PERSPECTIVES - Special Congress Issue - Day 7 (fwd)

[Richard Plant]

Hello all:

Here's a recent issue of the newsletter. Alas, part of it reminds us once
again of the pushing of the humanities, in particular, to the sidelines.

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

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 30 May 2001 09:22:31 -0400
From: Fedcan <Fedcan at hssfc.ca>
To: @hssfc.ca
Subject: PERSPECTIVES - Special Congress Issue - Day 7

CONGRESS 2001: Health research
Social Scientists and Humanists Reluctant to Tap New CIHR Monies
CIHR to give developmental grants to small universities to craft new projects

        QUEBEC CITY - Social scientists and humanists have been slow in the uptake
for health research grants offered by the new Canadian Institutes of Health
Research.
        CIHR officials at special working session on interdisciplinarity and peer
review held at the annual Congress of the Social Sciences & Humanities say
the agency was altogether surprised by how reluctant social scientists and
humanists appeared to be in applying for funds made available by the
expansion of the CIHR's scope to include health services & systems;
clinical; and determinants of health research.
        Only 204 of 1300 - a scant 16% - of applications in last fall's CIHR
competition for basic grants came from the social sciences & humanities,
Dr. Gary Glavin, chair of the CIHR's working group on programs & peer
review told delegates to the session, which was co-sponsored by CIHR and
the Humanities & Social Sciences Federation of Canada (HSSFC).
        It's long been held that if you create a pot of money, researchers will
find it, particularly if they come from a community that it believes it has
been severely shortchanged by recent federal programming.
        But CIHR vice-president Dr. Louise Nadeau surmises that perceptions still
play a role in the reluctance of social scientists and humanists to apply
for health grants. "There's a feeling that the CIHR is still owned by
biomedical researchers, as if the Medical Research Council had not been
abolished and did not have a new perspective on health research," she said
in an interview.
        CIHR director of programs Dr. Mark Bisby adds that the fall competition
cycle may have also played a part. "I also think that we need to be more
proactive in reaching out the social sciences & humanities communities to
encourage those applications and point out what CIHR has to offer."
        But HSSFC executive-director Dr. Louise Robert adds that the social
sciences & humanities community must shoulder some of the responsibility.
        The community is slowly learning how to emerge from behind the segregated,
disciplinary boundaries that have defined the academic world, Robert says.
"Traditionally, the whole notion of interdisciplinarity, and disciplinary
boundaries, has infringed on the ability of scientists to work together. So
there's an issue of trust and I think, in this case, the social scientists
and humanists must trust that the system will work in their favour."
        "The CIHR has done its part," Robert adds. "We all must have inherent
skepticism, but at some point, we all have to say: 'the CIHR is willing to
try and I'm willing to join'."
        With so few applications for health research, the CIHR only needed six
committees to handle the load, including Health, policy & management;
Health information & promotion; Health services research; Population &
public health; and Psychosocial & behavioural determinants of health. The
final health-related committee, Ethics, law & humanity, received only eight
applications.
        The simple reality is that if researchers truly want Canada to broaden the
purview of medical research to include more health services and
determinants research, they must come forward with proposals, Nadeau said.
"This is a business and we need customers."
        In hopes of building that client base, officials told the workshop that
the CIHR will this month dispense a pot of developmental monies for
small-and-medium-sized universities to stimulate interest in health
research within their faculties.
        Universities will be eligible for "one-time block grants to develop their
health research strategy," Bisby said.
        For most universities, the challenge will be to convince social scientists
& humanists that they'll be entering an equal partnership in which they
retain some control over the research agenda, Dr. Lesley Biggs, head of the
University of Saskatchewan's department of women's & gender studies told
the workshop. For most, "the fear is that it will be a service role to
biomedical scientists."
        But Laval professor of anatomy Dr. Jacques Simard argued that
multidisciplinary health initiatives offer researchers a tremendous
opportunity to help break ground in finding ways to quickly disseminate
scientific discoveries and knowledge "to the health care system and to the
patient."

                                                -30-

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".