Eighteen journalists have been awarded a total of $300,000 in CIHR Journalism Awards. The awards provide funding of either $10,000 or $20,000 to conduct “in-depth investigation and reporting of health research issues of interest to Canadians”.
There has been a marked decline in science reporting in major media outlets. Its paucity is highlighted by the fact that 2/3 of this year’s awards recipients work as freelancers. These awards, though small by CIHR standards, will go a long way to encourage science reporting. $20,000 is a lot of money to a freelance reporter…
Congrats to the recipients:
Tier 1 Awards ($20,000 each)
- Alan Cassels - freelance
- Helen Fallding - Winnipeg Free Press
- Pamela Fayerman - Vancouver Sun
- Paul McLaughlin - freelance
- Peter McMahon - freelance
- Alison Motluk - freelance
- Anne Mullins - freelance
- Elizabeth Payne - Ottawa Citizen
- Kim Pittaway - freelance
- Tina Pittaway - freelance
- Ann Silversides - freelance
- Mary Agnes Welch - Winnipeg Free Press
Tier 2 Awards ($10,000)
- Jennifer Carpenter - freelance
- Daemon Fairless - CBC radio
- Hannah Hoag - freelance
- Alex Hutchinson - freelance
- Kennedy Jawoko - freelance
- Pascale Millot - Québec Science
Rob Annan Uncategorized
Junior Minister of Science, etc. Gary Goodyear was in London, Ontario yesterday to announce the results of NSERC’s Strategic Grants funding competition. $53.5-million will be allocated among 122 research projects across the country.
The Strategic Grants program was designed to fund projects that address the sub-priorities for Canadian research as identified by the Science, Technology and Innovation Council’s State of the Nation report last year: environmental science and technologies, natural resources and energy, information and communications technologies, and health.
As with seemingly every other granting program these days, recipients are expected to work with private or non-profit partners to address “real-world challenges”, which I guess is a departure from research into “make-believe challenges” other funding programs support.
Results can be seen here.
Rob Annan Uncategorized
CIHR has posted the results of the Fall 2009 Operating Grants competition. Funding decisions for numerous other competitions are also posted.
CIHR V-P Research Pierre Chartrand posted a statement on the site, summarizing the results. The Open Operating Grants competition awarded more than $230-million in funding over the next five years, with more than 400 grants approved. The average value of the grants has also allegedly increased.
Rob Annan Uncategorized
NSERC and the Canada Council for the Arts have announced a joint funding opportunity: the New Media Initiative. It is intended to promote collaboration between scientists and artists in the creation of a scientifically-sound new media art. While I love the idea, even NSERC seems a bit confused about why they’re funding it and what it might entail, which is obvious from the ambiguous descriptions on the site:
Scientists, engineers and artists are creating novel and mutually beneficial ways of thinking and working collaboratively across their disciplines, making innovative contributions to science, the arts and industry. Collaborations between these disciplines are also contributing to the professional development of scientists, engineers and artists; promoting the transfer of knowledge between sectors and disciplines; and helping create new cross-disciplinary working methodologies between scientific and artistic domains.
What?
In any case, I think everyone should apply, which they can do by following the instructions here. Deadline is April 15.
Rob Annan Uncategorized
According to the website of the French embassy, an agreement between the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and the French National Research Agency (ANR) has been signed to encourage collaborative research between scientists in the two countries. Projects for 2010 will be solicited in environment, process engineering and materials, information and communication technologies (ICT), and biomedical technologies.
Collaborators will be required to submit applications to both agencies. Check websites for more details.
Rob Annan Uncategorized
The CFI has posted the results of the 2009 CFI Leading Edge Fund competition on its website. A total of 64 projects were funded at what appears to be 26 institutions, for a combined investment of $247.7-million.
Rob Annan Uncategorized
NSERC has published the statistics from last year’s Discovery Grants competition (.pdf file here). As was noted when the announcement was made several weeks ago, while the average amount awarded per grant increased, the success rate decreased significantly, from 71% to 64%, but there are a number of other interesting aspects to the stats.
