StatsCan reinstates faculty survey, adds colleges and part-timers on pilot basis

Evidence-based decision making

Universities will once again have access to accurate information about faculty members and researchers with the reinstatement of a key indicator after a four-year absence. The government is reviving Statistics Canada's University and College Academic Staff System (UCASS) survey which was conducted between 1937 and 2012 before being axed by the former Conservative government.

The Department of Science, Innovation and Economic Development (ISED) announced the survey's reinstatement September 15, citing the need for "up-to-date and accurate information … to drive future policy directions concerning university researchers and faculty".

The survey has also been re-designed to include colleges and part-time staff on a pilot basis. Previously it captured only full-time university academic staff.

"For universities and colleges, there's a long timeline to develop people for the academic ranks. As the (Science) minister (Kirsty Duncan) mentioned, we will be able to better examine diversity and to help with long-term staffing and planning," says Michael Martin, chief of Statistics Canada's Education Finance and Indicators Section. "We'll examine salary profiles and break out research to take a closer look ... This is a good news story. Faculty data are an underdeveloped area of education statistics."

The two-year pilot will also assess survey variables to determine whether further changes are necessary.

The survey will cost $475,000 a year and while Martin says StatsCan has received no new money to reinstate it, no other surveys within his section will be affected.

"There's no change in the overall budget so we're moving things around internally to make the money available," he says. "For ongoing funding (beyond the two-year pilot period), we may look to ISED longterm in relation to their other priorities."

Invaluable resource

The UCASS survey provided governments, researchers, post-secondary institutions and policy makers with detailed socio-economic data.

The survey's demise in 2012 is viewed as yet another indication of low priority afforded publically funded data by the Harper government, exemplified by the tactically disastrous cancellation of the long-form census. Reinstatement of the census survey was the Liberal government's first official act when it was elected last fall. The Liberal Party campaigned hard in support of evidence-based decision making and has reversed a series of Conservative measures under that umbrella.

"UCASS was part of budget action in 2012 that took a bunch of money out of the system," says Martin. "There were program cutbacks and staff losses with a lot of noise related to that ... This survey was in high demand and after its cancellation, people still asked for it and continued to use the older data."

The Liberal government has positioned the survey's re-instatement as a key support mechanism for greater diversity and inclusion in the post-secondary sector. Universities have long been cited for their lack of gender and ethnic diversity, and while progress has been made, faculty and research staff contain far more males than the general population.

"The survey's reinstatement is a crucial step toward understanding Canada's community of university researchers and faculty," stated Duncan. "Once we understand the face and composition of Canada's research community, then our government can begin the real work of collaborating with universities to help them recruit faculty that reflect Canada's diversity."

The decision to include colleges, polytechnics and part-time staff in the survey poses a challenge that Martin says his division will work hard to overcome as "college staffing models are quite different".

StatsCan officials will also work with institutions to try and recover data that was left uncollected during the UCASS survey's four-year absence.

Western Univ maintained Ontario data collection

Martin says Western Univ kept the Ontario researcher component of the survey alive through its own data collection initiative, by surveying provincial institutions and beyond.

"The Ontario data collection continued as well from universities in other provinces. They killed the gap for 60% of universities," he says. "We'll recover those data and work with Western and also work with other universities on the re-submission of older data."

StatsCan is now pulling together lists of institutions and developing contact lists and requests for data are set to begin. The agency plans to release findings via a series of interim reports beginning next April. A full survey report will be released later in the year.

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