A new approach to S&T policy

By Adam Holbrook

At the end of October, a very unusual but important event occurred in Toronto. Young scientists and engineers from Canada got together and held their own S&T Policy conference because they perceived a lack of guidance from the usual sources of S&T policy. To their credit they put together the first Canadian Science Policy Conference (CSPC) in a very short period of time, raised substantial sums of money to host it, and persuaded invited a virtual "who's who" of high-profile policy makers to come and speak.

By way of full disclosure, I was honoured to be asked by the group, headed by Dr. Mehrdad Harari from the University of Toronto, to be part of their advisory committee. At my first meeting with them, I was not very encouraged. Science policy is generally not on the agenda for most policy makers and politicians, and I told them they might not get the attention the organizing committee wished, and deserved. Secondly, the conference would cost a lot of money. And finally, it might not be well-attended by the key people they wished to reach — scientists and engineers starting out in their careers.

In general, I, like most people, do not like admitting when I am wrong, but I am happy to say I was gloriously wrong. Many people from the Canadian science policy world did appear. There were some predictable, anodyne presentations, but these speakers were shown up by others, such as Preston Manning, who gave the best lecture I have ever heard explaining how Canadians, individually and collectively, should approach the federal government to influence S&T policy. In another presentation, Dr Peter Singer, director of the McLaughlan-Rotman Centre for Global Health called for an enlightened Canadian science initiative similar in impact to Lester Pearson's concept of a United Nations peacekeeping force in the 1950s — a force of "white coats, instead of blue helmets". In yet another panel, Mark Lievonen, president of Sanofi Pasteur Ltd, described how Connaught Labs rose from a bench in a small house to a multinational in just under a century.

I was also wrong about funding and attendance. Granting agencies at both the federal and provincial levels generously supported the conference. The conference was overwhelmed with attendees, most of whom were certainly in the first part of their careers, so much so there was standing room only for the plenary sessions.

But the greatest impact must surely have come from the presentations made by the graduate students and post-doctoral fellows who lined up to demand action on Canadian science policy. They pointed out we have no major technology-based project in the pipeline right now. For example, with the cancellation of space shuttle flights, Canada will have several space programs with no means of fulfilling them. Canada has always succeeded when challenged by technology, whether it is the development of winter wheat or the Canadarm. Yet we turned off our participation in the International Genome Project. We do not, as yet, have a collective vision of how to proceed.

The world has changed. For example, non-profit institutions, principally medical charities, now play a major role in raising funds and determining research priorities in their particular field of interest. They are reaching out directly to the individual citizen and asking them to choose their research priorities by making contributions to specific research initiatives. The newly emerging economic giants — Brazil, India and China — all have major research programs that do not necessarily follow the lead of the OECD nations or the former communist bloc.

The participants left the conference with an appetite for additional discussion and development of Canadian S&T policy. Sadly what was not set in place was a process by which this might occur. It is to be hoped there will be a second CSPC, but it is too much to ask the volunteers who set up the first conference to give yet more of their time. This is the point where existing S&T policy organizations should step in and carry forward the discussions started at the conference. We need leadership from the centre, and we need it now.

As the current generation of science policy analysts and managers fades from the scene — remember we were the ones who thought Canada had a role in space, and a role in nuclear physics — we need a new wave of thinkers and doers in our governmental institutions. This conference pointed to the need for Canada to regenerate its science policy vision, and to develop a vision that looks out to at least the middle of this century. The solution must not be "more of the same". We need to experiment with new forms of policy development organizations and new forms of S&T program delivery channels.

As a postscript, I note that the Partnership Group for Science and Engineering (PAGSE), a cooperative association representing 25 national organizations in science and engineering, representing over 50,000 individual scientists and engineers, is in preliminary discussions with conference organizers to continue their program of outreach and communication of S&T policy issues. The conference is already beginning to show results.

Adam Holbrook is associate director and adjunct professor at the Centre for Policy Research on Science and Technology, Simon Fraser University.