CFI continuesto play central role on Canada's public research landscape

Phillipson steps down after six years

For his last media interview, Dr Eliot Phillipson was clearly anxious to discuss the recently concluded contribution agreement hammered out between the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and Industry Canada. The new agreement — required before CFI launched its next major competition with $600 million from Budget 2009 — reportedly contains a number of new elements designed to help Canada maintain and enhance its substantial research enterprise in a rapidly evolving global science and technology environment.

However, the ministerial signature — the final step before publicly announcing the agreement — could not be obtained in time. Phillipson, who after six years is stepping down as president and CEO of one of the most successful research funding agencies in Canadian history, was therefore compelled to confine his comments to the state of global innovation and the contributions CFI has made to keep Canada at the forefront of increasingly intense competition for the world's best minds.

"There are some interesting new features that I think will be important for the S&T community," says Phillipson, who completed his term June 30th to be replaced by Dr Gilles Patry (R$, April 23/10). "It's all but done. It just requires a signature. That's what's frustrating. (The delay) is not reflecting any difficulty . .. It's simply that the business of government just moves slowly."

global competition intensifying

The new features of the agreement with Industry Canada could have a material impact on how Canada fares in the global S&T arena. While advanced nations (Canada's long-standing S&T competitors) are ramping up spending, so too are emerging nations such as Brazil, China, India and South Korea. The result is an increasing emphasis on excellence and a willingness to pay top dollar for top talent.

"The place of science in society is now mainstream whereas at one time it was almost peripheral," says Phillipson. "Scientists will claim there's never enough money but in the past 10 years the investments in R&D and S&T more broadly have gone up. All countries have done that. One consequence of that is intense competition (and) as a result of that competition, excellence and focus have taken on new meaning."

The move of S&T into the mainstream has also meant an increasing emphasis on what Phillipson labels "contextual research". As S&T becomes more critical to a nation's future prosperity and well-being, governments are outlining priority areas where they want to see investments. That, in turn, generates the need for a multi-disciplinary approach to addressing challenges. For global issues such as climate change and demographic change, the task is too large for any one country, necessitating international collaboration.

"No one scientist, discipline or country is going to solve them individually. It usually requires international collaboration … So although there's intense competition, there's also more international collaboration which is a bit ironic," says Phillipson.

Greater financial commitments to S&T inevitably increase pressure for more accountability and Canada is no exception. Phillipson says scientists often misunderstand the call for greater accountability and view it as a questioning of the science itself and why it's being done. He says governments simply need to know what kinds of science are being conducted and how it fits into its priorities as well as an understanding of when success has been achieved.

a fixture on Canada's S&T landscape

Asked what he would list as the CFI's major achievements under his leadership, he says the fact that CFI is still around after 13 years and continues to secure major funding commitments is the most obvious.

"That's an important achievement and that included a change in government. CFI was a creature of the previous government," he says, adding that new administrations often change key instruments of government policy to distinguish themselves from their predecessors. "There was considerable uncertainty and anxiety that when the government changed, they could have changed the modus operandi. The fact is they did not and continue to fund generously. During the six years I've been here they've allocated $1.34 billion," says Phillipson. "When the CFI was created it was to have been a one-time-only, five-year, $800 phenomenon and that was it." The CFI has now received $5.2 billion since its inception.

Apart from the wisdom of establishing CFI as an arm's length organization, a key element of its enduring success has been the ability to adapt to an evolving environment and changing needs. Major programs have been altered to reflect the need to renew aging equipment, attract and retain personnel and address international collaboration. Canada's universities, research hospitals and other research institutions have been consulted regularly and their input has resulted in an organization that contributes to keeping their research infrastructure on the cutting edge.

cherry-picking talent

Combined with an array of research chairs programs, the financial muscle of the CFI has been extremely successful at attracting the kinds of research talent to nurture long-term competitive advantage.

"We saw that with the latest Canada Research Excellence Chairs competition," says Phillipson. "The UK's universities aren't going to take very kindly to Canadian universities cherry-picking their best scientists. The empire will strike back."

The CFI's track record and performance were recently given high marks by two KPMG audits and the report of an international review panel (R$, April 23/10).

"If I had written them myself I would have been embarrassed to use those adjectives," says Phillipson. "But two independent third parties say it's the best research funding organization on its kind in the world ... Everyone of them (international panel members) said ‘We wish we had something like this in our countries'".

Yet Phillipson cautions that the boom times Canadian S&T has experienced since the late 1990s are over and the research community must adjust their expectations accordingly, adding that governments must also be aware of the risks of cutting back.

"Governments understand that if funding doesn't maintain a reasonable level then all the gains from the past decade will begin to unravel," he says. "Part of it is psychological in the sense that the research community may get the sense that the party is over ... I don't think we're at that point yet with most scientists."

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