Perspectives (Volume 1, number 10) (fwd)

[Richard Plant]

Hello everyone on Candrama:

I'm the representative of ACTR/ARTC (the body under whose auspices Ed
Mullaly set up and maintains "Candrama" at UNB) to HSSFC, and am sending
to you the recent "Perspectives" issue from HSSFC. Editor Wayne Kondro
reports with some good news (well, mixed news).

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

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Date: Mon, 23 Feb 1998 09:50:26 -0500
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Subject: Perspectives (Volume 1, number 10)

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 I, Number 10)

Editor: Wayne Kondro

Table of contents:
i)      Introduction
ii)     Implications for CRICs
iii)    The SSHRC Submission
iv)     Other Budget Measures

GOVERNING LIBERALS TO RESTORE GRANTING COUNCIL BUDGETS
Financial scenarios leave door open for CRICs initiative

Call it a partial mea culpa.

Liberal sources say the government will seek to "atone for past sins" in
tomorrow's federal budget by restoring granting council budgets to 1995 levels.

But it appears the penance will take time. Several sources say the
restoration will occur over two years, while others say it'll take three.
While a single official says the budget will actually be "far more generous
than many have been led to believe," most say the vaults will only open
further down the road, as and if the government's financial picture brightens.

Equally problematic are the precise considerations the Liberals will use in
making the restoration to funding levels which existed prior to the federal
program review exercise which saw council budgets cut between 10-15% over
the fiscal years 1995-96 to 1997-98.

During that interval, Ottawa made the National Centres of Excellence a
permanent feature of council programming. The Social Sciences & Humanities
Research Council, for example, received $101.1- million in 1994-95. The
current appropriation of $94.4-million includes roughly $3.9-million in NCE
monies.

A strict restoration to 1995 levels would result in SSHRC receiving about
$7-million (which would translate into about $10-million over a two-year
period, ie., about $3.5-million in 1998-99 and $7- million in 1999-2000).
But if NCE monies are factored out of the calculation, SSHRC will receive
between $10-$12-million, with a net two-year effect in the neighbourhood of
$15-$18-million. (The latter variance depends on whether Ottawa proceeds
with a 3% reduction ticketed for the coming fiscal year as a result of the
last federal budget).

It's equally uncertain whether administrative costs will be factored into
the calculation. SSHRC's current administration costs are about
$7.2-million/year. If, for example, administrative costs are excluded but
NCEs aren't, the new monies could top $20-million over a two-year period.

Yet, however the ambiguities are resolved, it appears the restoration will
fall significantly short of the $132-million/three-year hike which SSHRC
requested in its pre-budget submission to Finance minister Paul Martin.

IMPLICATIONS FOR CRICS
The submission --offered in the form of a document entitled 'Leading-edge
Research for a Cohesive Society and a Competitive Economy: an innovation
scenario for SSHRC'-- included a pitch for $4.2- million/year to support the
Humanities & Social Sciences Federation of Canada proposal to establish a
series of 15 community-based innovation centres across the nation in a bid
to promote more knowledge transfer between universities and communities.

Ottawa was asked to contribute $21-million (or roughly $300,000 to the
projected annual cost of each centre) towards the $27.5-million/five-year
initiative known as Community Research & Information Crossroads (CRICs). The
remaining monies would be generated from participating universities and
private sector partners.  But sources say it's "very unlikely" the budget
will contain a designated allocation for CRICs, although SSHRC will be
"placed on notice" that Ottawa is expecting the council to proceed with the
initiative.

"They'll have enough money to demonstrate the validity of CRICs," says one
Liberal, adding that there's "now an onus on SSHRC to move ahead with it to
show they can create these kinds of things which give the social sciences
more visibility and more involvement with the rest of Canadians."

Yet it's entirely outside of Ottawa's purview to direct SSHRC to spend any
of its monies in any way whatsoever and the final decision on whether to
proceed with CRICs will rest with the governing council. That will doubtless
hinge on the budgetary increase SSHRC receives.

Should the top-up range in the neighbourhood of $20-million/two years, SSHRC
should have enough leeway to support CRICs while maintaining other
pre-budget commitments to bolster research grant and fellowship programs; to
increase targeted and strategic research awards; and to create a reserve
fund for use in leveraging new partnerships with other government
departments or the private sector.

