Urgent need for increased basic research funding, flexibility in partnership programs

There is an urgent need for the government to address the erosion of support for basic research with a 2% increase in investments over three years, states a pre-Budget submission from the Partnership Group for Science and Engineering (PAGSE). The group representing 24 professional and scientific organization says the government's emphasis on partnerships is welcome and should be encouraged. But the decline in support at the basic research end of the innovation spectrum has "led to a stifling of research activity at stages well before commercial interests" as well as concentrating basic research in fewer (mostly larger) institutions.

"The landscape of excellence that has been fostered through the celebration of the outstanding individuals, risks becoming a monotonous plain, with concentrations of achievement and relatively little between them," states the brief. "Small, regional universities are losing their capacity for basic research, while fluctuations in researcher support at the larger institutions compromise the ability to offer long-term programs and the ability of these researchers to involve graduate students in their research."

The submission expresses concern over trends occurring in the Discovery Grants Program (GDP) of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (DGP). Inflation and the entry of young professors into the system have lowered the grant allocation rate and the ability of professors to provide student guidance. An increase in DGP funding would "create the most focussed benefits for idea generation and would reverse the erosion of investment that imperils our research leadership in the G20".

The PAGSE submission also recommends introducing flexibility into programs that support partnerships. It argues that NSERC's Engage program, which offers $25,000 for short periods, should also provide longer-term support as partnerships between companies and institutions take time to bear fruit.

For Mitacs, PAGSE notes that its requirement of private sector support is not appropriate for areas like the North, where the bulk of engineering, transportation infrastructure is almost exclusively public ly funded.

"PAGSE urges the government to make programs such as Mitacs sufficiently flexible for its deployment on a range of northern projects, thereby releasing the power of innovation into northern development," states the brief, adding that Mitacs should also be revamped to allow the interchange of "faculty-level, public sector employees as well as students".

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