Government responds to standing committee report

There were few commitments in the federal government’s official response to the 10th report of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology. The report was issued last June and contained a series of recommendations on the allocation of research funds by the three granting agencies, the low success rates of small and regional universities and the need for a chief scientific advisor (R$, June 21/02). The official response sidestepped recommendations calling for an increased level of funding for social science and humanities research and an increase in the success rates and stipend levels for graduate scholarships and post-doctoral fellowships. And it had no response for the recommendation to establish a “more formalized mechanism” for setting or modifying S&T policy, other than to reiterate the existing S&T advisory structure. The text of the response can be found at www.ic.gc.ca (under What’s New – November 11/02)….