Assuming SSHRC were to allocate roughly the same percentage of available
resources to various initiatives as proposed in the pre-budget submission,
if the agency receives a scant $10-$12-million, it should still be possible
to squeeze at least $2-million for CRICs, which would translate into the
creation of seven or eight innovation centres. But anything less would
probably make it impossible to support CRICs in any meaningful way.

THE SSHRC SUBMISSION
In making its case for a $132-million/three-year budget injection,
(staggered at $22-million in 1998- 99 and then $44-million and $66-million,
respectively, for the following two fiscal years) SSHRC argued Ottawa must
move to redress the current imbalance in support for the social sciences and
humanities relative to their counterparts in the natural and biomedical
sciences.

In a pitch mirroring that of the Canadian Consortium for Research --which
had contended that SSHRC merited a 60% budget hike over four years, as
compared to 50% for its sister councils-- the submission notes that SSHRC
receives a mere 12% of federal council funding but it's "clientele
represents 57% of all full-time university-based research and 54% of all
full-time graduate students."

"This means that 85% of researchers and 95% of students in the social
sciences and humanities have almost no hope of getting funding from the
Council. The low prospects for obtaining research funding, added to the
erosion of research resources at Canadian universities in recent years, have
created a climate of discouragement within the human science research
community."

The additional monies would serve "to close important gaps in identified
areas where Canada does not have the knowledge needed to develop effective
policies and programs to manage change - these include globalization, social
cohesion, growth and human development; to respond to urgent needs for
strategically focused training to prepare Canadian youth to find employment
in different sectors of our knowledge-based society and economy where the
humanities and social sciences are called on to play important roles; to
further develop and maintain a strong capacity for innovation by providing
greater support for fundamental research and advanced training in the human
sciences."

Under the scenario, SSHRC proposed to spend roughly $21-million of the
$66-million to address "strategic knowledge gaps," including the creation of
five new $2-million targeted research programs --ranging from "chairs on
social entrepreneurship, networks of centers of excellence on globalization
and major collaborative research on the social determinants of health"-- as
well as $4.2-million for CRICs and $6-million to optimize the use of
national and longitudinal databases.

Some $11-million would have been spent on training, including the creation
of 80 ($18,000) M.A. Fellowships on Strategic Globalization Challenges, as
well as the creation of 250 ($33,440) Human Science Career Entry Awards in
such areas as "data development and analysis, telelearning, health and
environmental impact assessment, sustainable natural resource management,
and applied ethics."

Roughly $33.8-million was ticketed for "Sustaining a Strong Innovation
Capacity," under which SSHRC would match a $1 spent on targeted research and
training with every $1 spent on basic research and training. The monies
would have included $18.6-million to double the number of doctoral
fellowships awarded and $12.3-million to raise the current success rate for
research grants to 20% from 15%.

But various sources say the action plan was "far too rich" for Liberal
tastes. "The era of austerity may be over but we're not about to become big
spenders again," says one senior Liberal.

"That was pipe-dreaming," adds another. "They should be grateful to get
anything after the past few years."

OTHER BUDGET MEASURES
Along with granting council increases, Martin's Feb. 24th budget will boldly
cast the government as the great promoter of educational opportunities for
youth. The budget centrepiece will be the ballyhooed millennium scholarship
fund, which is projected to range in the neighbourhood of $2.5-$3- billion.
It'll commence offering scholarships to students in the year 2000.

Among SSHRC's budget pitches was one requesting that a portion of millennium
monies be set aside to create tri-council awards "to provide special
opportunities for outstanding young Canadians to pursue innovative and
collaborative interdisciplinary training."

Other measures expected in the 1998-99 fiscal plan include:
-The Liberals will honor their campaign promise to inject $34-million into
the National Research Council's Industrial Research Assistance Program.
-Tax changes will be introduced to help students relieve the burden of
crushing debt loads as they emerge from universities and colleges.

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
Federation canadienne des sciences humaines et sociales
151 Slater Street, Suite 415, Ottawa, Ontario K1P 5H3
Tel:  (613) 238-6112; Fax:  (613) 238-6114
Email/Courrier electronique:  fedcan at hssfc.ca