NSERC strategic plan foresees doubling of budget to $1.3 billion within 10 years

Governing council approval pending

Science and Engineering Research Canada (NSERC) is finalizing a 10-year strategic plan that — if approved, funded and fully implemented — would see the granting agency’s budget double to $1.3 billion by FY2014-15. The draft plan currently being examined by the NSERC governing council foresees an organization with a stronger role in industry-university collaboration, a simplification of programs and a greater number of researchers supported through its key Discovery Grants (DG) program.

The plan combines an interpolation of current spending patterns with an estimated costing for areas that the agency contends must be strengthened. It also addresses external pressures on the NSERC budget over which it has little control, such as escalating funding obligations created by awards made under the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).

Circulation of the strategic plan through the university research community has been delayed by several factors. NSERC’s governing council was scheduled to debate the plan last October but was diverted by the prospect of a 5% cut to the agency’s budget (R$, November 9/04). More recently, lack of consensus by the governing council — in part over the balance between basic research (discovery) and applied science (innovation) — has pushed back its circulation to summer at the earliest. In an interview with RE$EARCH MONEY, NSERC president Dr Tom Brzustowski presented his personal views on the plan and the rationale for doubling the agency’s budget.

“I see a coalescing of programs that are closer together to simplify things. I see building that base of the Discovery Grant program. I see the connections, the linkages of researchers with industry,” says Brzustowski. “By fiscal year 2014-15 I think it’s not unreasonable to assume that between 12,000 and 13,000 PIs (principal investigators) will have Discovery Grants … We’re talking a Discovery Grants budget alone in the range of $700-800 million, which is the size of our total budget now.”

NSERC’s budget for FY04-05 is $810 million — a base of $653 million, plus $157 million that flows through the agency to the Networks of Centres of Excellence program, the Canada Research Chairs program and the Canada Graduate Scholarships. The agency currently spends nearly $300 million to support approximately 9,000 PIs who receive about $33,000 per annum. Brzustowski says that by FY14-15, those PIs should grow by nearly 50% and each should be receiving between $50,000 and $60,000.

Other programs are slated to be increased substantially, including those supporting students at the undergraduate, master, doctoral and post-doctoral levels. Brzustowski says those programs now support 20,400 students and carry a collective price tag of $280 million. The next 10 years will see massive pressure on these programs, pushing the cost up substantially. The post-doctoral program, for example, currently has a success rate of less than 25% — a rate Brzustowski says is far too low.

On the innovation side, NSERC hopes to build on a series of pilot programs launched in 2003, including one geared towards community colleges (R$, October 3/03). The success of those pilots will be assessed in the coming months, but until their fate is determined it’s uncertain how much they will cost in the future.

BOOST INDUSTRY-FOCUSED PROGRAMS

Programs with a direct connection to industry are also slated to be strengthened. Brzustowski says they are extremely popular and should be expanded (see chart).

“We have to keep connecting people … which probably means increasing all the programs that start with an ‘I’,” he says. “We need to market those programs better and bring them to the attention of business and then put more money into them in addition to all the other supports.”

Another major question mark is the fate of the CFI. In addition to the pressures created by new infrastructure, NSERC may also have to deal with increased operating costs if the government does not extend the three-year period that CFI covers for the majority of projects that it has funded. Currently CFI covers a portion of operating costs for projects funded under its second and third major competitions, but not the first.

“If CFI picks up the operating costs, that means the pressure on the MFA (major facilities access program) and NSERC will stay with the group of activities that haven't been funded through CFI and the ones funded in the first competition,” says Brzustowski. “If CFI gets no funding for some reason, then we’ve got a major problem on our hands. Categories two and three of major equipment will have to be brought back to NSERC and we’ll have to have the budget for that ... You can see the various scenarios that will enter into our strategic plan. It’s something over which we have no control but we can’t see yawning gaps in research funding opening up in the country.”

BRZUSTOWSKI’S TERM NEARLY COMPLETE

NSERC’s governing council has yet to sign off on the document, leaving the possibility it may not be adopted before Brzustowski’s planned departure sometime over the summer. But even that isn’t certain, as Industry Canada has yet to initiate a selection process to choose his successor. Brzustowski says he may be willing to delay his departure if requested, although he is currently leaning towards leaving in July.

“There is a possibility of a gap opening up … These things take a long time and I want the government to be aware of it,” he says. “This is a community that gets spooked easily … They (researchers) should feel they are in a stable environment where most of the innovation is in fact under their own control in their own research – that the conditions under which they work won’t change. If the person who comes into succeed me understands university research, they will feel more at peace than if it’s somebody that comes out of nowhere.”

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