INST Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON INDUSTRY, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE L'INDUSTRIE, DES SCIENCES ET DE LA TECHNOLOGIE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, October 25, 2001

• 0904

[English]

The Chair (Ms. Susan Whelan (Essex, Lib.)): I'll call the meeting to order.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), this is consideration of the peer review process.

We are very pleased to welcome three different witnesses here this morning. With us this morning is Professor Michael Piva, a member of the executive committee of the Canadian Association of University Teachers.

It looks as if you're alone now, Professor. Is that the case?

Professor Michael Piva (Member, Executive Committee, Canadian Association of University Teachers): That is the case.

The Chair: Okay.

Also here are Dr. Wayne Marsh, president of the Canadian Association of University Research Administrators; and Gerald Brown, president and chief executive officer of the Association of Canadian Community Colleges.

What I would propose is that we begin with opening statements from each of the witnesses, and then we'll move to questions together. If the question is not directed to you but you have a comment that you'd like to add, just try to signal to the chair and I'll acknowledge you, because we like to have an interesting discussion.

• 0905

I'll begin with you, Professor Piva.

Prof. Michael Piva: First of all, I'd like to thank you for having us here today. Tom Booth, the president of CAUT, was unable to come today, so he asked me to be here to represent the executive committee of the Canadian Association of University Teachers.

My understanding is that the topic here is the peer review process in the research granting process. The CAUT views this process from two basic perspectives. We believe two basic objectives have to be addressed. Firstly, the research granting process must be fair and equitable; and secondly, academic or scholarly criteria must remain primary in that decision-making process.

We, of course, are committed to academic freedom, which we understand to be the free pursuit of knowledge and the dissemination of that knowledge. We believe academic freedom requires that each of us within the university community, within the research community, take that responsibility seriously, and that we act and exercise academic freedom responsibly. We believe an essential part of that process is the evaluation and assessment of research. We rely and have always relied on peer review at every stage of the process, to ensure that academic freedom is in fact pursued responsibly.

We rely on peer review at every stage. We rely on peer review both at the beginning of the process in the grant application system, and we also insist on peer review at the end of the process, when research results are in fact being assessed and evaluated for publication dissemination.

We are convinced that peer review has shown its value over the long term. We continue to believe peer review is essential to the process. In fact, we have not seen an alternative that we believe would work better.

The other objective is, of course, fairness and equity. On the issue of fairness and equity, I think the first issue needing to be addressed is the fact that open debate is essential to the research process, to the exercise of academic freedom, to the pursuit of knowledge. Active engagement in that process is essential if progress is to be made.

Active engagement means that people do disagree, so the peer review process has to be multi-layered, if you will. We don't rely upon a single peer's assessment. I think the important variable here is that the procedures put in place provide a variety of assessments so that, in the case of research grant applications, they be sent out to more than one reviewer. In turn, those assessments are reviewed by disciplinary committees to ensure that bias does not enter into play, that the exchange of debate does not become unfair, if you will, to the grant applicant. We believe mechanisms are in place to ensure that happens, and we would be more than willing to discuss methods to improve them.

On the issue of equity, we believe there are areas in which there can be targeted funding. We believe there are legitimate concerns that need to be addressed. When we say academic or scholarly criteria must be primary, we don't mean they should be exclusive. We believe there are regional distribution problems that can and may arise, and they need to be corrected. We believe there may be gender distribution problems that may arise and that need to be corrected. Within that context, it is perfectly reasonable to achieve specific goals through targeted funding. What we would say is that if funding is targeted to address a regional distribution problem, then within that pool of money, peer review again becomes essential to the assessment process, and that within those targeted funds, the academic criteria must again be applied.

So we believe the peer review system has served us well, both at the level of granting or assessing research grants, and at the level of dissemination of research results. We do in fact support the system. We would look for ways to improve it, but we believe the system has served us well in the past.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Professor Piva.

We're now going to turn to Wayne Marsh, the president of the Canadian Association of University Research Administrators.

Dr. Wayne Marsh (President, Canadian Association of University Research Administrators): Thank you, and good morning.

• 0910

I'm here today representing the Canadian Association of University Research Administrators, or CAURA, an organization of nearly 400 research administrators who are involved on a day-to-day basis in all aspects of research administration in some 115 universities, affiliated hospitals, and colleges, as well as several major funding organizations and federal and provincial government departments. As president of CAURA, I welcome the opportunity to appear before the committee, and I'd like to make just a few brief comments.

The members of CAURA have a critical interest in ensuring the health of the research enterprise at Canadian universities and colleges. We are therefore very supportive of the role your committee is playing in helping Canada to meet this objective.

I'd like to start today by reinforcing the main message that has been conveyed by my organization to this committee in previous submissions, and that's the importance of addressing the critical need for institutional indirect costs. I think this issue does bear on the peer review question.

As someone from a medium-sized university with a very active research environment, I experience first-hand the dilemma that universities face in trying to deal with increased enrolment on the one hand, and the increasing complexity of research support programs, accountability, or regulatory requirements for research with human subjects, animals, and biohazards on the other. A major step forward would be for the federal government to reimburse universities for the indirect costs they incur in conducting research funded by the granting agencies.

I noted that in the June report, the committee members expressed concern over the disproportionate regional distribution of awards from some federal research support programs. I do not believe the solution is to mandate some type of regional distribution of awards. Peer review of research proposals by experts in the relevant research area remains the most appropriate means of evaluating the merits of the proposed work. Again, I would echo the comments Professor Piva made a few minutes ago.

Recognizing this, however, we believe steps should be taken to build research capacity at smaller institutions in order to ensure that they can become active participants in our system of research and innovation and can bring benefits to their communities and their regions.

Firstly, measures should be taken to address the indirect cost issue, and to do so in a manner that recognizes both the higher baseline costs at smaller institutions and their reduced budget flexibility.

Secondly, a program of special block grants would also be very helpful in order to help to build research capacity by providing seed funding for new research initiatives and to foster collaborations with other regional partners. Through AUCC, universities have put such a proposal before this committee, and CAURA supports this approach. And I would again echo the comments Professor Piva made about the need to ensure that peer review plays a role in the distribution of any such funding.

Finally, federal programs could be more sensitive to research-capacity-building needs. The waiver by CFI, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, of the 60% matching requirement for the infrastructure component in Canada Research Chairs Program awards to smaller institutions is an example of how this can be achieved. Another program should seek similar opportunities.