At the time of the original announcements, the government had noted that the total amount of funding, per applicant, had increased from 2008 to 2009, which seemed a strange way of measuring things. It was only in a second less widely circulated release that the government suggested the total funding hadn’t changed, implying that the increase in funding per applicant was simply due to fewer applicants. Now, with the actual numbers, we can confirm this: the number of applicants dropped from 3,405 to 3,210. And though NSERC suggested that the total funding hadn’t changed, according to the numbers NSERC provides (Budget availability * no. of applicants), the total amount awarded in 2009 was $68.7-million vs. $71.5-million in 2008 – a drop of nearly 5% in total funding.
A closer look at the numbers also reveals that decreased success rates aren’t due to an increase in the number of early-career researchers. Given the poor success rate of early-career researchers (only 58.5% successful), it could be possible that this year’s lower success rate is due to an influx of new researchers hired during the recent recruitment drives on many campuses. The stats show, however, that the number of first-time applicants dropped more than 10%, from 721 to 637, suggesting that the decreased success rate is due to established researchers no longer receiving funding. Indeed, the report demonstrates that the number of grant holders whose grants were not renewed rose from roughly 240 in 2008 to almost 400 in 2009, and increase of more than 60% – thereby supporting the personal stories of two researchers who saw their NSERC funding cut this year.
Overall, the numbers demonstrate that a total of almost 400 fewer researchers received funding from the Discovery Grants program this year; even when the 200 fewer applicants are removed from consideration, this means that the number of funded researchers dropped by roughly 10% from last year to this year.
A few other highlights:
- The average grant amount was $34,311
- While the success rate remains relatively high (64%), the funding rate remains relatively low at 38.3% this year (39% in 2008). This represents the amount of money awarded vs. the amount of money requested.
- The most money was awarded to UofT ($7.4-million), UBC ($6.2-million), and McGill ($4.5-million).
- Highest success rates (more than 15 applicants): Trent (81.3%), Queen’s (80.2%), and Montreal’s École de Technologie Supérieure (79.2%)
- Figures that show changes in grant level are quite revealing. First (Figs 3-4), in a scatter plot of this year’s funding vs. last year’s funding, the 2008 vs. 2007 results are tightly scattered along the diagonal, indicative of relatively stable funding between the two competitions. This year’s results, however, are much more widely distributed, suggesting much larger variation – both up and down – between last year’s and this year’s funding. Instability in funding is anathema to researchers, who need to plan in multi-year chunks when agreeing to supervise students, participate in projects, etc.
- Figures 5 and 6 demonstrate the percentage change in renewals. Here, the numbers agree with the previous figures – in 2008, renewals were practially all within 10-20% of previous grant amounts. In 2009, the figures were “much more dynamic”, in the words of the report. Most revealing, however, is that in 2008 only 243 grant-holders were not successful in renewing their grants; in 2009, that figure was 396 – an increase of more than 60%.
- Figures 8 and 9 show that while the average grant size has remained relatively constant since 2001, the success rate has been trending downwards by 20-30% in that time.
- The grant selection committees with the highest success rates were Space and Astronomy (75.0%), Condensed Matter Physics (73.4%), and Evolution and Ecology (72.9%). The lowest success rates were Civil Engineering (58.4%), Interdisciplinary (57.4%), and Cell Biology (51.5%).
(also published at DontLeaveCanadaBehind)
Rob Annan Uncategorized
A conference to discuss Science Policy in Canada is scheduled for Toronto, Oct. 28-30. Organizers lament the academic research community’s lack of influence on government science and research policy, and suggest that Canadian researchers would benefit by coming together to coordinate a vision for science policy. The policy conference has three stated objectives:
- to identify and discuss current Canadian science policy issues;
- to create networking opportunities in order to forge stronger links between scientists and policy-makers; and
- to lay the foundation for establishing a Canadian “Virtual Institute” for Science Policy Research.
I encourage those in the area to attend, and especially support the call for a “virtual institute”. Indeed, one of the challenges for Canadian science policy is the regionalism that results from the wide array of provincial funding opportunities. Generating a unified voice that is representative of researchers across the country will improve the impact of any policy recommendations and will ensure the widespread support of the academic community. Perhaps a series of regional mini-conferences or roundtables will help promote the participation of scientists Canada-wide, and will furthermore increase the visibility of the effort.
Rob Annan Funding Issues, Uncategorized
