Higher education R&D declines as majority of funding sources reduce support: StatsCan

The halcyon days of annual increases in federal support for R&D in the higher education sector have come to a halt. After a healthy jump in FY12-13, federal support declined 2.1% in FY13-14 to $3.1 billion. In constant 2007 dollars, federal spending is virtually unchanged from the 2007 base year (see chart), according to the latest data from Statistics Canada.

Federal support is among the four funding sources of higher education R&D that declined in FY13-14 — the others are business, provincial governments, and private non-profits. A small gain of 1.5% was realized by the higher education itself (which includes substantial federal funding) while foreign sources — the smallest funding source of the group — increased 16% to $149.7 million.

From a regional perspective, Manitoba was the only province that didn't experience a decline from any of the six funding sources. In contrast, British Columbia suffered decreases from all sources.

Hardest hit is the natural sciences and engineering (NSE) sector, which saw its funding decline 2.8% to $9.7 billion or 76.6% of the total. Social sciences and humanities (SSH) experienced a projected 1.5% uptick to $3 billion.

NSE disciplines derive 43.9% of its overall funding from the higher education sources, while SSH disciplines are substantially higher at 65.9%.

Provincial funding hit hard

Provincial governments delivered the largest decline of any funding sector with a collective drop of 13.4% Hardest hit was Newfoundland, declining a staggering 78.1% from $38.4 million in FY12-13 to $8.4 million FY13-14.

British Columbia suffered a 33.2% drop from $126.2 million to $84.3 million.

The debt-plagued Ontario government also significantly reduced its support of higher education, dropping 32.8% from $529.7 million to $355.9 million. When all funding sources are factored in, Ontario experienced a modest year-over-year decline of $1.2% to $5,264.5 billion.

That contrasts with Quebec with received an increase in funding from its government, up 5.9% from $385 million to $407.7 million. Overall, Quebec's higher education research funding inched up 2.6% from $3.23 billion to $3.31 billion.

Other provinces that maintained or increased funding from their respective governments are Manitoba, Alberta and Saskatchewan.

For the first time, StatsCan commissioned a faculty time use survey to determine how much time faculty spend on sponsored and non-sponsored research. It developed coefficients for six fields of S&T, ranging from 0.45 for NSE and engineering and technology to 0.39 and 0.38 respectively for the social sciences and the humanities.

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