Fw: Perspectives (Volume 5, number 2) - Security Squeezes Innovation in Federal Budget

[Richard Plant]

Hello Everyone:

Here is a recent issue of "Perspectives" for you.

Richard Plant
Subject: Perspectives (Volume 5, number 2) - Security Squeezes Innovation in
Federal Budget


> PERSPECTIVES
> An electronic newsletter on research and science policy.
>
> PERSPECTIVES will appear at regular intervals throughout the year and will
> be posted on the Federation web site:
>
http://www.hssfc.ca/english/policyandadvocacy/perspectives/perspectives.html
> Please address your comments and suggestions to Jacqueline Wright,
> Membership Communications Officer, at: jawright at hssfc.ca.
>
> PERSPECTIVES (Volume 5, Number 2)
> December 12, 2001
>
> Editor: Wayne Kondro
>
> Table of contents:
>
> 1) Introduction
> 2) The fallout
> 3) More fallout
> 4) The spin
> 5) The variable hikes
> 6) The indirect research costs
> 7) The missing
> 8) The other measures
>
> Security Squeezes Innovation in Federal Budget
> SSHRC's share of the granting council pie shrinks
>
> Call it a case of proliferating priorities.
>
> With the national agenda suddenly crowded by security and border concerns
> stemming from the September 11th terrorist attack on the World Trade
Center
> in New York and the global economy in a tailspin, research priorities were
> largely placed on the backburner as Finance minister Paul Martin unveiled
> his first full-scale federal budget in nearly two years.
>
> Erstwhile hopes for a doubling of the Social Sciences & Humanities
Research
> Council (SSHRC) budget; the creation of a multi-year program to cover
> indirect research costs at universities and research hospitals; or major
> outlays for a host of other scientific initiatives were either
dramatically
> scaled back or dissipated in the government's blueprint for fiscal
2002-03.
>
> Only modest measures of relief survived the security onslaught.
>
> A one-time $200-million outlay issued for indirect research costs at
> universities, while the granting councils received varying hikes in their
> budgets.
>
> SSHRC and the Natural Sciences & Engineering Research Council will see
> their budgets rise by 7%. But that's less than half the 15.4% increase
> which the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) received.
>
> Yet while SSHRC will receive received an additional $9.5-million as its
> A-base budget rises to $135-million in fiscal 2002, its overall share of
> granting council pie will decline to 11.5% from 12%, despite the fact that
> it supports 55% of faculty and faces enormous pressure across all facets
of
> agency programming.
>
> THE FALLOUT
> Predictably, the fallout at SSHRC was swift and brutal.
>
> A disconsolate SSHRC president Dr. Marc Renaud said he's left with no
> alternative but to contemplate his future.
>
> "I'm discouraged," Renaud said. "However much the social sciences
> demonstrate that they are good and efficient and useful, there seems to be
> nothing that can convince this government of the usefulness and the need
to
> support the social sciences. That's why I'm saying to myself: why am I
> doing this?"
>
> Faced with skyrocketing demand for basic research grants and joint
> initiatives like the indefinitely-suspended Community-University Research
> Alliances (CURAs) program, SSHRC had contended it desperately needed a
> major increase to redress the government's historic underfunding of the
> social sciences and humanities. Even Parliament's Industry Committee
> agreed, contending the agency's budget should be doubled.
>
> Faced also with enormous pressure to bolster its support for training the
> next generation of social scientists and humanists, SSHRC pitched for a
> substantial injection of new monies to hike support for doctoral students
> to 20% of enrolment; create a program to support 15% of all full-time
> Masters students and establish a program to provide start-up grants for
> recently-appointed full-time faculty, (see Perspectives, Vol. 5 No. 1).
>
> Asked, in turn, to present a "survival budget," SSHRC drew an
> $18-21-million line in the sand. That was needed to merely maintain a 40%
> success rate in applications for standard research grants, which have
> spiraled at a rate of 20% per year, Renaud said.
