There is discontent spreading through the scientific community in Canada. It can be felt in universities; read in newspapers and magazines; heard on the radio and seen on TV. According to countless Canadian researchers, funding here is lagging behind the rest of the world. Money, they say, is not available where it is needed.

Canada does not have the sheer volume of funds that many other major economies have, but volume isn’t everything. What Canada needs, many researchers believe, is intelligent funding— quality over quantity—a balance between infrastructure investment, which is currently rising, and basic research funding, which is currently shrinking. As scientists across the country speak up, their voices may be loud enough for the Conservative party to hear.

Don’t leave Canada behind
When the details of the federal budget were released early this year, researchers were shocked by some of the cuts being made. Genome Canada had been expecting around $120 million—it received $100 million in 2007 and $140 million in 2008—but was instead left entirely out of the budget.

	The SSHRC Formed in 1977 through an act of parliament, the SSHRC administers the Canada Research Chairs program with an aim to establish 2,000 positions within Canadian universities. With a budget of around $300 million, the majority of SSHRC’s spending is in straightforward research funding, Canada Graduate Scholarships and Canada Research Chairs.
	The CIHR In 2006-07 the CIHR had expenditures of $974 million, supporting almost 12,000 health researchers across Canada. To be eligible for funding, applicants must be affi liated with a Canadian institution, but cannot be employed by any federal government agency or for-profi t organization.
	The NSERC A council of 21 distinguished members selected from the private and public sectors, and universities oversees the more than 30-year-old council. With a budget of slightly more than $1 billion, the NSERC funds projects across the country. Ontario generally receives the largest volume of funding, about 38 per cent of all funding doled out in 2007-08, with Quebec (22.8 per cent) and B.C. (14.1 per cent) following.

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) was to trim $8.2 million over three years. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) was going to cut $40 million over the same period of time, and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) would have to shed $70 million over three years.

These cuts to the NSERC did not sit well with some, and led to the drafting of an open-ended letter from a group of 18 university researchers, from across the country, to the government. The letter was titled “Don’t Leave Canada Behind.”

“The initiating point for this drive, I would say, were the cuts to NSERC overall, which has led to a tough year for research grant applications and renewals, with the lowest mathematics budgets in years and with the real possibility that many very prominent and active senior Canadian researchers would have their grants cut severely,” says Dr. Walter Craig, Professor of Mathematics at McMaster University, Canada Research Chair in Mathematical Analysis and its Applications, and active voice in the campaign.

The letter makes a number of comparisons between the U.S. and Canadian budgets.

“There is need for this strategic investment, but not at the cost of the open competition.”
-Dr. David Andrews, McMaster University

“This is, of course, very good news,” says Craig. “Especially since universities’ needs are very often neglected.”

However, this funding should not come at the cost of basic research funding, say scientists.

“While there have been increases in infrastructure funding and in targeted programs, basic research funding has been decreasing,” says Dr. Rachel Kuske, Department Head of Mathematics at UBC.

This shift in funding hits particularly close to home with many theoretical researchers, as they are less concerned with lasers, microscopes and centrifuges than they are with people, and students working on PhDs.

In the past, Canada has wooed scientists with programs such as the Canada Research Chairs. Kuske was enticed to UBC from the University of Minnesota with the offer of a Canada Research Chair in Applied Mathematics, which she continues to hold today. Craig came to Canada under the same program.

This, however, is proving to be insufficient. As the funding for basic science becomes more and more scarce, so do the researchers who are needed to propel this country’s economy forward.

“Bricks and mortar isn’t enough. Infrastructure investment is necessary, but we also need to recognize the value of supporting research in a very fundamental way,” says Ashton.

Packing up and heading south
The funding issue has already prompted some Canadian researchers to seek greener pastures.

Preeminent AIDS researcher Dr. Rafick-Pierre Sekaly is leaving the University of Montreal and taking up a position as Scientific Director at the Vaccine and Gene Therapy Institute in Florida.

Sekaly expects to more than double his current research budget of $3.5 million, taking a small share of the $10 billion U.S. President Barack Obama has pledged to medical research.

Kuske has been approached by faculty expressing interest in exploring opportunities outside of Canada recently.

“We need to recognize the value of supporting research in a very fundamental way, to stimulating the economy and to stimulate our social well-being.”
-Niki Ashton, NDP MP

“I have had a discussion with one of our faculty that has been discouraged by the NSERC results and is now on unpaid leave trying out for a job in the U.S. That person has expressly told me that the recent results for basic research funding are discouraging him from returning,” she says.

