Proposed funding boost to CFI indicates continued support for research infrastructure

The federal Economic Update has committed $500 million to the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) to boost its capacity to help fund research infrastructure through to 2010. The announcement should allay immediate concerns in the university research community but the new money falls far short of bringing CFI up to international levels of research infrastructure support.

In most OECD nations, the ratio of research infrastructure support to the direct cost of research ranges from 20% to 27%. But according to CFI president and CEO, Dr Eliot Phillipson, at least $500 million more is required to get Canada to a 20% ratio for the next five years.

“This is only half the amount required to get to our target of 20% but the government should be applauded,” he says. “The entire Economic Update is a strong reaffirmation of its commitment to research and innovation.”

Before the Economic Update, the government had provided $750 million for the next five years, which increases to more than $800 million with interest. Even two years ago, warning bells were being sounded that CFI’s funding power was going to drop sharply in the latter part of its mandate unless new investments were made. Since its formation in 1997, the CFI infrastructure funding has averaged 25% of direct research costs on an annualized basis.

The update will boost the CFI’s funding capacity from 11% to 15-16% of direct research costs between 2006 and 2010, and further investments are contemplated in future years. The $500 million will be drawn from the FY05-06 budgetary surplus if the Liberals maintain power.

“The CFI and the institutions felt that 11% would be disadvantageous from the standpoint of our competitors,” says Phillipson. “We need to be state-of-the-art, internationally competitive and the 20-25% ratio is a useful guideline. We framed our discussions with government around this.”

In the last major competition under the Innovation Fund, the CFI was unable to fund one third of proposals considered outstanding by its review committees, in spite of asking institutions to scale back their proposals.

The CFI has launched two parallel competitions under the new Leading Edge Fund and New Initiatives Fund — the successors to the sunsetted Innovation Fund. Allocation of the $325 million up for grabs will depend on the quality of submissions received. The results will be announced in October, 2006.

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