Let me close with a brief comment about two additional pressures emerging with regard to university research funding. First, while CAURA recognizes the important contribution that the establishment of the Canada Foundation for Innovation has made in addressing critical research infrastructure needs at universities, colleges, and hospitals, we must recognize that there are increasingly severe pressures on the budgets of the federal granting councils to provide support to researchers in order to fund the costs of highly qualified personnel, as well as research operating costs. At the same time, we feel the time has come to address the historic underfunding of the SSHRC, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. Again, that council plays a particularly important role at many smaller institutions in the country, and the council and AUCC have described these problems in detail in their submissions.

Madam Chair, I appreciate the opportunity to make these comments, and I look forward to your questions.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

I'm now going to turn to Mr. Gerald Brown, from the Association of Canadian Community Colleges.

[Translation]

Mr. Gerald Brown (President and Chief Executive Officer, Association of Canadian Community Colleges): Thank you, Madam Chair, for inviting us to this consultation.

[English]

Thank you, Madam Chair, for inviting us to this round table on the peer review process held by the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology.

The 150 colleges, CEGEPs, and technical institutes represented by the Association of Canadian Community Colleges, or ACCC, welcome the opportunity to discuss with you and your committee, first, the crucial role colleges and institutes play in applied research, technology transfer, and product development; and, more importantly, the urgent need for a formal recognition by both the federal government and the granting councils, of the expanding roles of colleges and institutes in Canada's system of innovation. While this may surpass the focus of this morning's discussion to a certain extent, we welcome this opportunity to draw your attention to it and to our situation.

• 0915

Colleges and institutes in Canada are still significantly underestimated for their capacity to be a significant driver of innovation in the Canadian economy. As community-based institutions, colleges and institutes have developed expertise in the area of industrial support to small and medium-sized businesses at the technology transfer, product development, and commercialization levels.

A growing number of colleges and institutes across Canada have created specialized technology centres in response to a need of emerging enterprises within their local and regional communities. For example, in Quebec, the 23 technology transferrers are mandated to foster economic development through innovative research and the transfer of technology to local enterprises. The sectorial breadth of these centres ranges from composite material to aerospace to textile to environmental technologies. In Alberta, Olds College is currently operating 31 research projects on behalf of such companies as Imperial Oil, Parks Canada, and the City of Edmonton. In Ontario, Niagara College's Centre for Advanced Visualization is a leader in the evolution of virtual reality.

The inclusion of colleges in eligibility for the Canada Foundation for Innovation funds has been an excellent start in recognizing and increasing the research capacities of colleges. However, you will agree that the $15 million invested in colleges over the past two years is a very small percentage when you compare it to the millions available. Failure to include these colleges in the announcement of the Canada Research Chairs Program was a profound disappointment to our colleges, because in not being eligible to apply for this program, again, the $15 million invested in colleges and institutes pales next to the $900 million committed to the millennium chairs only.

Another area of significant concern is that colleges and institutes cannot apply for NSERC funding without partnering with a university. It was also with some apprehension that our colleges and institutes have now learned of the Canada Foundation for Innovation decision to eliminate the College Research Development Fund and roll all university, college, and not-for-profit competitions into an innovation fund. It is clear that none of the research agencies are dedicated solely to funding and coordinating college-level applied research.

Within the peer review process, the colleges and institutes are overshadowed by the university-focused process. This process is based solely on university criteria, so in our definition, it's certainly far from being a peer review. It's clearly a no-win situation for colleges and institutes.

The signal we have received from government in these decisions, whether intended or not, is that it continues to marginalize the important contribution of colleges to innovation, research, and the technology transfer needs of business, industry, and community organizations. As a result, colleges and institutes must therefore scramble to create the infrastructure and support mechanisms necessary to facilitate research. At the practical level, involving college faculty in applied research has been and continues to be a huge challenge, due to the large and high teaching loads of college and institute faculty.

We continue to wonder why the recognition and funding are disproportionate to the breadth, depth, and economic impact of the applied research emanating from the college system. College systems also wonder why there continues to be a lack of representation on federal government agencies and on the peer review selection committees of granting agencies such as NSERC and SSHRC.

To fully maximize the national innovation agenda, all contributors must be recognized. Canada's colleges and institutes must be included as an integral part of the post-secondary research community, and as a contributor to the prosperity and well-being of all Canadians. If Canada truly wishes to improve its innovation performance, it must open its doors more fully to research grant applications from community colleges and institutes.

In closing, we invite the committee to take note of our position paper on the need for a unique Canadian college innovation and technical assistance program. This proposed framework outlines the need for initiatives such as innovative chairs, business incubator funds, college-industry innovative networks of excellence, and fellowships and internships for our students.

We thank the committee for this opportunity to express our thoughts and concerns, and would be pleased to answer any of your questions.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Brown.

I'm now going to turn to Ms. Desjarlais. Do you have any questions?

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais (Churchill, NDP): I'm totally honoured in being first.

I do have a question, and I appreciate your comments.

Mr. Brown, in relation to the number of students, do you know what the comparison is between the number of students in colleges as compared to universities?

• 0920

Mr. Gerald Brown: The numbers are almost identical. We have 0.5 million full-time students and 1.5 million part-time students at 150 institutions in 900 communities.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Okay, and universities are pretty much the same.

Obviously, you're not happy with the way the granting process comes down. We have our notes that we get from research, and one of the questions is whether you're happy with peer review and different things, and it's pretty apparent you're not. I have to say that's rightfully so.

I'm quite astounded. I'm relatively new to the industry committee and to science, research, and technology. I was not fully aware that there was such a disparity between the two. Certainly, we'll have to do what we can to ensure that this disparity is addressed.

As far as the peer review process goes, are you comfortable with the peer review process, apart from community colleges not having as active a part in it as you feel they should have?

Mr. Gerald Brown: Yes—and I think it's important for us to also state that we're not here to whine about what the universities have. We think what they have is important. It's an important contribution to Canada's innovation agenda. We just think there's a huge, untapped resource here—called colleges and institutes—that can probably do a lot to complement what's happening. I suspect we're at the other end of that research spectrum, that being the pure as opposed to the applied.

As far as peer review is concerned, though, how do you compete when the criteria for all the selection processes are based along university models, are based along their criteria? Our faculty are busy teaching, so they're not publishing. Right away, they run into a problem there. They've been involved in research programs, but maybe not ones that compare to the criteria and quality that these university-focused peer review committees are looking for.

The other problem that we run into is an absence of our folks in the peer review process in terms of being part of that peer review process. We're somehow being evaluated by another sector of education that is passing judgment by using their criteria on our type of education.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: If you had specific requests to make in terms of where you would want to see changes, what would those requests be?

