Perspectives (Volume 2, number 4) (fwd)

[Richard Plant]

Hello everyone:

Here is the latest issue of "Perspectives" from HSSFC.

Richard Plant
Dept of Drama, Queen's University
and
Graduate Centre for Study of Drama, 
University of Toronto

Subject: Perspectives (Volume 2, number 4)

An electronic newsletter on research and science policy.  A pilot project of
the Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada.

PERSPECTIVES will appear at regular intervals throughout the year and will
be posted on the Federation web site:
http://www.hssfc.ca/Pub/PublicationsEng.html.  Please address your comments
and suggestions to Jacqueline Wright, Executive Assistant, at:
jawright at hssfc.ca.

PERSPECTIVES (Volume 2, Number 4)

Editor: Wayne Kondro

Table of contents:
1)	Highlights
2)	Hikes for Research Grants and Fellowships
3)	Research Time Stipends
4)	Innovation Centres
5)	Stablized Federation Funding
6)	Tri-Council Ethics

SSHRC COUNCIL BOLSTERS CORE ACTIVITIES 
NEW INITIATIVES TO INCLUDE PILOT OF CRICS PROGRAM

Highlights:
Honoring a promise to invest at least half of all new monies in core
activities, Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council president Dr. Marc
Renaud has announced that the agency will funnel the bulk of its recent
$12.9-million federal budget windfall into its standard research grants
envelope. SSHRC will also restore its research time stipends program and
establish a $3-million pilot program creating 16 innovation centres across
the nation to promote knowledge transfer between the universities and the
community. SSHRC also reaffirmed its commitment to the Humanities & Social
Sciences Federation of Canada (HSSFC) by stabilizing support for activities
such as the annual Congress, the Breakfasts on the Hill, Research Profiles,
and other Federation initiatives.

HIKES FOR RESEARCH GRANTS AND FELLOWSHIPS:
Roughly 100 researchers who received polite 'recommended-but-not-funded'
letters from SSHRC in recent weeks will be pleasantly surprised to discover
they'll soon receive funding as a result of SSHRC's allocations of its
recent $12.9-million budget increase.

SSHRC's budget rose $9-million as a result of the recent federal budget
decision to restore council budgets to 1995 levels. But that approach
essentially punished SSHRC for successes achieved by members of its research
community in the Networks of Centres-of-Excellence program, (see
Perspectives, Vol 1, No 11). Essentially acknowledging their mistake,
Finance last month quietly restored $3.9-million to SSHRC's budget,
resulting in a net increase of $12.9-million for the current fiscal year.

Some $5-million of those monies will be used to bolster the standard
Research Grants budget to $34.8-million from $29.8-million. Given the
"demoralization" of the community prompted by low success rates,
particularly in some disciplines, Renaud says SSHRC decided to immediately
hike the success rate for its most recent grants competition to 43% from
about 35%, resulting in roughly 100 applications being lifted from the
so-called 4A-list (recommended but not funded).

"We expect that will boost the morale and get some of those innovative
projects funded that don't get to the top of the ranks because of
conservatism of some committees," Renaud says.

Similarly, SSHRC will funnel $3.75-million into fellowship programs this
year by hiking the value of its fellowships to $16,620 from $15,000 and by
increasing the overall doctoral fellowships budget to $22.09-million from
$19.3-million and the postdoctoral budget to $7.94-million from
$6.94-million. The upshot: a projected 55 additional doctoral fellowships
will issue this year, while 30 more postdocs will be supported.

SSHRC also agreed to set aside $3-million to raise the strategic grants
budget to $15.6-million from $12.4-million. The additional monies will be
spent in three new targeted thematic areas: the social & cultural
determinants of health; social cohesion; and the cultural, social & economic
challenges of a knowledge-based society. Program guidelines are under
development.

RESEARCH TIME STIPENDS
Commencing in the next fiscal year, SSHRC will move to restore its
practically-defunct Research Time Stipends (RTS) program to a $1.5-million
level over a three-year period.

But the program will be reinstated with two very distinct differences from
its predecessor. It'll be established on a matching basis with universities
and it'll be up to the universities themselves to make the determination as
to which researchers warrant receipt.

Memorial University dean of arts Dr. Terrence Murphy jokingly refers to the
requirement that universities select worthy recipients as a "dirty trick" in
that it'll necessitate the formation of internal mechanisms to ascertain
which researchers deserve an RTS imprimatur on grant applications. SSHRC
will automatically honour all such designated recipients with an RTS,
provided, of course, that the application was successful and that SSHRC's
annual ceiling on such awards hasn't been drawn down by higher-rated
applicants. SSHRC will spend $500,000 on the program in 1999-2000. That'll
rise to $1-million, and $1.5-million, respectively, in the following two
fiscal years.

As significantly, SSHRC will only contribute one-half --  to a maximum
$15,000 -- of each stipend. The university must cover the remainder. The
stipends have traditionally been used to absorb the cost of sessional
lecturers hired to replace scholars who are seeking relief from their
teaching load to complete their research. Under the predecessor program,
SSHRC offered up to $27,000 but peer review committees determined worthy
recipients.