>
> With an increase of $9.5-million, bolstered support for graduate training
> "is out of the question," Renaud added. So too is any possibility of
> obliging the CIHR in establishing a series of new joint initiatives, or
> acceding to pressure to formulate some kind of research program related to
> the security agenda, such as additional work on the foundations and forms
> of Islamic terrorism.
>
> The council is now left in the untenable position of choosing between
> maintaining current levels of support for basic research grants or
> scuttling the wildly-successful CURAs, which come up for renewal next
spring.
>
> "Do we continue to support those CURAs that have been so successful? Or
> maintain our research grants? We just can't do the two at the same time. I
> don't know what this board will decide," Renaud said.
>
> MORE FALLOUT
> The woefully inadequate SSHRC increase invites a campus crisis, Humanities
> & Social Sciences Federation of Canada (HSSFC) president Dr. Patricia
> Clements argued.
>
> "History is taking us well beyond that kind of quibble in the equity
> formula. What's happening in Canadian universities is that professors are
> disappearing. What is required is PhDs but we don't have the resources to
> produce anything like the number of PhDs that will be required in the
> social sciences and humanities. It's no longer a question of arguing over
a
> bit of the pie here or there. It's now a question of whether we will keep
> our universities functioning effectively," Clements said.
>
> "There's a lack of awareness of the importance of the social sciences and
> humanities on the part of the Finance minister and this government," added
> Canadian Association of University Teachers Executive Director Dr. Jim
Turk.
>
> "SSHRC is going to have to cut back on some of its proposals," Turk said.
> "This won't even allow it to meet its needs, let alone expand them. It's a
> real disappointment."
>
> THE SPIN
> Despite those concerns, Industry minister Brian Tobin cast the budget as
an
> overwhelming success for the government's innovation agenda in its
> provision of $1.1-billion in new monies for research initiatives.
>
> "It's a very substantial investment at a time when Canada's economy is
less
> vigorous than it was six months ago," Tobin told reporters, adding that
> Martin "has largely fulfilled much of the wish list of Industry Canada."
>
> Drawing immediate plaudits was the decision to dip a tentative toe into
the
> waters of indirect research costs.
>
> "It's an excellent, very important step that will begin to ease the
current
> situation in Canadian universities," Clements said.
>
> "The fact that they've acknowledged it, they've called it indirect costs
> and they've been very clear that this is their role, is significant and
> will really assist us getting started in addressing pressing needs that
the
> universities have," said UBC president Dr. Martha Piper.
>
> "To go from zero to 25% in indirect costs in one year is, I think, just
> phenomenal," said CIHR president Dr. Alan Bernstein.
>
> "It's a plus. It's the first time that it's been recognized in a budget
> statement and it's a recognition of the current costs that universities
are
> absorbing," added Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada
> president Dr. Robert Giroux.
>
> THE VARIABLE HIKES
> The principle of proportional equity yielded an identical 7% increase in
> the budget of NSERC, which also falls under the rubric of Tobin's Industry
> portfolio. NSERC appropriations will rise $36.5-million to $521-million.
>
> Faring far better was the CIHR budget, which falls under federal Health
> minister Allan Rock's oversight. It will increase $75-million to over
> $560-million, more than double the federal funding provided four years ago
> to the predecessor Medical Research Council.
>
> Industry officials argued in the budget lock-up that the notion of
> proportional equity was used to provide identical increases for SSHRC and
> NSERC because "the case for changing it was not really made."
>
> Relative to its sister councils, "SSHRC hasn't fared badly," said one
> mandarin, noting that the agency has already benefited from targeted
> programs like the $100-million/5-year Initiative of the New Economy, (see
> Perspectives, Special Congress Issue 2001, Day 5).
>
> Nor have social scientists and humanists been disadvantaged by larger
hikes
> in the CIHR budget, he added. "They're eligible for CIHR grants because
its
> scope has been broadened to include health research. The reality is that
> the natural and social sciences are now funded in part through the CIHR."