Mr. Gerald Brown: One of those things clearly is addressing the peer review process. We have to have our folks there. Our folks understand what our systems are all about, what our institutions are all about, and what they're trying to achieve. Those criteria should also reflect what we're doing in our institutions, and the types of work we're doing with small, medium-sized, and large-sized businesses. Those are the types of research people we need, and those are the types of criteria we need. And that's not to mention the fact that it would be nice to have a program for ourselves. If we had a program for ourselves, with a sufficient amount of funds in there, we would then be able to structure it with peer review and all the necessary mechanisms we would require.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Is it pretty much the same view from the other two gentlemen?

Dr. Wayne Marsh: I can't comment on the college situation, since I work at a university. I can't comment on how the committees are structured, because, again, those are done by the funding agencies themselves.

I certainly do recognize—and our organization does—the increasingly important role that colleges are playing in the research environment in the country. I think the facts that CFI extended eligibility to college researchers and that NSERC—which perhaps views the college people in a junior kind of way—at least has them partially eligible for council funding, are steps forward.

In fact, I just parenthetically note that at its last annual meeting, our own organization changed its bylaws to allow research administrators from colleges to be full members of CAURA, because we recognize that research is increasingly being done in colleges. They could join before, but only as associate members. Now they can join as full members.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Okay, thank you.

The Chair: Thank you, Mrs. Desjarlais.

Mr. Bagnell.

Mr. Larry Bagnell (Yukon, Lib.): Thank you.

My first question is for Gerald. I asked this when the research councils were here before, but I threw it in with a flurry of other questions. I didn't really get an answer, and I don't know if you might know.

Half of Canada's land mass is north of 60°. I know there are no universities there, but there are some colleges. Do you know how much of the research granting councils' funding goes to some of your members north of 60°?

Mr. Gerald Brown: Let me start off by saying you're absolutely right. We have a network of institutions north of the 60°, like Yukon College, Arctic College, Nunavut College, and the College of the North Atlantic. I don't know the exact figure, but I can pretty well guess that if we're getting $15 million out of almost $1 billion, we're not getting a lot north of 60°.

• 0925

Mr. Larry Bagnell: On the business incubator side, the federal government got burned at that years ago, and we got out of that kind of business. I'm not too prone toward that.

Related to the different systems, I take your point about how you should have people on the councils. That's good. But it's not research, research, research. If we're going to research a new heart valve or something, whether it comes from a community college or a university, would the group analysing it not just pick the best proposal, regardless of where it came from?

Mr. Gerald Brown: That points to the criteria the committee is looking at, and part of the criterion process does point to the type of faculty involved and the background of the faculty involved in it, as well as to the quality of the proposal. A lot of the research that we get involved in is research that we do very closely with industry. It's done at the application and commercialization end of it, but it seems a lot of the granting councils are focused more on the front end of it, on the pure stuff.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Bagnell.

Mr. Drouin.

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Drouin (Beauce, Lib.): Thank you, madam Chair, and thank you to our three witnesses for their testimony this morning.

Professor Piva, in your presentation, you mentioned academic criteria that were important for regional distribution. Did I understand right when you said that those are necessary or functional, as it is the case right now? Would it be necessary to have a more regional distribution? I would like to have a better idea.

[English]

Prof. Michael Piva: At the moment, I would argue that it's necessary. From time to time, problems can arrange it. The point I was trying to make is that over the course of time, one should monitor these grants and one should look for potential problems. If they arise, one should address them.

In terms of NSERC grants or in terms of SSHRC grants, I'm not in a position to argue that there is currently a regional distribution. The CAUT is more concerned about the regional distribution in the Canadian Research Chairs Program, for example. I didn't bring the exact numbers with me today, but if you look at the proportion of those chairs that went to the University of Toronto, versus the proportion of those chairs that went to the maritime provinces as a whole, we believe there is a regional problem there that probably needs to be addressed.

I would not argue that there currently is a significant problem. The issue is that it needs to be monitored. Issues like gender distribution need to be monitored, issues like regional distribution need to be monitored, and issues like disciplinary distributions need to be monitored, to make sure NSERC money doesn't all go to electrical engineers while nothing goes to civil engineers, for example. I think you need to monitor things, and if a problem arises, then there's a circumstance in which one should address that problem.

Could I go back to the former question about what percentage goes north of 60°? The numbers that I have from the website, in the case of NSERC, show that total grants are $494 million. The figures are listed by province, so I'm presuming “Other Canada” means the territories, and the total is $17 million. In the case of CIHR—

Mr. Larry Bagnell: Sorry, but was that $494 million for north of 60°?

Prof. Michael Piva: No, $494 million is the total that I got from the website, and “Other Canada” is listed as being $17 million of that.

In the case of CIHR, again the ten provinces are listed, and there are categories called “Others” and “Outside Canada”. I'm presuming “Others” means the territories, and the number that I have is 4.9%.

SSHRC didn't break it down that way, it broke it down by region, and what was on the website didn't have the north. It had Atlantic Canada, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies, and British Columbia, so I don't have those numbers for the north.

[Translation]

The Chair: Anything else?

Mr. Claude Drouin: Thank you, Madam Chair.

Dr. Marsh, you said that indirect costs are very high. I would like you to elaborate so that I can understand the dynamics, the problematic that leads to indirect costs if possible. Thank you.

• 0930

[English]

Dr. Wayne Marsh: I think the big problem is the lack of payment for them—and let me give you some examples.

Over the past few years, we have seen a greatly increasing complexity of research funding programs. Take the Canada Foundation for Innovation. Applications to that organization require a huge amount of effort, partnerships, and interdisciplinary approaches. Almost every university submitting significant applications to CFI has had to expand its staff in its research administration office in order to do so. Currently, the only way the cost of doing that can be covered is by taking money from somewhere else in the university budget.

There is an increasing regulatory requirement. For example, two or three years ago, the three granting councils brought out a common set of principles for research involving human subjects. No one would argue that this wasn't an appropriate thing to do, but it did require additional administrative costs at the university level. Again, universities found that they had to hire additional people for that. Again, there was no additional budget to do so, so payment for that had to come from elsewhere in the university budget.

Smaller universities find this to be more problematic, because if you hire one person, it costs the same amount whether you're at a small institution or a large institution. Clearly, the impact on the budget is more significant at the smaller institution.

There are costs involved in operating and maintaining increasingly complex equipment, and in renovating space to house new equipment. The staging physical plants at universities are another example. Financial accountability on awards is increasing. No one would argue that one shouldn't be accountable, but this often means putting additional financial staff in place. Again, without additional funding to cover those costs, it has to be found elsewhere in the institution.

Those are some of the kinds of things I was thinking about when I mentioned the impact that the lack of funding for indirect costs is having on the universities.

