Dr Rémi Quirion to take the helm as Quebec's inaugural chief scientist

Quebec appointed its first chief scientist after months of delay but has scrapped its original plan to fully integrate the three provincial granting councils after concerns were raised by the scientific community. Dr Rémi Quirion has been named the inaugural Quebec chief scientist and chair of the boards of directors for the Fonds de recherche du Québec (FRQ), which sits atop the granting councils for health, science and engineering and social sciences and humanities.

The five-year position, effective September 1st, will focus on ways to maximize the social and economic impact of the province's considerable research investments by integrating efforts across the range of disciplines. The chief scientist — the first such provincial position in Canada — was included in the 2010 update to the 2007 Quebec Research and Innovation Strategy (QRIS2) to address the province's lagging productivity, weak commercialization and low levels of entrepreneurship among small- and medium-sized enterprises (R$, July 19.10).

Quirion will report to the minister of Economic Development, Innovation and Export Trade (MEDIE) and advise the government as a whole on projects aimed at raising the level of excellence and impact of provincially funded research. Unlike the original plan, however, the FRQ will not replace the existing granting councils, although any new major projects will involve all three.

"The decision was made not to merge the Fonds and keep the existing structures. Each will focus on its particular area of science ... Each field has a different way of working and represents different cultures and societies," says Quirion. "Each will develop a strategic plan and together we will come up with large projects and seek additional support from government."

While the original Fonds will continue to have their own scientific directors, the FRQ will work to integrate administrative functions such as human resources, information technology and communications.

Quirion says the objective spelled out in QRIS2 are not short-term measures, particularly the need to change existing cultures that hamper multidisciplinary collaboration.

"It will take some time. Five years is very short although we may be able to launch a few large projects in that period. Ten years is more reasonable (for completing the overhaul of the province's research and innovation system)," he says. "The strategy is trying to bring experts from the different parts of the research continuum together. I may also work on developing a third strategy (QRIS3) and integrate things even more."

Personalized medicine, personalized graduate studies, an electronic health accord and bioformatics are just a few potential projects in the area of health.

Quirion says his staff will be small with costs covered by funds from the existing granting councils, which cannot spend more than 6% of their public funding on administration. He acknowledges that finding new money to launch projects could be challenging in the near term as the government seeks to balance its budget by 2014.

Quirion's appointment was expected earlier this year but was pushed back to deal with the concerns of the scientific community and the complexity of altering legislation (Bill 130) to rescind or alter the mandates of existing organizations and create the FRQ.

MEDIE DM Christyne Tremblay will serve as acting chief scientist until September 1 and three interim scientific directors have been appointed: Dr Howard Bergman (health sector), Claude Pinel (natural science and engineering sector) and and Benoît Sévigny (society and culture sector).

In the meantime, Quirion is stepping down from the many organizations with which he is associated. He will also close his laboratory at McGill over the next year or so.

"That's probably the most difficult part of the new position but I've done my share," he says. "I've been lucky to work with very good people at all levels." (See ‘People' on page 6)

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