Science and Research committee  I certainly welcome any model. I understand that we have an innovation ecosystem. I think colleges have traditionally been underutilized in that ecosystem, considering what they bring to the table in terms of industry contacts and their ability to do applied research. We certainly live in a model where universities work with colleges and employers daily to bring in whichever partner has the capacity to do so.

Science and Research committee  I would say that my experience in three Ontario universities has been that it's less about being in a major city than it is the track record of that institution in terms of grants. The people who sit on granting agencies and review grants—as I have—are successful researchers. They have typically come from U15 schools traditionally.

Science and Research committee  Absolutely. Our ACE wind tunnel facility is one of a kind in the world. It is both geothermal and aerodynamic. This is the place where Silicon Valley and the rest of the world come to test their electric vehicles, their autonomous vehicles and everything from bicycles through to the Canadian ski team.

Science and Research committee  I think I'll illustrate it with an example. At our university, because of our location and our history, we're extremely strong in the nuclear energy space. One of the areas that we all know is experiencing a renaissance is nuclear power, whether it be small modular reactors or baseload plants.

Science and Research committee  Absolutely. You're quite right. At our institution, about 16% of our grad students are federally funded, which is actually a fairly high number in comparison to peers. It points to the real importance of funding our research and, of course, our professors. This is because, as I'm sure you've heard many times over, our professors are the ones who help the university provide RAships and TAships.

Science and Research committee  Obviously, our strongest area is in NSERC funding, so we have a lot of experience with discovery, as we do with SSHRC funding and CIHR. What I will say is that there's a commonality among the three. Our researchers all comment that they spend far too much time filling in forms, redoing their CVs to a common CV standard, than they do with their research.

Science and Research committee  I think we're absolutely talking about the right thing in terms of how we think about redistribution. Those answers aren't always easy. My colleague talked about impact, and I think that's a really important thing. How do we quantify impact? I would say for our researchers and our student researchers, their biggest marker is whether they are actually having an impact in industry.

Science and Research committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good afternoon, members of the committee. I would like to thank you for having me today. It's good to be back. I would like to start off by stating that Ontario Tech is a STEM-based institution with approximately 12,000 students. We're located in Oshawa and proud to be in the Durham region.

Science and Research committee  Thanks for the question. I think it's an important one. Coming to you from the Durham region of the suburbs of Toronto, I can tell you that we disproportionately have students who are new Canadians. They are the first in their families to attend educational institutions. We do not have a lot of entitlement, or we have virtually none.

Science and Research committee  I think that's really important. I think that universities are fair game for saying we have too much bureaucracy, but on the research front, it's a critical point to understand that research comes into universities as restricted funds. When it comes from the tri-council, it is solely for the use of the principal investigator who won that.

Science and Research committee  Certainly. We have a number of students in various faculties for whom the norm is to work one part-time job, and a whole lot are working two. I finished my studies 28 years ago and only received about $2,500 less than what is a SSHRC doctoral fellowship today. In real dollars, obviously these are individuals who are falling behind, and they need to seek that extra employment just to make ends meet.

Science and Research committee  Through the chair, my response would be that I would be very concerned about Canada's falling further behind our OECD colleagues. I referenced the countries that we are closest to. I think that what we see is the U.S. accelerating. We see Japan accelerating, and we see countries like Finland accelerating.

Science and Research committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. It's a pleasure to join you. Ontario Tech University acknowledges the lands and the people of the Mississaugas of Scugog Island First Nation, which is covered under the Williams Treaties, and we're situated on the traditional territory of the Mississaugas, a branch of the greater Anishinabe nation, which includes Algonquin, Ojibwa, Odawa and Potawatomi.