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Drouin: I can understand that it can be more problematic for smaller universities. You are talking a lot about drawbacks for the other universities but there must be a payoff in doing research. It is probably advantageous for those universities when they hire additional staff to do so. I do not understand why they would apply to do research if it was not advantageous.

[English]

Dr. Wayne Marsh: Yes, it's agreed that it's advantageous—and let me continue to pick on CFI.

Clearly, when the CFI program came out...and I'll be very explicit. Let me take my university, the University of Guelph, as an example. There was an opportunity for us to make some significant improvements in our research infrastructure. The equipment graph budgets at NSERC and MRC, now CIHR, were nowhere near to being adequate enough to allow university researchers to replace aging equipment and acquire new equipment.

Clearly, this new program that came out was a huge opportunity for us. That being said, it's still a competition. We still have to apply and succeed. If we're going to compete, we have to do our best to submit the best proposals. That means investing the kinds of resources I mentioned.

Yes, it's true. Universities do have a payoff. They're getting money for equipment and for upgrading research facilities, but at some point...and we've come very close to that. We've scraped funds together from all sorts of places in order to be able to cover the costs involved in putting together those applications. Quite frankly, we can't continue to do that. At some point, we'll reach the point at which there could be all the money in the world out there, but we're not necessarily going to be able to compete successfully for it because we're not going to be able to provide that support. If we do provide the support, it's going to mean class sizes are going to increase, tuition is going to have to increase, or whatever, because we don't have that many sources of funding.

• 0935

The Chair: Professor Piva would also like to reply.

Prof. Michael Piva: Yes, I'd like to add something else to the discussion on this issue, because I think the universities do benefit. They benefit in the form of additional income that can be generated through partnering agreements and those kinds of research.

But I think there's something more fundamental here, at least from the point of view of the professoriate and the academic staff, and that is our view of the nature of the institution and our view of the nature of our job. We understand our job to be post-secondary education. We believe that at the level of post-secondary education, the active engagement in the research exercise is essential to the quality of the teaching. You can't sustain quality teaching at that level without active engagement in research. The payoff comes not just in terms of revenues and not just in terms of the kinds of benefits that flow from the research directly. It's also important to recognize that additional benefits flow to the institution in terms of sustaining the quality of education.

When we talk about the shifting of the internal budget, we're talking about disrupting what is in fact a very delicate balance. We agree completely that this pursuit of research funding is putting enormous pressures on university budgets, because it is a source of increasing revenues in a period in which provincial grants have declined fairly substantially over the last seven or eight years. But we fear it's leading to a bifurcation of a profession in which some of us are finding it increasingly difficult, particularly at our smaller universities, to gain access to the research that's necessary to sustain the quality of the teaching in those small universities.

The price goes well beyond just the research. It goes to the essential nature of the institution. On that score, the Canadian Association of University Teachers does have the colleges amongst its membership, and we're well aware of the problems at the colleges. Our membership within the colleges—the membership in CAUT from the colleges is mainly from British Columbia—is working hard to make sure they do have access to adequate research and that they have the ability to pursue a career melding the research exercise with the teaching exercise. Again, that's because we believe it's absolutely essential to sustaining the quality of education and being able to train and educate the next generation. That's where the real benefit is coming, and also going. That's where the payoff from the investment is.

The Chair: Very briefly, Monsieur Drouin.

[Translation]

Mr. Claude Drouin: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I just want to make a brief comment Dr. Marsh—and I agree with Professor Piva—about the payoff or the elements that one must look for in funding. In the Beauce area, in my riding, we have the Centre intégré de mécanique industrielle de la Chaudière, a high school, college and university institution where the three levels of government, that is the federal, provincial and municipal, are working together with the private sector in order to get the necessary funding to cover indirect costs in the first place so the institution can do research. There are some important applications and we saw the result recently: some youth were chosen at the provincial level for the environmental aspect, which is very, very important. I think that the idea is to work together with the different levels of government and to partner with the private sector. One must not hesitate to partner with the private sector in order to get the necessary funding support.

Thank you Madam Chair.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

Do you have any comment, Dr. Marsh?

Dr. Wayne Marsh: I completely agree. In fact, for this past fiscal year, our total research funding from the private sector exceeded the total we got from NSERC, as an example, so it's a very important source of research support at my university.

I completely agree about the partnerships with the provincial governments as well. Again, as you may know, the Ontario government this past year introduced a program for indirect cost support to universities, again based on provincial research funding. That was an important step forward. Of course, there is still a huge amount of money that flows into universities from federal agencies, and that often does not carry indirect cost support.

The Chair: Mr. Brown.

[Translation]

Mr. Gerald Brown: Essentially, I agree with you because it is the reality in colleges and cegeps. This is how things work. You gave us the Beauce-Appalaches Cegep as an example. I could give you many other examples. The success we have especially in applied research can always be attributed to partnering with business. Smaller universities are facing the same challenges as colleges.

• 0940

[English]

The Chair: Thank you, Monsieur Drouin.

Mr. Lastewka.

Mr. Walt Lastewka (St. Catharines, Lib.): Thank you, ma'am.

Mr. Brown, I just want you to again go over a couple of items in which you felt the colleges were left out of the research and development system.

Mr. Gerald Brown: The one that comes to mind right away is, first of all, the CFI. The CFI has a significant budget, of which we've been able to tap into roughly only $15 million over the last two years. We think a lot of that has to do with the fact that the criteria and the peer review process are not favourable to the types of submissions we're putting forward.

For NSERC, we cannot make an application as a college. We have to do it as a subset of a university.

Those are two that come to mind right away. Basically, you have this huge amount of money sitting out there that is being used, but to which we can hardly ever have access.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: Let me go further on that one. One of the items for which we continually have situations pop up is this: we have colleges here and we have universities there, and many times they don't even want to talk each other. Isn't it better that we do have more partnerships?

Mr. Gerald Brown: Absolutely, although I'm not sure I totally share your position that colleges and universities don't talk to each other. In fact, as far as talking to each other is concerned, probably the only province that's creating difficulty is Ontario. If you go across the country, you will see that most of the institutions at the college level and the university level have worked out elaborate articulation agreements between themselves in order to facilitate the mobility of students. When it comes to the research, I'm not sure we have been as successful as that, but I don't think it's necessarily that we don't want to talk.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: Why is it that way in Ontario? I would agree with you that, outside of Ontario, there are many arrangements and many joint projects going on.

Mr. Gerald Brown: From a national perspective, I have to scratch my head a quite a bit on that as well. However, I don't think it's appropriate for me, in this forum, to point a finger at where I think the problem is. I think Ontario has two very distinct fundamental foundations on which the college system, the CAATs, and the universities were formed, and there's a strong sense of trying to maintain that, especially at the university level.

