CanadaResearchFunding.org

The Conservatives have been trying to turn the tables on Liberal critics by bringing up the cuts made to research budgets when the Liberals were in power and fighting the deficits of the 1990s. DontLeaveCanadaBehind has provided an insightful comparison between then and now. The two main differences they point out are the timing (stimulus spending vs. deficit fighting, Cdn cuts vs. US increases) and ideology. I was tempted to simply cut and paste their short but insightful analsysis here, but instead encourage you to go and read it there.

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Rob Annan Funding Issues

Turns out Canada’s not the only country wrestling with the role of research funding in our unpredictable economic climate. Today’s issue of Nature has two news stories from Europe. The first describes an outcry from researchers in the United Kingdom after 106-million UK pounds ($186.5-million Cdn) was redirected from the seven granting agencies that fund basic, undirected research towards ”key areas of economic potential”. This story parallels trends we’ve seen in Canadian research funding, and the reactions are much the same: “If it continues, it could undermine the real worth of basic science in Britain, adds Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society.”

Another news piece describes the state of research funding in the recent Austrian budget. The Austrian Academy of Sciences, which runs 33 research institutes, is getting a 2% rise in its funding levels, but due to new initiatives, will still need to make cuts at many of its institutes. Furthermore, the FWF, Austria’s principal funding agency, had its budget cut by 18%. The FWF director seemed pleased with the decision, probably due to the uncertainty caused by earlier Austrian government musings that it would cut research funding by as much as 40%.

No doubt all these governments are completely annoyed by Barack Obama and his grandstanding for science.

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Rob Annan International

Distinguished UofT chemist and Nobel Laureate John Polanyi has an opinion piece published today in the Globe and Mail in which he scolds the Canadian government’s “timid approach” to science funding. As others have done, he contrasts the laudatory nature of US President Obama’s speech to the National Academy of Sciences and the promise to double basic research budgets with our government’s dismissive cuts to research funding agencies.  In this, Dr. Polanyi observes the difference between thinking for the future, “investing in the long term”, and our government’s tendency to think short term, to “treat basic science as a current account to be drawn on”. The current Canadian approach of focusing on applied science, he argues, will lead to diminishing returns, as funding focuses on leveraging the basic science which is no longer being produced.

Dr. Polanyi also argues against the idea that government will do a good job of identifying and funding marketable applications of basic research: “if apparent to the bureaucracy, they are also apparent to others”. Furthermore, “it is an abiding mystery why, having failed so definitively to pick winners in the marketplace for goods, governments have been empowered to pick winners in the far more subtle marketplace for ideas”. Indeed, there already exists a hungry marketplace ready to take the hard-won discoveries of basic science and turn them into useful and profitable widgets. Any free-market economist (Mr. Harper?) will tell you that the competitive nature of the market will do a better job than the government in identifying and supporting winning applications of research. Investment by the government into basic science accomplishes goals outside the market’s purview – education and training and investment in research with no obvious short-term return on investment.

Most helpfully, Dr. Polanyi provides a clear and telling example of how difficult it is to predict and choose the sort of research which will lead to advances down the road:

Mr. Obama’s advisers might recall that, in 1937, the same National Academy of Sciences was charged with making a study of emerging technologies. It reported that the major growth areas in applied science would be found in novel means of farming, in manufacturing synthetic gasoline and in the introduction of synthetic replacements for natural rubber.

They had rightly grasped that there was a coming crisis in resource availability. What they overlooked — understandably, since the clues were hidden among so many others – was the imminent emergence of nuclear energy, antibiotics, jet aircraft, space travel and computers.

These powerful technologies emerged because the new opportunities thrown up by basic science were seized, not because the basic science itself was targeted. Quite the contrary – it was freedom of inquiry in basic research that permitted far-reaching new concepts to flower. These then led, from the bottom up, to ground-breaking technologies.

This powerful example serves to illustrate exactly why basic research needs to be supported – it is impossible to predict what vistas will open to us with new discoveries. So why does science in general, and research funding in particular, get such short shrift? Dr. Polanyi argues, “The explanation may lie in our inattention. Science, especially basic science, is regarded as an activity of small national importance. Science policy is the domain of junior politicians”. If science policy is going to be in the domain of junior politicians, scientists themselves must strive to have a major impact on shaping it before it gets there and a better job of explaining to the public why it deserves greater focus.

