Canadian research funding imbalance a myth

By Dr Eliot Phillipson

A frequent comment in the media and elsewhere following the release of Budget 2009 by the Government of Canada is that of an "imbalance" in the funding of Canada's research enterprise. This comment relates to the fact that the Budget allocated $750 million in new funding for the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), but provided no increases in funding for the tri-council research funding agencies (NSERC, SSHRC, and CIHR), and no funding for Genome Canada.

The assumption is then made that the Budget will create or aggravate an "imbalance" in the funding of the direct costs of research, people, and infrastructure. More specifically, there is concern that the enhanced capacity for research in Canada's universities, colleges, and research hospitals, enabled by state-of-the-art infrastructure through the CFI during the past decade, is or will be underutilized. Thus, in referring to research facilities, the media speak of "white elephants," and "shiny but empty" new laboratories.

Yet by any objective standard, Canada's investments in research infrastructure, although substantial, are modest compared to its global competitors, with no evidence of any overall imbalance. During the past decade, the severe deficit in state-of-the-art infrastructure that existed in Canada's research institutions during the 1980s and 1990s has been substantially corrected through investments by the CFI and other institutional partners, including the provinces and the private sector. As a result, Canadian researchers now have access to equipment and facilities that are comparable to the best in the world.

The investments in infrastructure, complemented by support for people through the Canada Research Chairs program, and enhanced operating support as a result of a doubling or more of tri-council budgets. It has also greatly expanded the research capacity of Canadian institutions and given Canada a competitive advantage in recruiting and retaining highly qualified personnel, building technology clusters, and enhancing collaboration with the private sector. By any standard research metric – funding of higher education research, scientific publications, and scientific citations – Canada is performing extremely well, despite intense international competition.

What then is the evidence of an "imbalance" in the funding of the research enterprise? To be sure, at the level of individual researchers, there are occasional imperfect alignments in operating, salary and infrastructure support, but these are not new. In contrast, the claim of an "imbalance" in the research funding system implies that the optimal balance is known, yet few if any studies have addressed the issue.

The question can be considered from a global perspective by comparing the ratio of infrastructure funding to total research funding in Canada with that in other jurisdictions. For example, in the United Kingdom, of the total research budget for 2009-10 of the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills, 18% is designated for equipment and facilities. Comparable figures in the United States are not readily discernable, given the multiple government departments and agencies that support university research.

However, a 2003 report by the National Science Foundation (the major funder of basic research in the natural sciences and engineering at universities), entitled Science and Engineering Infrastructure for the 21st Century, indicated that historically, 22-27% of the NSF budget has been devoted to equipment and infrastructure. In Australia, 20% of the total federal expenditure on science and technology is earmarked for research infrastructure (other than new buildings) at publicly funded universities through the Research Infrastructure Block Grant Scheme for 2006-11. And in Taiwan, a recent report on 2008 Indicators of Science and Technology indicates that 15% of higher education research expenditures are for instruments and equipment (excluding buildings).

How does Canada compare? The $750 million designated for the CFI in Budget 2009 will be allocated to institutions over a minimum of two years, during which the total federal investment in university research will amount to at least $5.57 billion (using the current rate of funding of $2.787 billion per year). Thus, of the total federal investment, 13% will be allocated to infrastructure through the CFI, a figure that is modest in comparison with that of other countries, and remains so even if infrastructure investments by the tri-councils and other federal sources are included.

It might be argued that this figure underestimates the total investment in research infrastructure, given that the federal investment through the CFI represents only 40% of the total cost (based on CFI's 40:60 funding formula). By the same token, however, the federal investment in university research represents less than 50% of the total external support for the university research enterprise.

Finally, if there were truly an "imbalance" in the funding of infrastructure versus direct research costs, it would be expected that there would be underutilization of the equipment and facilities funded by the CFI. But again, there is little evidence of such underuse, apart from anecdotal reports in the media.

For example, the 2008 Report on Results published by the CFI indicates that of 2,571 active projects funded during the previous five years, the infrastructure was fully utilized in the case of 75% of projects, and over-subscribed in the case of 11%. For the 14% of projects in which the infrastructure was underutilized, lack of direct operating support was cited in only a minority of cases (other reasons being that the equipment had not yet been completely installed or was still in the phase of implementation and testing).

The Government of Canada's Science and Technology Strategy – Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada's Advantage – recognizes the critical importance of state-of-the-art infrastructure in attracting and retaining highly qualified personnel in Canadian institutions, and in ensuring that Canada's research enterprise functions at a world-class level. The investments in infrastructure provided in Budget 2009 represent a significant manifestation of that recognition. The only "imbalance" that will result from these investments is a tipping of the "balance" in Canada's favour in today's highly competitive global research environment, thereby maintaining Canada's status as a destination of choice for the pursuit of leading-edge research.

Dr Eliot Phillipson is president and CEO of the Canada Foundation for Innovation.