I have to say, though, that what Ontario is doing now is beginning to address a lot of that, with the province's new charter for its colleges, as well as with the work that has been going on between the colleges and the universities. We're therefore now starting to see a lot of those articulation agreements working out between the institutions in Ontario.

The Chair: Dr. Marsh, do you want a chance to reply?

Dr. Wayne Marsh: Perhaps I could just supplement those comments.

Our university and Humber College have recently put in place a partnership agreement. Specifically on research and specifically on CFI again, there was a project led from the University of Western Ontario that included Western Ontario, Guelph, McMaster, Wilfrid Laurier, Windsor, two smaller institutions, Fanshawe College in London, and one other whose name escapes me now. They partnered on a major, high-performance computing initiative put forward successfully to CFI. So there are at least two examples of situations in which my own institution was indeed partnering.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: But isn't this a hurdle that we're lately trying to overcome in Ontario? I see colleges making agreements with U.S. universities because they haven't been able to make agreements with Canadian universities.

Mr. Gerald Brown: The reality in Ontario has been that you have had a number of Ontario colleges that having articulation agreements with all the universities across Canada with exception of those in Ontario. I think it's important to support what Wayne is saying, though. You're seeing a significant change in the mindset here.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: The other item I've always wanted to bring up is the ability to transfer your research out of universities an into the marketplace. When we talk with people who are doing peer review, just in informal discussion, many times there is a hesitancy to push the research of a university. Do you have any comment on that? Why are Canadian universities so weak in moving research into the marketplace?

• 0945

Dr. Wayne Marsh: I can't comment generally, but I think universities in Canada have come to commercialization activities later than, say, universities in the U.S. But almost every university of any size in Canada, any one that has any kind of significant research activity, either now has its own commercialization activity in-house or is partnering with universities that are geographically close in order to do things collectively. Again, though, certainly one doesn't push the research in that direction. Ultimately, the direction in which research goes is going to be determined by the interest of individual and groups of faculty members. Clearly, the availability of funding is going to attract research in certain directions.

But at Guelph, to again use my own institution, we're very cognizant of the importance of watching for opportunities to commercialize. Over the last few years, we've had quite successful activity in that area. It brings in fairly significant levels of royalties. If I'm correct—it's not my specific area—between $1 million and $2 million per year are brought into the university. That's shared between the inventors and the institution, but there is a very active process.

There has also been funding available in recent years. NSERC has a program that helps to fund doing technology transfer in Canadian universities. And again, there are opportunities for smaller institutions to partner together or to partner with larger institutions in that regard.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: Isn't this where the U.S. universities have a leg up on us? They've done more work in transferring research out of a university, so there are therefore more funds coming back to the university to pay for additional research in the university. We're into that lag right now. You're asking for more funds for operating, and I'm looking at it from from the standpoint that if there had been more work done in getting research transferred out, there would have been more funds coming back in.

Dr. Wayne Marsh: Perhaps, but I think commercialization is going to be a very uneven possibility across the institutions. It's going to focus primarily on applied sciences. Smaller institutions are generally going to have more of a challenge, because their programs are often more heavily weighted in social sciences, much less so in the medical area, and less in the natural sciences area.

Successful technology transfer is still an art, to a large extent. You still have to decide which things you're going to invest in, because there is a very significant cost involved. It costs $10,000 to $15,000 per country to patent, for example. You therefore choose those opportunities very carefully. Again, we're in a kind of Catch-22. We can't do those things without adequate budgets to help to finance them, because we'd be taking money away from other activities of the institution in order to do so.

But I agree that universities in Canada are later in getting into it than are universities in the States, although I think we're catching up.

Mr. Gerald Brown: I'd like to take your question and use it as an illustration of what I think is the fundamental difference between college research and university research. I have to start off with making sure the committee is aware of or has a sense of what community colleges are all about. Community colleges are exactly that: they're community-based institutions. Because they're community-based institutions, they respond to the social, economic, and, in many cases, the cultural expectations of that community. If you're in a community, you get to know what that community needs. If you're in the forest industry, if you're in the mining industry, if you're in the fishing industry, or if you're in downtown Toronto, then whatever the needs of that community are, you're trying to find ways to be responsive.

We're involved in technical training, skills development, the retraining of folks, all those issues, so we have a very close allegiance with industry. I've been a college president. All of my programs had industry advisers. There wasn't a program that we offered for which we didn't have industry sitting at the table to help us to develop the curriculum, telling us what the leading edge is, because their interest is in a turnkey product. They want a skilled workforce that they can then move forward, so they have a vested interest. That interest goes along with the vested interest that we have in the institution in terms of having what they call, in French, a fine pointe as far as a curriculum is concerned.

• 0950

But that relationship has developed over thirty years, and it has now led to industry turning to colleges and asking questions from a perspective of, “What if?” That's the kind of stuff that happens in our colleges. What if we had this particular machine or this particular prototype, and what if we could look at ways of trying to adjust it? That's the kind of research we get involved in. It is funded by industry, which is using the resources of the institution to do it. All of that then leads to reinvestment into that community and to the economic development of that community.

What we're basically saying to the federal government is that this is happening in the 150 colleges that we have across Canada, in 900 communities. If we could just find some help here, we could leverage a tremendous amount of stuff. But it's a completely different approach than what we've traditionally looked at from the point of view of research.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Lastewka.

Mr. Penson, please.

Mr. Charlie Penson (Peace River, Canadian Alliance): I'd like to follow that up, Mr. Brown, but first let me apologize for being late. You may have made some of the points I'm going to question you about.

Grande Prairie Regional College is in my riding, and part of the difficulty that school faces is that it doesn't grant degrees in things like engineering. People go on to university in Edmonton or Calgary to complete those.

I noticed in your brief that you talk about the need for applied research, and you just spoke about community needs. I agree with you. Is there a bias from CFI in that this is part of the problem, in terms of applied research versus basic research? Do these people who do the peer review somehow not see that as important?

Mr. Gerald Brown: That's correct. That was one of the points I made in the introduction. We have to look at a much larger definition of what research is in this country. If we look at that in a positive sense and are more inclusive in our approach, we'll be looking at a much wider innovation agenda than the one we're looking at from the perspective used right now.

When it comes to Grande Prairie, most of the time Grande Prairie will make allegiances with NAIT in Edmonton or with SAIT in Calgary. But you're absolutely right. When Grande Prairie comes forward, they haven't got a prayer, because in terms of the criteria looked at from the point of view from which we look at research in this country, they don't meet those criteria. But they can do a lot of work in Grande Prairie in helping out the local economic development in that area.

Mr. Charlie Penson: Of course, there's a big forestry sector there; therefore, applied research is very important. I know some of that happens.