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Rob Annan Funding Issues

Gary Goodyear, the Science and Technology Minister, counterpunched the Liberals on their recent criticisms of research funding cuts. During a debate on the harmonization of the Quebec sales tax with the GST , Goodyear confirmed the Conservative strategy of defelecting criticisms of research funding cuts with promises of Liberal tax increases. Last week, the alleged Liberal plans to increase taxes were used to deflect critism of the funding cuts leveled by Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff. This week, the non sequitor was reversed, as a discussion about taxes suddenly and unexpectedly inspired Goodyear to talk research funding:

Mr. Speaker, before I ask my question I would like to premise it that the motion itself concerns harmonization of various taxes. It does in fact mention the 1990s, and the hon. members opposite did make examples of some things in the 1990s.

In the 1990s, the Liberals cut science and technology by $442 million, which in today’s dollars is about $1 billion of cuts to science and technology. They also raised taxes on Canadians. The Leader of the Opposition has been cited as saying that they definitely will have to raise taxes on Canadians. I suspect that they will in fact cut and gut science and technology once again.

Understand that this is 30 minutes into a multi-party discussion about the merits of provincial-federal tax reorganization and compensation for Quebec. No doubt it caught everyone off guard. Just in case they missed it, though, the Minister again rushed to defend science funding from Liberal cuts, an hour later:

Mr. Speaker, in his great speech, the member went into the taxation issue. I do know that in the mid-1990s the Liberals cut $442 million from science and technology. I have not done the math for 2009 dollars, but in 2007 dollars that alone was almost $1 billion cut from science and technology. At the same time, they also raised taxes on Canadians.

Now we are hearing this promise by the Liberals to raise taxes on Canadians. I am concerned that they will also gut science and technology. Hopefully, that will never happen because Canadians will not vote for raising taxes. Would the member be kind enough to share with us some of his thoughts on how raising taxes would affect Canadians and, in particular, Canadians in Quebec?

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Rob Annan Federal Funding News

Today I thought I’d highlight a couple of short bits that may be of interest:

- Carol Goar at The Toronto Star describes the “Science Dinner of the Year” hosted by the Royal Canadian Institute for the Advancement of Science. While scientists were effusive in discussing their research, she felt they were reluctant to address “ the federal Conservatives, Prime Minister Stephen Harper or his hapless science minister”. She attributes this to a new uncertainty and unease in the scientific community about the state of research funding. The current situation is summarized, and Goar points out that it isn’t simply an issue of money, but rather that the Conservative government doesn’t seem to value science and research as much as its predecessors. Goar writes:

Harper bewilders scientists. He doesn’t seem to grasp that curiosity-driven research can revolutionize the economy, create forward-looking jobs and advance the frontiers of medicine.

His aides are wary of scientists, who care more about facts than political directives.

His science minister, a chiropractor, points to his university courses in kinesiology and anatomy and his high-school experiments with automotive engines as proof of his fitness for the portfolio…

But when scientists hear British Prime Minister Gordon Brown say “the downturn is no time to slow down our investment science, but to build more vigorously for the future,” and American President Barack Obama say “science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation,” they long for visionary leadership.

Seems to me that, instead of turning frosty when a sympathetic columnist for the largest-circulation newspaper in the country asks about research funding policy, scientists should seize the opportunity to describe exactly why their research and that of their colleagues represents a good investment. Especially so when they’re participating in public events like this dinner.

- DontLeaveCanadaBehind highlights two Canadian researchers and their experiences with the new NSERC funding situation. France at UQAR (Rimouski) describes her frustration at not getting funded by NSERC and worries about her graduate students. Nancy at UofT has her funding request cut in half, and urges fellow scientists not to “hide in your office feeling that you’ve done something wrong”.

Both researchers show remarkable courage in sharing their stories. Too many researchers suffer the personal doubts and despair at not getting funded in isolation. Especially during the current period of unease and change at Canada’s research funding agencies, researchers can benefit from sharing their stories with the community. And Nancy supports the idea of researchers becoming more fully engaged in funding policy:

We won’t know unless we share our stories. And NSERC won’t know unless it hears from us. Don’t hide in your office feeling that you’ve done something wrong. If there is any doubt in your mind about the adequacy of the review process and the outcome for your Discovery Grant, submit an appeal. And share your story.

Nancy also suggests participating in the discussions about science funding at DLCB, which seems like a grand idea.

- The National Post reports that the inconsistency of providing infrastructure funding without operating funds has ensnared a prominent Arctic research station. The Churchill Northern Studies Centre has been awarded $11-million in infrastructure funding, but lost the $80,ooo annual NSERC operating grant, which it used to help pay technical staff and day-to-day operations.  ”It’s a little ironic,” says Michael Goodyear, executive director of the centre. “It didn’t pass peer review”, said a spokeswoman for NSERC.