INNOVATION CENTRES 
While the bulk of new funding will bolster core SSHRC programs, SSHRC's
governing board also unanimously approved a two-stage plan to establish a
$3-million pilot program to create about 16 innovation centres across the
nation.

The board approved the expenditure of $1.5-million in the next fiscal year
(and an additional $1.5- million in the fiscal year 2000) to create the
university-based centres focused on investigator/community-initiated
research themes, such as health, literacy, fisheries, youth, family violence
or aboriginal issues. 

Although inspired by the Federation's Community Research & Information
Crossroads (CRICs) proposal, the innovation centres will be renamed and each
will be focussed on a specific thematic area of research, rather than
operate as a sort of open-ended brokering service between university
researchers and community groups. 

SSHRC president Dr. Marc Renaud says the centres will nevertheless provide
the social and human sciences with an opportunity to respond to community
demand while structuring research in innovative ways in responding to those
concerns.

"What I hope at the end of the day is it's also going to cue the research
questions being asked, because these partners in the community - again it
may be public service, it may be private sector, it may be community groups
- the questions they're going to ask, will help the researchers decide what
are the priorities in terms of research projects in the future.  The idea is
that there is a buy-in in the questioning. There is a buy-in in the process
of research. There is a buy-in in the results dissemination," Renaud notes.

HSSFC President Dr. Chad Gaffield says he's "overjoyed that the federal
government increased financing to allow SSHRC to respond to the CRICs
proposal since it will offer university researchers the chance to explain to
the larger society what their research is focussed on and the importance of
that research to the advancement of knowledge in social sciences and
humanities."

"In keeping with the metaphor of crossroads, the centres will improve that
interaction ... and fuel a movement in the direction of connecting the
campus to the community," Gaffield says, adding that the CRICs proposal has
already promoted awareness, both on-and-off-campus, of the value of
scholarship to the "larger welfare of society."

In the course of developing CRICs, the Federation conducted extensive
consultations with groups ranging from social services agencies to
non-profit organizations, municipalities, labour unions, foundations,
economic development corporations to aboriginal and cultural associations.
Some 231 bodies wrote the government in support of the initiative.

At the same time, Gaffield says he's "puzzled" by the decision to rename the
proposal and to focus on certain themes. The HSSFC had conceived CRICs as
one-stop centres linking researchers and students into teams to address
issues raised by community groups and local agencies.

But Renaud says SSHRC concluded such a brokering approach wasn't the most
effective way of promoting shifts in research paradigms based on community
or social needs. "The best way to go at it is to ask a team of researchers,
with a champion in the university, to partner up with some community groups,
which may be private sector or public sector, under a given theme."

SSHRC's previous experience with collaborative initiatives indicated that a
focussed approach, like the one used to create immigration, family violence
and women's health centres-of-excellence, was a more effective means of
promoting linkages than a system "where you're totally dependent on demand,
where someone is sitting in the university waiting for people in the
community to knock on your door and ask some questions in areas where the
university may not be that competent."

Instead, it was decided a thematic approach would help structure demand in
disciplines in which a university has demonstrated competence, while keeping
the program squarely within "the core function of universities, that is,
delivering research and training students," Renaud says.

Essentially, it appears SSHRC believed a preferable model was one creating
almost a hybrid form of centres-of-excellence, only more directly responsive
to community and social needs, and more effectively integrating student
training and liaison with the community-at-large.

It was also believed the centres could only be launched if they were led by
a 'champion' who'd spearhead the initiative, Renaud says. To that end, SSHRC
will ask each host university to pay half the salary of the researcher who
heads the centre.

But there'll be no requirement for contributions from partners, Renaud says.
"Of course, if there is cash on the table, this is a good measure of the
partnership, if people actually buy-in in a literal sense. It's better than
not. But we could not put this as a rule because that would forbid several
groups from actually structuring their liaison with universities."

Beyond that, many of the program details have yet to be determined. But an
ad hoc SSHRC advisory committee will iron out the final details in the
coming months in advance of issuing a call for letters- of-intent, likely in
August or September.

Among the unresolved issues is the question of a mechanism to disseminate
research findings and information about best practices. Although the
Federation recommended the creation of such a pan- Canadian CRICs network
and offered to assume the task, SSHRC hasn't yet addressed the issue. 

The network "is at the heart of it," Gaffield says. "That was the clear
message we got from the Dutch experience. I think the whole is, in fact,
greater than the sum of the parts and if they're left just out there on
their own, I don't think they'll contribute in the way they could if they're
part of a national network."

Other aspects of the program are less amorphous. Those include:
-each centre will be eligible for up to 75% - a projected $200,000 - of
operational costs.
-universities won't be precluded from having more than one centre;
-the centres won't be known as CRICs because the board believed the name
didn't adequately acknowledge the role of universities;
-centres will be supported for three years;
-the initial competition will likely be held next February, with funding to
flow in the 1999-2000 budget, while the second round will be funded in the
following fiscal year; 
-SSHRC will not designate the specific thematic areas in which applications
will be accepted and ultimately funded.