Is there also some method whereby the engineering students who start out taking two years in a college and then transfer...could there be some linkages with, say, the University of Alberta and some of the projects it's working on and that the college can tie into, so that the students can follow it through as they progress through the system?

Mr. Gerald Brown: I can't say with absolute certitude, but certainly Alberta has been one of the more progressive provinces in doing articulation agreements between its institutions and the universities. I would speculate—and I underline that—that a lot of the work beginning at institutions like Mount Royal College, Grande Prairie, NAIT, and SAIT, is carried on and is done in joint ventures with the University of Alberta or the University of Lethbridge. For instance, exercises are going on between the University of Lethbridge and Lethbridge College in Medicine Hat.

Mr. Charlie Penson: Thank you, Mr. Brown.

Dr. Marsh, in response to Mr. Lastewka's questions about commercialization of research, on other occasions at this committee, we've heard that one of the difficulties is that there doesn't seem to be enough venture capital to pick up on some of these ideas and bring them to commercialization. Have you any suggestions for the committee that could help that to improve?

Dr. Wayne Marsh: I wish I did, but, no, I really don't. It's not an area that I work in directly. I'm aware of the activity at our institution and I'm aware of the general issues, but I'm not really in a position to offer anything specific.

Mr. Charlie Penson: But are you aware of that being a problem?

Dr. Wayne Marsh: Absolutely, yes. In fact, a spinoff company that we had started a while ago just recently had to cease operations because it wasn't able to continue to find venture capital. I suspect the events of September 11 were not unconnected, but that particular event aside, the lack of venture capital in Canada has been and continues to be a real problem.

Mr. Charlie Penson: To the entire group here this morning, wouldn't that also suggest that the applied research angle should be looked at a little bit more positively by the peer review people? At least you then have industry participating, and somebody is taking that research and is actually using it in a commercial way.

• 0955

Dr. Wayne Marsh: Just on that point, a comment was made earlier, and I didn't comment at the time, but it's an opportunity to do so now.

I'll use NSERC again, because it's the council I know the best—and it's also the one we do the most business with, if I can put it that way. That council has quite a significant program of university-industry partnerships. In fact, as part of the application process, the industrial partner or partners must be funding at least half the cost of the research program, so it's clearly going to be very applied work. It's going to be work aimed directly at the problems industries have. But that research is still subject to peer review. The fact that a company is prepared to finance half the research cost doesn't automatically grant it success. It still is going to go out for peer review. It still has to be good science. But clearly it doesn't have to be very basic—

Mr. Charlie Penson: Dr. Marsh, I agree with you on the NSERC side, but what about the point that Mr. Brown made about CFI and the very limited amount that colleges are able to access, for example?

Dr. Wayne Marsh: Again, I can't speak for CFI and how they arrived at the particular division that they arrived at, or on what prompted them to change the rules to eliminate—

Mr. Charlie Penson: Maybe Mr. Brown can, then.

Dr. Wayne Marsh: Again, with CFI, the issue of basic and applied...certainly, proposals that we have put forward and that have been successful with CFI have been very applied: food safety; controlled environments; things that were directed at very specific problems; or putting in place the infrastructure needed to support research dealing with very specific issues. So I think the fact that it has fairly short-term application doesn't rule it out of possibility for CFI at all. Again, though, I'll defer to Gerald's comments on CFI's planning process.

Mr. Gerald Brown: I would like to rescue Wayne from that response, because I think it's unfair to ask him to try to respond on behalf of CFI. In fact, I'm not here to criticize CFI. CFI has done some really terrific stuff, and roughly about thirty of our institutions have been successful—to the chagrin of a lot of folks, I have to say, because they didn't think those institutions would be successful. But they have been successful while using CFI criteria and a CFI peer review—and that means non-college criteria and a non-college peer review. We have been successful, and it's that success that we've had at CFI that has begun to awaken a lot of organizations to the potential that the colleges have.

But if the CFI is there and it's responding to a particular need, it has peer review and it has a process, and we can't compete in that. I'm saying we have to either have something apart from it that does reflect what our institutions are all about and does reflect a peer process that allows that to happen, or we have to change the rules. I don't think we're going to change the rules, so we may have to think about—

Mr. Charlie Penson: Mr. Brown, is there a specific criterion that limits you? Is that what you're saying about the CFI application?

Mr. Gerald Brown: Yes.

Mr. Charlie Penson: If it was just wide open to the best projects, would you have a better chance?

Mr. Gerald Brown: I think so, but I don't think that will ever happen, because there's a mindset in this country about what research is. I'm not disagreeing with that mindset, and I'm not taking issue with that mindset. I'm just saying that if we're moving on the innovation agenda or whatever agenda it is that we're moving on, I think we have to be more inclusive.

Mr. Charlie Penson: What I'm trying to get at is where the problem is for you. Is it the people who do the peer review, or is it the criteria of CFI?

Mr. Gerald Brown: Both.

Mr. Charlie Penson: Okay.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Penson.

Before I see if we have a second round of questions, I want to pick up on something Mr. Brown said earlier about the breadth, depth, and economic impact not being recognized. I couldn't agree more with that comment. In the way I see research dollars being distributed across Canada, it's not that there is a problem with a peer review process being in place, and it's not that the people making these decisions aren't well-qualified individuals. The problem I see is that we're not taking into account the economic realities of this country.

• 1000

We have an area that is very close to where I come from, that being automotive, and it doesn't resonate in terms of any large amount of dollars. We have a Department of Agriculture, and there's so much money for agricultural research. We have the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, and there's so much money set aside for fisheries and oceans research. Yet through the granting council process, through the CFI process, automotive is just thrown in as something like an afterthought. Without it, though, this country wouldn't survive. So I have real difficulty in either...

I'm not sure if it's how the peer review process is operating, or whether it's the fact that we don't have designated funds and aren't recognizing certain economic realities of this country. We wouldn't be having this conversation at all if the automobile industry didn't exist in Canada, because there would be no money for research in this country. That's the reality of it.

I don't know how we sustain what we have, while developing and finding new and unique things. I don't think “innovative” necessarily means you ignore the past, that you don't help to recreate the past, or that you don't find innovative ways within the past. I'm really quite concerned that...and I'm just using that as an example, because there are other sectors that I could point to that have a huge economic impact in this country. I just don't find that, through the peer review process or through the present process that we have, they are getting adequate dollars for research. I don't know if you have other sectors that you can point to, but I'm really quite concerned.

