Federal S&T outlays hit $10.7 billion but dip as percentage of federal spending

Federal outlays on S&T as a percentage of total government spending slipped in both FY08-09 and FY09-10 back to levels not seen since 2000. Federal expenditures were up $306 million or 3% in FY09-10 to $10.7 billion — an historic high — but the growth in S&T spending is not keeping pace with increases in overall government spending, according to the latest data from Statistics Canada.

The high point for S&T spending as a percentage of overall expenditures was FY02-03, when it reached 5% with outlays of $8.8 billion.

R&D accounts for all of this year's annual growth in federal spending, increasing $318 million or 4.8% to $6.95 billion. Related scientific activity was stagnant at $3.7 billion. The majority of the R&D increase is accounted for by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) which jumped $208 million to $580 million, most likely due to outlays associated with funding for a major competition.

Expenditures by the three granting councils are essentially flat, with increases ranging from $5 million to $20 million — not enough to cover the cost of inflation. Collectively, the granting councils account for $2.7 billion (including the indirect costs of research program).

The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council has the largest amount of funding of the granting councils with $1.06 billion, an increase of 22.2% over the past five years. In the same period, the funding of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research increased 19.6% to $966 million. The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council's budget (minus the indirect costs of research program) increased 13.7% to $374 million.

NRC spending declining

From an R&D perspective, the National Research Council has fared poorly over the past five years, having seen its budget decline by $40 million over that period, from $756 million to $716 million.

StatsCan breaks down S&T and R&D spending according to major departments and agencies with expenditures attributed to smaller entities lumped into the "Other" category (see chart). Major departments and agencies are determined as those that spend at least 2% of the total government S&T outlays. In FY09-10, those departments and agencies accounted for 86.4% of total federal expenditures.

Although the data do not allow for examination of individual programs, anecdotal evidence indicates that programs such as the Networks of Centres of Excellence have achieved the greatest growth. In the past three years, two new major programs have been added — the Centres of Excellence in Commercialization and Research and the Business-Led NCEs.

Line departments have also experienced declining or stagnant R&D budgets, with the exception of the Department of National Defence, which increased 13.1% in FY09-10 to $345 million. The picture is even more bleak for federal intramural spending, with the majority of departments experiencing stagnant or declining expenditures. Once again, DND is the exception. Of the major crown agencies, Atomic Energy of Canada's R&D outlays dipped slightly to $397 million while the Canadian Space Agency increased 13.1% to $345 million.

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