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Rob Annan Federal Funding News

US President Obama’s vocal and passionate support for an increased role for science and technology in his country’s economy and culture has generated widespread commentary north of the border in Canada. My colleagues at DontLeaveCanadaBehind and Genomicron, for instance, both feature the item prominently. The Globe and Mail’s US columnist John Ibbitson, however, provides the most passionate and insightful commentary. I encourage you to read his piece.

Ibbitson’s column contrasts the US administration’s announcement with the Canadian government’s recent budgetary cuts to the research funding agencies here: “The Obama administration’s multibillion-dollar investments coincide with the Canadian government’s decision to cut $148-million in funding to the three agencies that support basic research at Canadian universities”. He suggests:

But the two countries are pursuing fundamentally different approaches to funding research in the midst of a recession and with manufacturing industries in chronic decline.

While Prime Minister Harper concentrates on targeted funding in certain specific areas, in hopes of generating marketable ideas that promote economic growth, President Obama is pursing a comprehensive approach aimed at fundamentally reorienting government, schools, universities and the private sector in favour of science and technology.

That strategy is in stark contrast to the piecemeal and even punitive approach that this and previous federal Canadian governments have taken to government-funded research.

Ibbitson suggests that it is in the American character to pursue big national dreams such as this, whereas Canadians are more pragmatic and conservative. In this instance, though, he seems to suggest we could use some dramatic thinking:

…rarely has the contrast been so stark: Barack Obama would recreate the American economy, restoring its postwar lustre as a scientific juggernaut.

Stephen Harper would watch the till.

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Rob Annan United States

In a speech yesterday to the National Academy of Sciences (full text here), US President Barack Obama made a bold and unquestionable commitment to funding for science, promising to devote 3% of GDP (roughly $420-billion) for science and technology research funding. This “largest commitment to scientific research and innovation in American history”  represents a stark contrast with the cuts to research funding budgets the Harper government announced in the most recent budget. The plan by President Obama represents a comprehensive commitment to American innovation and suggests his administration believes that scientific and technical advances will help compensate for the loss of the traditional manufacturing and industrial economy.

While the Canadian Conservative government’s science and technology strategy is explicit about funding relevant and marketable research, Obama recognizes the unpredictable value of basic research:

The fact is, an investigation into a particular physical, chemical, or biological process might not pay off for a year, or a decade, or at all. And when it does, the rewards are often broadly shared, enjoyed by those who bore its costs but also by those who did not.

That’s why the private sector under-invests in basic science – and why the public sector must invest in this kind of research. Because while the risks may be large, so are the rewards for our economy and our society.

In addition to funding for research in the stimulus packages already passed in the US, Obama pledges to double the budgets of the key granting agencies, adds $6-billion to the NIH for cancer research, adds funds for agencies funding research into clean energy, and creates a new “high-risk high-reward” funding agency (ARPA-E) for energy research, among other investments.

Perhaps more telling of his administration’s commitment to placing science at the centre of the American economy, Obama announced the creation of the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST), which will advise him on strategies to nurture scientific innovation. It will include John Holdren (his top science adviser), Harold Varmus (former head of NIH and Nobel laureate), Eric Lander (former head of Human Genome Project), Eric Schmidt (Google CEO), and Craig Mundie (Microsoft’s chief research and strategy officer), among others. The council comprises a total of 21 leading scientists, including three Nobel laureates, from private and public organizations. The Canadian government, by contrast, eliminated the position of National Science Adviser earlier this year (Canada does have a science council, the Science, Technology and Innovation Council, but it does not seem to be particularly active, being related to only five government news releases since its founding two years ago).

Obama rejects the view by some that research spending is a luxury, especially in economically tough times:

At such a difficult moment, there are those who say we cannot afford to invest in science. That support for research is somehow a luxury at a moment defined by necessities. I fundamentally disagree. Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment, and our quality of life than it has ever been.

But maybe there’s hope for Canadian researchers after all – maybe we can convince the US to fund Canadian science!

We also need to work with our friends around the world. Science, technology, and innovation proceed more rapidly and more cost-effectively when insights, costs, and risks are shared; and so many of the challenges that science and technology will help us meet are global in character… That is why my administration is ramping up participation in – and our commitment to – international science and technology cooperation across the many areas where it is clearly in our interest to do so.