>
> There's some legitimacy to that argument, Piper noted. "There is no
> question we've under-funded the social sciences and humanities in this
> country and we need to address that and we need to do it thoughtfully. On
> the other hand, if you look at (CIHR's) mandate and the kind of things
it's
> supporting, it now goes far beyond medical research. So we are now seeing
a
> lot of social policy, a lot of behavioural research, and a lot of social
> science research being supported through increased funding through CIHR
> that would have traditionally been funded through some other source."
>
> Industry and Finance officials also argued that the case for more
> significant SSHRC increases hasn't been entirely lost. "They can make a
> pitch during the consultations on the innovation paper (scheduled for
> release in January)," said one official.
>
> "This isn't the last federal budget," added another, noting that the
> government remains committed to lifting Canada to at least 5th from 16th
> place in the OECD rankings of per capita R&D performers, while doubling
the
> federal R&D investment by 2010. "That's still a while away."
>
> But SSHRC continues to face a political hurdle, Giroux noted. "SSHRC still
> has a major challenge to convince the powers that be, the politicians and
> so on, that the research it does is as relevant to the economy as some
> people would think that NSERC or CIHR is."  CIHR, meanwhile, was
> celebrating its hike.
>
> "It'll allow the institutes to continue the momentum and the gains they've
> made over the last year," said an elated Bernstein, forecasting that the
> monies will likely be divided along the same lines as existing programming
> for basic research and strategic research (roughly 80-20).
>
> "I would imagine we'll continue on the course we've set, which is
> excellence in the open competition. We'll expand the amount of dollars
> going to the strategic initiatives coming out of the institutes. Knowledge
> translation is going to be a big one and it'll allow us to partner and to
> further develop our commercialization initiatives."
>
> THE INDIRECT RESEARCH COSTS
> Although the $200-million "one-time" budget allocation fell short of what
> proponents had been hoping the government would relinquish for indirect
> research costs (see Perspectives, Vol. 3 No. 6), they were cheered by
hints
> the program will ultimately be placed on firmer, incremental footing.
>
> "Looking ahead, we will work with the university community on ways to
> provide ongoing support for indirect costs that are both predictable and
> affordable," Martin said.
>
> But long before that, the councils will have to determine exactly how to
> carve up the $200-million pie amongst universities.
>
> Two alternatives rapidly emerged.
> One would see the councils adopt the recommended model of the federal
> Advisory Council on S&T, under which universities would receive support
for
> indirect costs on a sliding scale proportionate to their share of overall
> council granting pie. Universities receiving less than 1% of council
grants
> would recover 95% of indirect costs, while mid-sized institutions would be
> eligible for roughly 40% and major players like the University of Toronto
> or UBC would get 35%.
>
> The alternative would be to provide each university with a fixed
percentage
> of the pie directly proportional to its overall success in granting
council
> competitions.
>
> Giroux and Piper favor the ACST model.
>
> "It recognizes the plight of the smaller universities," Giroux said.
>
> "It has been well received and well documented. It makes senses for us to
> move forward using that model," Piper added.
>
> But Bernstein says the monies should be used "to fund the total cost of
> actual direct costs of doing research. This is not a capacity building
> exercise like the Chairs or the CFI. This is actually to pay the full
costs
> of research. I think one could argue that it should be one formula fits
all."
>
> Federal and Industry officials indicated the government must also factor
> varying degrees of provincial government support for indirect research
costs.
>
> But universities will have the latitude to spend the monies as they see
> fit.  They can even use it allay concerns that operating monies have been
> drained from the social sciences and humanities into the natural and
> biomedical sciences as part of efforts to meet matching-dollar
requirements
> under targeted federal program like the Canada Foundation for Innovation
> (CFI) and the Canada Research Chairs programs, said one official. "They
can
> do whatever they want."
>
> Clements argued that new outlays in the social sciences and humanities
> would be an altogether appropriate use of the funds. "I would hope that a
> paying of indirect costs would help to address the problems that have been
> created in Canadian universities by an imbalanced funding policy."