What I hear from people who have made applications is that the peer review process doesn't allow for a full and frank discussion. For example, the CFI has a process in place in which you're only allowed to bring, I think it's five or six people to the table. Of those five or six people, one must be the university president. Even if he's not involved in the whole research side of it, he must be there. And then you must pick this person and that person... If you have a large application, you can't have all the players at the table. If you're applying for $5 million or if you're applying for $100 million, you're allowed to bring the same number of people to the table through the CFI process.

It's quite disturbing to me that there isn't any recognition of different sectors and their contributions when we're deciding how these dollar grants are being made. Maybe that is being taken into account though. Maybe you can just expand on why we think the peer review process works so well, since I have to say I'm quite concerned that we're going to lose certain economic sectors of this country because we're not reinvesting in them.

Prof. Michael Piva: That's a difficult question to address, but I would start with an observation. I think the fundamental problem is that there is not enough research and development in this country. If you compare the total research dollars spent in this country to those spent other G-7 countries, etc., our total is fairly low. The universities cannot be the institutions that must pick up all the slack. I think there's research that properly belongs in universities, but I also think a lot of research needs out there are not well adapted to by the universities. Other institutions might well be better able to satisfy those—for example, the distinction between applied versus basic, or the universities versus the college system.

The problem may well be that the issue you're articulating can't be addressed by the universities. I'm not sure it can be addressed by the universities. What concerns me is that in order to meet that other need, we redirect dollars. I think the problem is that we need more dollars directed to the total research enterprise, of which the universities are only one part.

The peer review system works extremely well for the purpose for which it's designed, and that's post-secondary education and those kinds of grants and those kinds of basic research. I think applied research is equally important, but I also don't believe you're going to have much applied research without the basic research behind it. I take a more holistic approach to that, but I don't think every institution can be expected to play every role.

The problem may well be that there is a need for research dollars for certain basic industries like automobiles—I'm inclined to agree with you on that one—but changing the peer review process for NSERC, changing the peer review process for SSHRC, or changing the peer review process for the CIHR, may not be the way to go. In fact, there may be other ways to approach the problem. You mentioned fisheries. There is designated research for fisheries, and I think that's a pressing need.

I think the real problem is not redistributing the dollars and not putting the finger on the problems of process as being the cause of the other problems. I think the problem is that we don't spend enough on R and D in the country as a whole.

• 1005

Dr. Wayne Marsh: I completely agree. Again, I can't comment on why CFI came up with the particular approach that it did, so I won't. But if awards aren't being made in any particular sector—whether it's the automotive sector or any other—through CFI or any of the other granting agencies, the first question I'd ask is about how many proposals are in fact coming forward in those areas. If no proposals are coming forward in those areas, it's not an issue of peer review. If proposals are coming forward but they're not being funded, then one can ask questions about the review process.

Just thinking of the automotive sector, just off the top of my head, I can think of one of the most recent Networks of Centres of Excellence that was put in place. AUTO 21 is one that's funding research in that sector. I can't comment much more, though, because we simply don't have any of that going on at Guelph.

The Chair: Don't take this the wrong way, because I think AUTO 21 and the Networks of Centres of Excellence are great programs and wonderful things, but when you look at the dollars in AUTO 21—approximately $20 million over a five-year period, I believe—the total is very minimal when compared to what automotive means to this country. As an example, when you look at the fact that DaimlerChrysler announced, a year ago September, an additional $500 million in research in this country, and at the fact that the University of Windsor and DaimlerChrysler were twice turned down for research dollars, it's quite disconcerting to me.

We all know that now that the automotive industry is in a downturn, there's a lot at stake. There are sixty to eighty too many car plants in the world. That's how many we have in Canada. We don't have to be in the automotive industry, but I hate to tell you that if we weren't in the automotive industry, we wouldn't have this discussion, because our economic situation would be horrific. The dollars wouldn't be there to talk about increasing research. That's what bothers me.

We may have a peer review process and we all may think it works really well, but what I hear from the engineers from the different universities is that not enough engineers are sitting at those tables, that there's a hierarchy of scientists who sit at those tables, that this is how the peer review process does in fact work. That causes me great concern.

When I look at the specific application that was turned down, Canadians would be appalled to think we turned down an application that wasn't just strictly engineering, but had a lot to do with children. The number one cause of death and injury for children in this country is not any medical disease—we spend a lot on money on those, and rightly so—it's automobile accidents. The application talked about setting up a safety centre, and it involved behavioural studies. It was a very wide-ranging project that had a lot of different aspects to it, and I'm quite concerned about it, because I don't know how to get those things back on track. When you're dealing with industry, with a global company like DaimlerChrysler, and you turn them down a couple of times, they don't come back to the table. They say that if this government's not interested, they're going to take their business elsewhere. From that point of view, I don't see the peer review process as working well. If people can sit around a table and twice say to the same company that its dollars aren't important to this country, and twice give different answers—because I've seen both of the reports—it's very disconcerting to me.

If you're successful, I guess the peer review process works well. If you're not, I guess it doesn't. I'm just not sure where the in-between is. I think we have to look at how we ensure that, through the peer review process, we have excellence in research—which we do have in a lot of areas in this country. How do we ensure that all economic sectors of this country receive those dollars through the peer review process? Is it through designated funds? Is that the only answer? Do we give specific designations when we hand out dollars from now on, and say to the CFI or the granting councils that they must allocate so many million dollars for a certain sector of research? Is that the only way it's going to work? That's my concern.

Mr. Gerald Brown: If you're frustrated by the proposal coming in from the University of Windsor and Chrysler, you can imagine some of the frustration we're having when we have to face the same peer review process.

• 1010

I look at Durham College and the work it does with General Motors. I look at the work Sheridan College does with Oakville. I look at the work St. Clair College does with Chrysler. They have all just simply moved forward and decided to do it on their own, and they have put their own research centres and their own centres of excellence together. The colleges have united together and have put together a centre of excellence at Georgian College in Barrie, which is an ironic place to put it, but at least it's in place.

I'm coming to a point and a conclusion about your earlier question. I'm not sure we'll ever be successful in the peer review process ourselves, which is probably why we're proposing things that are much more focused on what we're all about, or our own peer review process.

The Chair: To follow up, Professor Brown, my point is that it's not only colleges that aren't successful. Within the research facilities within universities—I hear this over and over again—there's a hierarchy in terms of how the different scientists are viewed. There's a pecking order. That's the way people feel, and it's what they're telling me.

I was out visiting on the east coast earlier this fall. I heard that an application was made to NSERC from a veterinary college. Among the people doing the evaluation, there was nobody from that area in the peer review process. How do you understand that?

I'm told I can't understand science. I'm not a scientist. I've been told that by several departments and by several scientists in Ottawa. If I'm not an expert in that area and I can't understand it when I ask what I think are reasonable questions about certain issues, how can a university, a college, or someone who makes an application, feel they've had a fair and adequate hearing when nobody from their area of expertise is sitting on the peer review panel?

