New Government for Canada, New Vision for NSERC

Mr. Martin has identified “Building a 21st Century Economy” as one of the new government’s three principal themes, and science looms large in this agenda. It seems to me that this is a promising time for university research in science and engineering.

NSERC’s New Vision

I think the timing of NSERC’s “New Vision” has turned out to be good. During the summer and fall, I met with Ministers, MP’s and officials in Ottawa to present the New Vision as described in the last issue. The reaction has been uniformly positive and often enthusiastic. I was told repeatedly that our proposed actions were important, and that to try them as small-scale pilot projects within our current resources was exactly the right way to proceed. Indeed, one Minister expressed his approval in the words, “NSERC is a federal agency starting to act as a national agency.” On the basis of such responses, I believe that NSERC’s visibility and credibility in Ottawa are higher than ever.

There is progress to report in implementing the New Vision. Designs for the pilot programs for research capacity building, helping colleges to assist in innovation, and improving science and math education have been drafted, and consultation on them has started. Consultation is also under way on the Big Science framework. The first local consultations on a small regional office in Atlantic Canada were held in New Brunswick in late November; there was a lot of interest in a local NSERC presence there and discussions highlighted the timeliness and pertinence of NSERC’s new initiatives. Visits to the other three provinces in the region are planned for January. You may also know that Winnipeg has been announced as the location of the Prairie office, but the detailed arrangements will be worked out only after local consultations there.

We have heard that the capacity building and other new initiatives would be served best if the regional offices were located close to small universities. We have also heard that there should be regional offices close to large and well-established research universities that could make the best use of them. These views are not inconsistent. If, in fact, it eventually turns out that the five small regional offices not only support the initiatives in the New Vision but could also improve the delivery of our established major programs, then additional offices located closer to research universities might be justified.

Just before Christmas, Treasury Board handed down its decision on our proposed new label. We had proposed “Science and Engineering Canada,” but Treasury Board preferred “Science and Engineering Research Canada.” This label is longer than our proposal, but more precise, and it does allow us to drop “Natural” and “Council,” the two words that have been causing most of the public’s confusion with our name. Therefore, while the official name of the organization continues to be the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the acronym is still NSERC, you may expect to start seeing the label “Science and Engineering Research Canada” in our promotional materials.

An Indicator of Government Success

As all this was happening, we realized that NSERC had data showing that the Government’s initiatives to improve support for university research in science and engineering and to attract good people to do more of it are succeeding in spectacular fashion. These are the initiatives launched first in the 1997 Budget presented by Mr. Martin as Minister of Finance.

The chart below, showing the numbers of first-time applicants for NSERC Discovery Grants over the last nine years, is a clear indicator of that success. It shows that growth took off when NSERC’s budget began to grow after the 1997 Budget.

*Including new appointees to both Tier 1 and Tier 2 Canada Research Chairs.

The Growth of Demand Continues into 2004-05

The numbers for 2004-05 are once again great news for Canada in the long term, but in the short term they represent a very serious budget challenge to NSERC. It is now evident that the number of first-time applicants (FTAs) for Discovery Grants in the February 2004 competition has yet again reached an all-time high – 1,010 in a total competition of about 3,000 applicants. That’s another 129 more FTAs than last year. But the number of funded researchers who are retiring is expected to be slightly below last year’s, at 259. That means a net increase of 751 professors ready to do research.

The net increase represents a potential increase in Canada’s capacity for research only if these people stay here, develop careers, teach our students, and work with our industry. And that means that their research must be funded adequately. That funding can’t come at the expense of successful researchers already in Canadian universities because that would undermine what the government is trying to achieve.

The Best News

The best news is that most of the first-time applicants to NSERC are very good indeed. University hiring processes now include a thorough assessment of research potential (in the case of entry-level appointments) and accomplishment (in the case of senior people), using very much the same information that first-time applicants present to NSERC. Moreover, the FTA’s include all the senior and junior Canada Research Chairs who have arrived since the last competition. This means that the people currently being appointed as professors in science and engineering in Canadian universities are very well qualified to do research, and the result is that their success rates in our competitions are high – about 75 per cent in the last one – much higher than in the past. The NSERC grant selection committees try to fund every candidate who meets the standards of the discipline in peer review. The consequence of that approach is that the funded researchers get, on the average, a grant of only about 45 per cent of what they request.

Budget Pressure Has Built Up

We have managed to support the growing numbers of grantees within the recent budget increases only by squeezing hard in other important programs on which there is also a great demand, including Research Tools and Instruments, NSERC Industrial Research Chairs, NSERC Research Networks, University-Industry Collaborative R&D partnerships, and the Major Facilities Access program that pays for the operation of research facilities and infrastructure including much of that provided through the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) (e.g., $5.6 million p.a. starting January 1, 2004, as our share of the cost of operating the Canadian Light Source in Saskatoon). We are also unable to fund the Nanotechnology Innovation Platform above a token level, or to start new Innovation Platforms in other areas of strategic importance.

Our estimate of these pressures is $60-80 million p.a. (i.e., 10 to 13 per cent of the 2003-04 NSERC budget), with further annual growth required as long as the renewal of faculty continues and the new appointees are all expected to do research.

We should note that in 2003-04, the approximately 450 holders of Canada Research Chairs in science and engineering – half of the eventual number – received a total of $40 million in grants through all NSERC programs. This disproportionately large amount – close to twice the average total amount of grant per professor – is explained by the fact that the Canada Research Chairs are among the best of the researchers we support, and they do very well in all our competitions.

The initiatives grouped under NSERC’s New Vision (regional research capacity building, helping community colleges to assist SMEs to innovate in communities, helping to improve math and science education of Canadian children, developing a decision framework for big science projects, and opening some small regional offices) will cost only a small fraction of the budget pressure on our main national programs, in the range of $6 million in 2004-05. The pressure on NSERC’s budget would not be relieved to any significant extent if implementation of the New Vision were to be delayed. Even so, we feel we can sustain them as small-scale pilot projects for only one year, and we are designing these pilots to make it possible to evaluate them after one year. We realize that this will be far too early to assess their impacts, but we believe that it will be possible to determine at least whether the programs are working well in addressing the most important needs.

What NSERC Needs to Play Its Role

To play its role in sustaining what the Government of Canada began in 1997, namely to move Canadian universities to a higher level of research capacity in order to contribute to the long-term outcome of prosperity and a better quality of life for Canadians in the 21st century, NSERC needs a significant budget increase in 2004-05, and further increases to follow as driven by demand. Our best estimate of immediate need is for an increase of 13 per cent. The smaller amount of 10 per cent p.a. requested last year, and again repeated at the Standing Committee on Finance in 2003 before the extraordinary growth in demand was known, would keep the average Discovery Grant frozen in the face of rising cost pressures; it would limit our ability to pay for the operation of infrastructure provided by the CFI early in its program, and it would keep the grants for research tools and instruments far below the levels that have proved necessary.