>
> THE MISSING
> Foremost among many notable absences in the budget was any mention of a
> long-range astronomy plan, under which proponents hoped to obtain roughly
> $17-million/year to buy a stake in two world observatories, create new
> university laboratories for experimental astrophysics and bolster
currently
> inadequate high-performance computing capabilities.
>
> As a result, if Canada is to avoid being relegated to the astronomical
> sidelines, the National Research Council must find room for the plan
within
> the narrow confines of the $110-million/3-years it received to help
> implement its technology clusters strategy.
>
> The bulk of those monies are intended for the new National Institute for
> Nanotechnology in Alberta, the Advanced Aluminium Technology Centre in
> Quebec, a new research program at the Plant Biotechnology Institute in
> Saskatoon entitled  Crops for Enhanced Human Health', and fuel cell
> research in British Columbia.
>
> But the NRC can free-up some of their windfall for the astronomy plan,
said
> a senior Industry official. "A dollar is a dollar is a dollar. To the
> extent the NRC has some flexibility, it might be able to fund the plan.
> They may get creative."
>
> However, president Dr. Arthur Carty said the NRC would have to "scratch
and
> save" just to fund a single component of the $164-million/10-year plan.
>
> Even then, spending $50-million/5-years to buy a 5% stake in the Atacama
> Large Millimeter Array radio telescope that the United States and Europe
> are proposing to build at Llano Chajnantor in the Chilean desert is
> possible only if a $22.6-million infrastructure application that is now
> before the CFI is successful, Carty said. "We just haven't got enough
money
> to do all of the components of the long-range plan."
>
> Also missing in the budget was any reference to a scheme to establish a
new
> entity called the  National Academies of Canada' to provide scientific
> guidance to government and the public, (see Perspectives, Vol. 4 No. 2).
> But Industry officials have clearly pulled ranks behind the proposal as
> sources say it's now firmly entrenched as an element of the forthcoming
> federal White Paper on Innovation.
>
> The budget was equally silent a number of other mega-science proposals,
> including one to create a Biomolecular Interaction Network Database and
> another to rejuvenate information technology departments in universities
> through targeted research in microelectronics, photonics,
opto-electronics,
> wireless and radio-electronics.
>
> THE OTHER MEASURES
> Among other budget winners was CANARIE Inc., which received $110-million
> for both general operations and a contribution towards development of the
> proposed $150-million CA*net 4, the next-generation, high-speed broadband
> network for academic research.
>
> The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, currently headed by former
> Prime Minister's Office policy guru Dr. Chaviva Hosek, received
> $25-million/5-years to sustain its research program in such areas as
> cosmology and economic growth.
>
> Health-related initiatives generally fared well, as the government set
> aside an additional $125-million/2-years for aboriginal children's health
> programs, including $25-million to further reduce fetal alcohol syndrome,
> and allocated $10-million for ongoing research at the Genome Sequence
> Centre at the BC Cancer Research Institute.
>
> There's also a substantial health component to the government's security
> umbrella as $513-million/5-years was set aside for infrastructure related
> to the handling of chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats.
> Rock said the monies will be used for the purchase of smallpox vaccines,
> training front-line health care workers, and expanding the existing
> laboratory network to improve Canada's capacity to detect and identify
> threats.
>
> Faring far less favorably was Tobin's pet $1-billion plan to expand
> broadband Internet access to remote and rural regions by 2004. Martin
> curtly noted it needed "more planning" and deferred spending on the
> initiative until 2005 and then only at a $35-million/year level for a
> three-year period.
>
> "In looking at possible outcomes, it is our expectation that the best
> approach could very well be to expand the highly successful SchoolNet and
> Community Access programs to ensure broadband access," Martin said.
>
> To that end, the budget provided $40-million to extend funding for the two
> programs through fiscal 2004, while setting aside $600-million/4-years to
> make all government services available On-Line by 2005.
>
>
> 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".
>
>
>
>