As part of the comprehensive plan to encourage science in the US economy, Obama also spelled out a plan to increase science and math education at the primary and secondary levels. Furthermore, he pledged to triple the number of NIH graduate student fellowships, again outpacing his Canadian counterparts.

Obama employed his lauded rhetorical skills to inspire his nation’s renewed commitment to science. He invoked the space program – the last major scientific project around which Americans rallied, and which provided countless societal benefits – and he described the intangible benefits to society, not just of the products of research, but the process itself:

As you know, scientific discovery takes far more than the occasional flash of brilliance – as important as that can be. Usually, it takes time, hard work, patience; it takes training; often, it requires the support of a nation.

But it holds a promise like no other area of human endeavor…

Yes, scientific innovation offers us the chance to achieve prosperity. It has offered us benefits that have improved our health and our lives – often improvements we take too easily for granted. But it also gives us something more.

At root, science forces us to reckon with the truth as best as we can ascertain it. Some truths fill us with awe. Others force us to question long held views. Science cannot answer every question; indeed, it seems at times the more we plumb the mysteries of the physical world, the more humble we must be. Science cannot supplant our ethics, our values, our principles, or our faith, but science can inform those things, and help put these values, these moral sentiments, that faith, to work – to feed a child, to heal the sick, to be good stewards of this earth.

We are reminded that with each new discovery and the new power it brings, comes new responsibility; that the fragility and the sheer specialness of life requires us to move past our differences, to address our common problems, to endure and continue humanity’s strivings for a better world.

As President Kennedy said when he addressed the National Academy of Sciences more than 45 years ago: “The challenge, in short, may be our salvation.”

Given the Obamamania we observed in Canada during the US election, perhaps his stirring words and public commitment to science and research will have positive effects north of the border. Here’s hoping so.

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Rob Annan United States

Thh Globe and Mail today published a commentary about government funding for research by founding Encana CEO Gwyn Morgan. Morgan dismisses the concerns voiced by researchers about reductions in funding for the granting agencies by revealing his own “inconvenient truth” about university research. He then trots out the time-honored criticism that “A big part of university research dollars are spent on esoteric research that doesn’t have the slightest chance of yielding any real value”. Stop the presses!

To be fair, the Globe buried the piece on page two of a Monday business section instead of making it an op-ed or a weekend piece, and so it will surely be an instance of preaching to the choir when Mr. Morgan argues that academic research should hew more closely to business standards of “accountability” and “return on investment”. Mr. Morgan also takes standard shots at the “ivory towers of academia”, suggesting “their only real hope is extracting more public cash, rather than pulling the veil away from the inconvenient truth about university research funding”, which, he argues is that “irrelevant and low-quality research continues to be financed”.

It’s ironic that Mr. Morgan twice uses the phrase “inconvenient truth” to decry academic research funding. The phrase invokes Al Gore’s documentary of the same name – a documentary about the effects of climate change based on research often decried as irrelevant and low-quality by those who wish to see returns on investment. And indeed, it is the inconvenient truths – and the unexpected truths and yes, possibly even the unmarketable truths – that are revealed by academic science funded by governments. Research into convenient truths are properly – and effectively – funded by private industry. Indeed, Encana itself funds a chair at the University of Calgary to “investigate innovative ways for the energy industry to limit its impact on ecosystems in Western Canada”. This applied research, which will no doubt deliver both accountability and a return on investment, will be based on a body of basic research that might have been considered irrelevant until it was suddenly needed. This is true of research in sub-atomic physics, cell biology, mathematics, and so on. Mr. Morgan himself anticipates and accepts this criticism, but suggests that “not every project can or should be financed” (though he resists suggesting this is suggested by the scientific method itself).

More helpfully, though, Mr. Morgan’s article reveals two widespread myths that need to be dispelled by researchers. The first could be called the “arcane university research” myth. This myth envisions university academics as the mad scientists and alchemists from 1950s B-movies, mixing potions in basements in pursuit of their own single-minded interests. This ridiculous myth suggests academics love performing irrelevant research for its own sake and care not a whit for the real world implications of their work. Nothing could be further from the truth. My colleagues from across the life sciences, whether they study biomedical science or ecology, care deeply about how their work impacts on the “real world”. Admittedly, the “returns on investment” are often measured in terms other than strictly financial ones – how will our understanding of this protein’s function help reduce heart disease? how will our understanding of competition between native and invasive species help us maintain healthy lakes and rivers? Science is normally so challenging, with important insights revealing themselves only fitfully, that without a real sense that what they’re doing is important, most scientists couldn’t do it.

