committee was also concerned that the Program would lead to the “poaching” by large universities of the best faculty from smaller universities thus augmenting even further the disparity in research capacity. On the subject of research capacity, the Committee believes that the government is not doing enough to develop this capacity in certain regions of the country and in smaller institutions.

Chapter One provides an overview of the budgets, missions and grant selection processes at the three granting agencies and in the Canada Research Chairs Program. All three of the granting agencies use a similar peer-review process in which experts assess the quality of research proposals and make funding recommendations to the agencies.

In Chapter Two, the Committee addresses the concerns of small and regional institutions with respect to the allocation of federal research funds. The Committee details concerns about the weak research capacity of small universities, and discusses suggestions made by witnesses as to how research capacity can be improved at these institutions. Potential mechanisms to improve research capacity include establishing a permanent program for the payment of the indirect costs of research by the federal government, providing programs through the granting agencies that are targeted to building research capacity in small or regional universities, ensuring that small and regional universities find their research “niches,” increasing funding levels for research in the social sciences and humanities, and increasing funding levels to all three granting agencies. Each of these issues is examined in this chapter, and the Committee also addresses the matter of whether there are any inherent biases against researchers from small institutions in the decision-making processes of the federal granting agencies.

The issue of funding priorities for Canada and their relationship to agency programs and selection criteria is discussed in Chapter Three. For the large majority of granting agency programs, the excellence of the proposed research and the researchers is the most important criterion for selecting which research proposals are to be funded. For other programs, the socio-economic relevance of the proposed research in target areas of national importance is also an important selection criterion; in a few cases, it is as important as the excellence of the proposed research. The issue of granting agency selection criteria and what proportion of federal government research funds should be directed towards supporting research in target areas is addressed in this chapter. Additionally, the Committee addresses the matter of support for interdisciplinary research and research in emerging areas, and suggests that the agencies can make improvements in these areas. The chapter also discusses federal policy in the context of funding research in strategically important areas and indicates that stronger direction in this area is required.

Chapter Four addresses the important contributions that highly qualified personnel and college researchers make to R&D in Canada’s knowledge-based economy. The Committee believes that, for different reasons, both groups are undervalued in the present system for allocating federal research funds. Mechanisms to improve the situation for both groups are presented in this chapter.

The Committee believes that although the present system for allocating limited federal research funds is the most appropriate and effective mechanism available, there is certainly room for improvement on several levels. In Chapter Five, the Committee recommends that improvements can be made to: the monitoring and evaluation of peer review practices by the agencies; the types of feedback and appeal mechanisms provided to applicants; and the measurement and communication of the outputs, outcomes and impacts of federally funded research. In addition, the Committee discusses alternatives to peer review, and the feasibility of such proposals.