Though unwilling to name names, Ashton has also been in contact with a number of researchers “at the top of the line who are strongly considering going to the U.S. because that’s where the support is as a result of their budget.” Some, she says, are having to completely pull out of promising projects due to insufficient funds.

“The science ‘brain drain’ is always an issue,” says Dr. James Brander, Professor of International Trade at UBC.

It becomes an even more serious issue when there is such disparity between science funding in neighbouring countries.

How does Canada’s funding stack up?
The U.S. government recently made an inspiring announcement. Addressing the National Academy of Sciences, President Obama said, “I am here today to set this goal: We will devote more than three per cent of our GDP to research and development… We will not just meet, but we will exceed the level achieved at the height of the space race.”

With an estimated GDP of more than $14 trillion in 2008, this could amount to more than $400 billion.

According to Statistics Canada, R&D spending in Canada rounded off at 1.88 per cent of GDP in 2007.

Many other cou

ntries have also committed to a goal of three per cent of GDP for R&D, including Germany, Japan, France and China. So with these numbers at hand, it appears Canada is not keeping up proportionally.

Compounding the frustration of low funding resources is the abundance of red tape that researchers have to contend with. Some programs, such as the Discovery Grants Program, are flexibile and allow researchers the freedom to explore unexpected angles to their research. The majority of Canada’s programs, however, do not have this flexibility.

For example, when Dr. David Andrews, a Professor of Biochemistry and Biomedical Sciences, and his team at McMaster University stumbled upon compounds he thought could be useful for heart and stroke research, he had to reapply for funding that he could use to explore the new discovery further.

At the time, Andrews was doing cancer research and because he was using targeted funds in an attempt to leave the more versatile grants free for other researchers, was unable to use these funds to pursue the unexpected findings.

“Often times, directed money can not be used as efficiently as flexible funds,” says Andrews.

While it is certainly beneficial to have targeted funding like this, equally beneficial is funding that allows researchers the work with the natural unpredictability of scientific research. “In my opinion, there’s much too much emphasis on strategic investment, to the detriment of science. There is need for this strategic investment, but not at the cost of the open competition,” Andrews says.

	The Discovery Grants Program
	Discovery Grants support long-term projects and take into account the possibility that research may go in an entirely different direction than that described in the grant application. As long as any new development falls within the mandate of the NSERC, researchers are free to explore new possibilities. Researchers can apply for only one Discovery Grant at a time, and can’t hold more than one, but can apply for other NSERC grants. The standard duration for a term of Discovery Grant support is five years, but shorter durations are negotiable depending on information provided in the grant application. Dr. Philip Jessop, Professor of Inorganic Chemistry at Queens University, has experienced the strength of this flexible funding program. When researching applications for waste carbon dioxide (CO2) his team discovered what he calls switchable chemical solvents. “If I had said I was going to work on switchable solvents, people would have laughed at me,” says Jessop. “Instead, I said, ‘I’m going to work on applications of waste CO2.’” The flexibility of the grant led him to something that will help reduce chemical waste in labs.

As of print time, the Don’t Leave Canada Behind Web site had amassed 2,230 signatures from Canadian researchers, “90 per cent of who are supportive,” in the bid for more funding, says Craig.

Additionally, the authors have received supportive responses from the Liberal party as well as the NDP.

The Liberal response reads, “We will raise this issue in the House of Commons, pressuring the government to send a clear message that our country is in this for the long haul.

”NDP MP Ashton has already brought the letter up on the floor of the House.

“The answer I received was beyond defensive,” she says. “So I’ve heard that there is some acknowledgement on their end that the investment is inadequate, but where we really need a response is to the letter that’s been sent out and to the people involved.”

Though the Conservative party has declined to respond to the original letter, and has also been unavailable to provide any comment to LAB Business, in a recent visit to McMaster, Craig says Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology, expressed a desire to increase commercialization opportunities for the products of research. This is certainly a necessity, and indeed something that the research community has been seeking help with from the government, however, “if you want the country to benefit from commercialization of the products of research, you had better have some products, and indeed the best products, to do so successfully,” says Craig.

Without the funding for basic research, these marketable products will become more and more rare in Canada.

In this economic maelstrom, putting even more scarcely available money into science funding may seem like a gamble, but as Don’t Leave Canada Behind reads, “A new economy is coming out of this crisis and research and development will be the lifeblood to that new economy. We call upon you not to let Canada be left behind.”

Ashton says balanced and intelligent funding for science is possibly the best thing the government could do. “We need to recognize the value of supporting research in a very fundamental way, to stimulating the economy and to stimulate our social wellbeing as well.”