Dr. Wayne Marsh: We have it at colleges as well, and certainly not all our proposals to NSERC are funded either. It's important to remember that the panel itself, the one that ultimately makes a recommendation to the CFI board or the NSERC council on a particular award, is the focal point of the process, but it doesn't comprise the only people involved in the process. They are going to seek...there's no way any manageable group of committees of any manageable size could have experts in all of the different areas. They're going to cover areas broadly, and then they're going to rely on external reviews from experts in the area. Earlier in his opening remarks, I think Professor Piva made the comment that it's important to have an adequate number of those.

I think part of the difficulty that the process is facing—and I suspect the granting councils may have gotten into this when they were here last week—is that there are a lot of demands on researchers' time. It's becoming increasingly difficult to get an adequate number of good, critical reviews, from experts in the area. If you're then trying to make a decision based on a limited number of those, it makes it more difficult, clearly.

The Chair: That brings me to my second question about application fatigue. I hear from people that they're frustrated, yet they don't have the effort, the ability, the time, or the dollars. As you mentioned earlier, the dollars seem to be a huge thing in the application process. How do we solve that? Do we fund application writing? Do we refund a percentage of it? Does that encourage it? I'm just not sure.

In your opening comments, I heard that the peer review process is working well, yet I know certain areas aren't being funded and I hear application fatigue is a huge issue for people. How many times can they be expected to write an application? How many times can they rewrite an application based on what they're advised? Sometimes, there's no feedback, and that's also frustrating.

Dr. Wayne Marsh: I completely agree. I think it's important that you have an adequate number of reviewers, and it's important that you get good feedback. But as Michael pointed out a few minutes ago, the fundamental, underlying issue is the overall lack of funding in the granting councils in particular. You will therefore get situations in which people are writing good proposals time after time, but they're not being funded. That's because in the judgment of the people doing the reviews, it's not that it's not meritorious research, it just comes a little too far down on the scale and the funding doesn't come down far enough to meet it.

• 1015

Yes, applications are tedious. I talk to faculty members all the time at my institution. This is the time of year when many applications are going in, and they take a big effort. To write a good proposal takes a major amount of work, and it gets very frustrating when one keeps missing. Many people give up.

The Chair: But do you feel you get adequate feedback?

Dr. Wayne Marsh: It's inconsistent. In some cases, yes, there is, and people are able to improve their applications and are successful in a subsequent submission. In some instances, it isn't as helpful as it might be. In part, I'm sure this reflects the staff pressures the granting agencies are under in trying to get comments out. But it can be difficult when you have one or two external reviews that are very positive, yet the decision is negative. One is left in a quandary about how one is going to improve it.

Again, I'm not trying to pretend that the peer review system is perfect. What I am saying is that it's the best one we have.

The Chair: So far.

Professor Piva.

Prof. Michael Piva: In the focus on the peer review process, what concerns me is the source of the problem. You're right to say there's a lot of frustration. You're also correct in implying that there's not a lot of feedback from the process to help one to improve the application for the next time. Those are all problems, but I do not think the source of the problem is the peer review process.

Several years ago, when the funding crisis was at its maximum, at least for universities, you had a situation in which the success rates for first applications for NSERC grants just dropped off the end of the table. When you're down to a 25% success rate, you're talking about major negative impacts on a lot of people's careers. These are junior professors looking for the tenure process, and they need those grants just to pursue their careers and establish themselves as academics.

Among the majority who did not get a grant, there was a lot of frustration, a lot of pressure, and a lot of discontent about the peer review process and the kind of feedback they got. But the problem was not the peer review process, the problem was the inadequacy of the funding. I think you have to be clear about that. That said, I believe the peer review process is working. I would never suggest it's perfect, though, because there are frustrations in there.

I'll tell you about one of the things universities have done to try to ease the process of application fatigue. Universities are redirecting internal resources, at both the vice-dean and vice-presidential level, to the creation research officer positions. The job of those research officers is to assist in the application process, is to help people to improve their applications. That's internal, that's not coming from the councils, but it points to the budgetary pressure that was mentioned earlier. It points to the shifting of resources to try to pursue those dollars, to try to make better applications, and to try to make the system work better. But that is putting enormous strain on university budgets, and that, too, is leading to additional frustrations in the institutions.

I wouldn't argue with the problems you are identifying. They are problems, and I think the councils have to monitor these things. It may well be that there are sectors that are not getting adequate funding. If the councils monitor the grants and that problem is identified, I think you address a solution to it, but I don't think the peer review process is the cause of the problem. There are other causes to the problem, and trying to change the peer review system will not fix the problem.

Dr. Wayne Marsh: I don't know if this is on that point, but I wonder whether you've seen the recent report from the Royal Society of Canada on its study of CFI. They did comment specifically on the peer review process, and they again reinforced what Michael has just said: that it was still the best process, and that CFI had probably done more than any of the other major agencies to ensure they were getting arm's-length experts, people from outside the country who didn't have biases because of connections with other applications.

• 1020

So, again, I completely agree with the comments that were just made.

The Chair: Well, I have too much information about one specific application to say that I agree with you on that. There were actually experts within this country, and there is actually a department that may now undertake the same research that was going to be funded partly by the private sector. I find that very disconcerting as a Canadian.

However, I will leave that for now, and I will let you know that we, as a committee, are going to hopefully meet with other countries on their peer review processes to see if there is a way to enhance what we're doing in this country; to look at how our research dollars are allocated; and to recognize what we believe are the concerns of Canadians when certain sectors of the economy are not being adequately funded in research when certain areas or smaller institutions are faced with huge challenges.

Competition is great, provided that you can all compete. But if you can't even get to the stage of writing the application because your university can't afford it, it's very frustrating. That may mean the best researcher isn't even involved in the process, because the best researcher isn't necessarily at the largest institution in this country.

I think we need to take a look at the concerns that have been raised by Mr. Brown as well. Are we missing a large sector of potential research in this country? It may be applied research. We know what colleges are all about with their applications, and we know what they do, and I think there needs to be a better connection between how everyone's operating in this country.

I find this area very fascinating, and I appreciate your frankness today. We may meet with you again before we're finished this process. Thank you very much.

I just want to let committee members know, before you go, that we will be sending out a notice to the media today about the work we're going to be undertaking next week, beginning on Tuesday morning. The Minister of Industry will be our first witness on Tuesday morning at 8:30.

Mr. Gerald Brown: Thank you.

Dr. Wayne Marsh: Thank you.

The Chair: The meeting is now adjourned.