Ron Freedman

A Bridge Too Far?

By Ron Freedman, Partner, The Impact Group

It's time we did something to bridge the widening gulf between two pillars of our national system of innovation; federal laboratories and universities. Federal labs played a dominant role in the research life of the country, beginning with the creation of the Geological Survey of Canada in 1842, the Department of Agriculture in 1868 and the National Research Council in 1916. This dominance began to dwindle in the 1960s, as the research capacity of universities grew rapidly. Over time, universities no longer saw themselves as junior partners to federal government labs, but an important force in their own right.

Starting with Glassco in 1963, a sequence of commissions, studies and reports have attempted to differentiate the appropriate role of federal labs and universities. Unfortunately, their impact was largely to retrench fixed attitudes. Following the 1995 Program Review exercise, federal labs were forced to cut back on their support to universities. Grants, contracts, contributions, fellowships and scholarships were reduced to help labs balance their budgets. This did little to further relations between the two sectors.

Beginning in 1997 Ottawa began to pour large sums into rebuilding the university research infrastructure and activity base. This investment was much needed, but an unintended consequence is that it created a go-it-alone attitude in the university community. Talk of working with federal labs was interpreted as a government grab for university funds and not - as it should have been - as an opportunity to join forces to achieve national ends. In any event, universities and labs were each preoccupied with own immediate issues and neither felt much desire for dialogue. Federal labs could only look with envy on the universities' improving situation and wonder if their day would come. (Thus far it has not.)

Yet, in spite of the difficulties, behind the scenes many government and university researchers were working together to address important national research issues in climate studies, agriculture, environment, space, and other fields. Collaboration on peer-reviewed publications was at an all-time peak in 1997. Unfortunately, the whole is still less than the sum of the parts. What's missing is an institutional framework to support individual efforts. What needs to be done now? Here are a few suggestions.

First, major organizations with a stake in improving working relations need to put the issue on their own agendas - AUCC, NSERC, CIHR, SSHRC, CFI, Committee of Senior Officials (COSO), CSTA, ACST, Industry Canada, Science ADMs, and individual Science-Based Departments and Agencies (SBDAs).

Secondly, SBDAs need to develop explicit university partnership strategies and plans, and back them with dedicated personnel and funding. Individual labs must also plan how they can take advantage of the growing strength of universities.

Thirdly, the three Granting Councils need to devote equal attention to federal-university linkages as they do to university-industry collaboration. As CIHR is proposing to do, they should appoint one or more senior staff to handle relations on an ongoing basis. Finally, CFI should clarify its funding policies with respect to joint university-federal lab projects. It's not too late to build bridges between federal labs and universities. Let's get started today.