Of course, when something with potential value is identified – a compound that is effective as an inhibitor of a disease-associated protein, for instance – it isn’t thrown into the trash heap. There are countless ways the pursuit of these discoveries is encouraged – from specific government development grants to spin-off incubators at universities to partnerships with private industry. The effectiveness of the system is in fact demonstrated by investments made by the private sector to develop and bring to market results originally obtained by academic research financed by government agencies.

The second myth is the “poor and irrelevant science gets funded” myth. This myth assumes that the federal research granting agencies throw money at poor research with no relevance. First of all, the success rates of applications to the various funding agencies in Canada reveal that most applications don’t get funded, period. CIHR, the major funding agency for biomedical research in Canada, has a roughly 20% success rate, even after self-selection of researchers who have applied. In other words, 80% of researchers who believed their work was important and relevant enough to justify the immense time and effort to prepare and submit a CIHR grant application were rejected. Even the NSERC Discovery Grant program, which awards small grants of roughly $30,000 for higher-risk innovative research, this year had a success rate of 63%, even though it has a high success rate by design.  Secondly, for those that suceed in getting funded, making research relevant has to be one of the primary goals of their applications. How does the proposed research fit within and how will it advance the current body of knowledge? Furthermore, how does it fit with the government’s current research funding priorities? Governments and funding agencies already make real world choices about how to allocate research funds, and scientists often have their funding reallocated based on new government prioirities.

The prospect of not getting funded is an unbelievable source of nearly constant stress to academic researchers across Canada. Indeed, the academic research sector may be more like the vaunted private sector than Mr. Morgan realizes. He suggests a major distinction between business and academia when he writes:

It’s understandable if taxpayers in the private sector find this [the everyone gets funded myth] difficult to fathom. Even in the best of times, businesses must reallocate human and financial capital from low-value areas to projects and products that have high potential.

But this is, of course, what happens in academic research all the time. As a university researcher you’re a manager with a team of staff. Every year, you have to apply to your senior management to justify getting ANY budget at all, and IF you’re successful, no matter how successful you are, your funding is always on a one, two, or (for the most successful) three-year term. During that time, you have to ensure that you not only meet your objectives but also stay current with the stated goals of the organization, which is an extra challenge since upper management changes every 3-5 years, depending on the government. Past success is no guarantee of future success. Tenure doesn’t guarantee government research funding. Projects are terminated, the contracts of staff are not renewed, and labs scramble for funding.

Private R&D does a bang-up job of performing targeted research focused on return on investment. Academic research provides the tools and starting points. These aren’t closed worlds. There is a communication between the two that allows each to leverage the strengths of the other. Arguing that academic research needs to be more like private industry reveals both a lack of understanding of how the academic research world actually works and a lack of appreciation of how important the distinctions between the two actually are. Helping dispel the myths of academic research funding will improve the discussion and make clearer to the public how strictly their tax dollars are allocated.

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Representatives from the Governments of Canada and China today announced research initiatives to build science links between researchers in the two countries. Stockwell Day, Minister of International Trade announced a Canadian government investment of $6.9-million through the International Science and Technology Parternships (ISTP) program, a not-for-profit arm’s-length organization which also funds bilateral science initiatives with Brazil, India, and Israel. The initiatives include a project to investigate HIV inhibitors as well as projects in diverse areas such as wireless technology, wastewater treatment, and climate change.

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Rob Annan Federal Funding News

The Government often defends criticism of its budgetary cuts to research funding agencies by pointing to $5.1-billion in “funding for research”. Well, DontLeaveCanadaBehind (DLCB) has published an analysis of the only related spending announcement, made in election-gripped BC. The Knowledge Infrastructure Plan is a $2-billion part of the $5.1-billion “for research”, of which $455-million was announced for 28 post-secondary institutions in BC. DLCB has done a good job of raising the question of just how many of the 28 (28!?!) BC institutions are home to “world class researchers”, so I encourage you to read their analysis. I lived in BC for a number of years, and was shocked to find out BC even has 28 post-secondary institutions, so I suspect this includes any number of small technical colleges and such. While these institutions are no doubt valuable and important, it is a stretch to claim that providing funds to upgrade their infrastructure contributes to Canada’s research competitiveness, though that’s what Industry Minister Clement is doing:

The renewal of college and university facilities will encourage more world-class researchers to work in Canada and give them the tools they need to make further discoveries that will benefit Canadians and people around the world.

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