Canada Research Chairs: More money and no less independence for universities

By Dr René Durocher

I would like to take this opportunity to make some important corrections to an article Yves Gingras wrote about the Canada Research Chairs program published in RE$EARCH MONEY on November 4, 2002. This Chairs program is one of the most outstanding programs ever developed by the Government of Canada – it enables our universities to aggressively compete to recruit and retain the best researchers in the world. The Canadian government is investing $900 million to support the establishment of 2,000 Canada Research Chairs in universities across Canada over five years. In addition, the Canada Foundation for Innovation will provide $250 million in infrastructure support to the chairholders.

The first chairholders started work in January 2001. To date, 746 Chairs have been awarded, not too bad in less than two years. The success rate of the nominees is 90%, which is very good because it means that universities nominate high-level candidates who meet the criteria for the program.

In his article, Mr Gingras says he does not believe in Canada’s capacity to compete with the US. However, the Chairs program has already made great inroads on that front with 128 of its 746 Chairholders coming from outside Canada, 64 of whom were recruited from the US. It would have taken many Team Canada missions to recruit this number of high-calibre researchers.

I must also disagree with Mr Gingras’ claim that the federal government is trying to increase its control over universities by asking them to prepare a strategic research plan. The reality is that the universities define their own research priorities and are free to modify them at all times without external interference.

Gingras also claims that the federal government promotes this bias in favour of the “knowledge economy” by creating 45% of the chairs in natural sciences and engineering, 35% in health sciences and 20% in social sciences and humanities. He argues that the distribution of chairs should have been different since more than 50% of faculty members teach social sciences and humanities and, furthermore, that most of our problems are in fact socio-cultural ones.

Without delving too deeply into the relative importance of science and engineering, or the health sciences in relation to social sciences and humanities, let me simply say that there is no conspiracy against the latter. In fact, during a Chairs workshop held in Toronto last June, it was proposed to add 400 more chairs in the social sciences and humanities field, without taking anything away from the other two sectors. This proposal is currently being studied.

Finally, Mr Gingras notes that only 15% of the Chairs had been awarded to women. This is indeed low considering the fact that women represent approximately 26% of faculty members. However, the Canada Research Chairs secretariat has put considerable effort into making sure that nothing in the program penalizes women. In fact, the rate of success of women is the same as that of men. Our efforts to raise awareness in universities are bearing fruit since during the last nomination campaign 18% of the chairholders were women, the average rate now being 16%. A quick review of the latest nomination round reveals that 22% of the candidates were women. The trend is changing and it is not too late to fix the problem so that women get their proportional share.

One thing is certain — the 61 participating universities are benefiting from the resources put at their disposal by this highly strategic program. The program is the envy of other countries and is already being imitated. The UK has a program whose goal is to establish 50 research chairs, and Australia has a similar program aimed at establishing 40. But Canada went for 2,000 Chairs. It’s so bold that it’s almost un-Canadian.

As Jeffrey Simpson wrote in The Globe & Mail on November 9, 2002, “There is incessant grumbling throughout the university world about these new federal programs, to which we might reply: would your institutions be better off without them?”

Dr René Durocher is executive director of the Canada Research Chairs Program