Years of substantial increases to the R&D budgets of the higher education sector have ground to a halt with little prospect that the glory days of the late 1990s and early 2000s will return anytime soon. The latest firm data from Statistics Canada (FY09-10) show that federal support for higher education has stagnated and projected to remain relatively flat in FY10-11 and FY11-12.

In FY09-10, higher education received $11 billion from all sources, including $2.9 billion from the federal government, an increase of 0.8% over the previous year. That compares to an 11.2% jump enjoyed between FY03-04 and FY04-05.

Funding increases have eased from business ($4.1%) and foreign sources ($5.5%) while support has decreased from provincial (-5.8%) and private non-profit sources (-3.9%). Higher education self-funding has also slowed dramatically, totalling $5.1 billion in FY09-10, up just 1.3% from the previous year.

Overall, funding for natural sciences and engineering research increased 0.6% to $8.8 billion or 79.7% of the total. Social sciences and humanities support inched up 0.8% to $2.2 billion. As in past years, the majority of funding was directed to institutions in Ontario and Quebec (67%). The governments of Ontario, Quebec and Alberta are the biggest funders of higher ed R&D.

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