The latter raises concerns that humanists will have greater difficulty
making the case for the utility of their work than will social scientists in
any adjudication procedure measuring relevance and responsiveness to
community needs.

It's vital that program guidelines be structured to avoid "disciplinary
bias," says Université du Québec à Montréal historian Dr. Joanne Burgess.
"Disciplines that are not as applied or not as oriented towards contemporary
social issues must be able to find a home in the program. ...You've got to
find ways for humanists to think about how they can do things that link into
community needs."

As the program evolves, it's equally essential that universities devise
means of freeing up matching funds for social scientists and humanists who
wish to establish centres, Murphy argues. "Funding for programs like this
will not be found exclusively or primarily within the budgets of
hard-strapped faculties of arts. ...Perhaps the silver lining in a matching
grants program is that it challenges the universities to come to terms with
the requirement to support research in the social sciences & humanities."
 
STABILIZED FEDERATION FUNDING:
In recent years, the HSSFC has been forced to seek project-by-project
support from SSHRC in order to engage in activities such as the Congress of
the Social Sciences and Humanities, Breakfasts on the Hill, Research
Profiles and other initiatives. 

But SSHRC's governing board has approved a new funding arrangement under
which the Federation will receive up a maximum $300,000 per year, on a
matching basis, to deliver such programming. However, SSHRC will only match
monies which the Federation raises from membership dues paid by universities
and associations.

For its part, HSSFC must continue to deliver the Congress (including
outreach activities); maintain and provide access to current databases and
Listserves; conduct four Breakfasts on the Hill to apprize politicians of
research trends and developments; and continue to produce and publish
Research Profiles to raise awareness about on-going research projects. HSSFC
also committed itself to the development of a research web site/directory
"that lists and describes the research undertaken by Canadian social
scientists and humanists."

The matching SSHRC contribution falls well below the $650,000 provided to
the then-separate humanities and social science federations until the
mid-1990s, and will necessitate "further restructuring on our part,"
Gaffield says. "But we recognize that funds are limited and we support the
efforts to bolster core research activities and applaud the re-introduction
of research time stipends and the approval of the CRICs-inspired initiative."   

TRI-COUNCIL ETHICS
The contentious Tri-Council Policy Statement on Ethical Conduct for Research
Involving Humans is now ticketed for release in late June after negotiators
ironed-out a series of last-minute wrinkles, including a proposed ban on all
forms of deception.

The statement (see Perspectives, Vol 1, No 8) was approved in principle by
SSHRC earlier this year. But it ran into a roadblock at the Medical Research
Council. Distressed over an apparent weakening of many of the regime's
provisions, MRC's ethics subcommittee urged that the opinion of the
Department of Justice first be solicited before the package received a green
light.

Once Justice became involved, yet another overhaul of the document was
required. Justice urged that the entire 'collectivities' section - under
which both individual and group consent was required when research protocols
involved a person who belonged to government, corporation; and native,
cultural, religious, ethnic or social group - be completely abandoned
because affected groups, like aboriginals, hadn't been consulted.

"The councils cannot make policies for aboriginal people since they haven't
consulted them," explains MRC director of innovation teams Francis
Rolleston. The statement was subsequently rewritten to say that in cases
where "research involves a distinct cultural group REBs may require that a
consultation process take place between the researcher and the group."

Justice also urged that the councils skirt potential liability issues by
leaving responsibility for enforcement and monitoring of new regime entirely
within the purview of universities. As a consequence, the councils role in
the implementation of the ethics package will be strictly educational.

They'll only get involved in enforcement - ie., withdrawing funding from
non-compliant researchers - in cases where a university informs the councils
about abuses. Site visits, reporting requirements and other accountability
mechanisms will be left strictly in university hands.

Finally, Justice reaffirmed the MRC subcommittee's belief that all forms of
'deception' are anathema. A clause was introduced prohibiting the practice.

But throughout the entire four-year ethics exercise, social scientists led
by the psychological community had opposed the imposition of such a measure
on the grounds that the nature of disclosure required for biomedical
experiments differed from that required for things like surveys of students'
drinking habits.

Canadian Psychological Association president Janel Gauthier explains that
some forms of deception are absolutely essential to obtaining accurate
information in studies like ones on racial prejudice otherwise participants
would "filter" their answers in accordance with what they perceived were the
desired responses.

SSHRC subsequently threatened to withdraw from the exercise unless the
psychologists' concerns were resolved, resulting in a month of furious
negotiations. In late May, negotiators agreed to scrap the deception clause.

Borrowing liberally from U.S. Office of Protection of Research Risk and
American Psychological Association regulations, the final version will
introduce the concept of "waivers" to informed consent which must be
obtained in cases where people are being misled.

But there are conditions: the research must be minimal risk and not
otherwise possible; the waiver mustn't "adversely affect the rights and
welfare of the subjects"; and there must be debriefing afterwards, "whenever
possible and appropriate."


Editor:
Wayne Kondro is a freelance writer based in Ottawa.  The former Editor of
the "Science Bulletin", an independent newsletter on national S&T policy, he
is currently a regular contributor to such publications as "Science" and
"The Lancet".



Humanities and Social Sciences Federation of Canada
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