Maternal and child health beats out African research chairs for consideration at G8

Science Academies release statements

By Debbie Lawes

The Canadian government's reported $1-billion commitment to child and maternal health at this month's G8 summit appears to have sidelined a separate $500-million proposal to support 1,000 new academic research chairs for African universities, as well as a more modest $95-million plan for math institutes throughout the continent (R$, April 9/10). Both ideas are being spearheaded by two high-profile leaders from Canada's research community, including Dr David Strangway who says his group will now look at having France champion their proposal at next year's G8.

"We've been told (the Academic Chairs for Africa — ACF) will not be on the G8 agenda. There was a lot of support for this at very high levels in the Canadian government, but when it crossed the line into the political process it was focus, focus, focus on mother and child health... It was Canada that made the decision not to go with it and there were other (countries) who were ready to go if Canada had pushed it," says Strangway, past president of the Univ of British Columbia and past president/CEO of the Canada Foundation for Innovation.

The June 25-26 G8 meeting in Muskoka ON, had been considered one of the best opportunities yet for securing funding for the ACF, which has assembled an impressive list of supporters. The group's steering committee reads like a who's who of international education and development from developed and developing countries.

Strangway's new goal is to get on the agenda of the 2011 G8 meeting in France. Meetings are planned in Japan at the ministerial level on the issue later this month, and Strangway expects to be in France and Germany this summer to build further support.

"We have close ties at very high levels in France, Germany and Japan. Our goal is to have France, as the host country, champion this issue at next year's G8," he says.

Another Canadian-led proposal also failed to make the final cut for the G8 meeting. The Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics (PI) in Waterloo was seeking $95 million from G8 countries to establish 13 math institutes in Africa, as part of the Next Einstein Initiative (NEI). PI director Dr Neil Turok has asked for $25 million over five years in phase I funding from the Canadian government. He's now looking to other G8 countries to step up.

"The G8 as a whole will not be considering NEI for funding, but there remains the possibility that a subset of G8 countries will support it," Turok wrote in an email, adding he is currently not at liberty to discuss details.

The NEI proposal calls for the establishment of 15 institutes for mathematical sciences across Africa over the next decade, graduating a total of 750 post-graduate students annually.

Strangway found some support for his campaign with the release of recommendations by the G8 national science academies for the upcoming G8 summit. The statements suggest, in broad terms, how to achieve the two priorities identified by the host country (Canada). One of those issues, improving child and maternal health, has received considerable media attention; less so for the second priority, mobilizing innovation for development.

It's the latter statement that Strangway plans to use as "ammunition" to garner more support for the ACF. For example, the innovation statement recommends new strategies to minimize the negative impacts of brain drain in African nations and build local capacity — results that can be achieved partly through the ACF, says Strangway. He notes that the Canada Research Chairs program, on which the ACF is modeled, has helped this country retain and repatriate 2000 researchers over the past decade.

Strangway also credits Canada's approach to innovation of empowering institutions, building nodes of excellence outside of government, and promoting competition through peer review. "The proposal for chairs for Africa was built on the same principles. Empower the African countries to develop their STI capacity," he says

Released May 26. the statements followed meetings in April in Ottawa of the G8 academies, with input from counterparts in Brazil, China, India, Mexico, South Africa and Chile, as well as the African Academy of Science. In the child and maternal health statement, the academies recommend strengthening research in this area, especially in knowledge translation.

In the statement on innovation for development, the academies urge greater support among G8 nations in three priority areas: human resource development (e.g. regional networks of research and training institutions and greater use of peer review); national development and innovation strategies (e.g. establishing centres of excellence in science and engineering and improving access to ICT); and, commercialization (e.g. locally relevant intellectual property protection, regulatory/incentive systems and collaborative research).

Dr Howard Alper, who chaired the academies meeting in Ottawa, said Canada is well positioned to help Africa and other developing regions move forward on these recommendations, particularly in the area of innovation policy. "Canada's S&T strategy has been exceptionally well regarded internationally as an excellent framework, especially with respect to the concept of the three pillars or advantages — knowledge, people and entrepreneurship," says Alper, who chairs the federal government's Science, Technology and Innovation Council. "I've been to Argentina, Mozambique, Korea, Italy, Chile and Brazil to speak about the strategy and the State of the Nation report, at the invitation of high level people in these countries, so I think Canada can take a leadership role in terms of STI strategies."

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