I think the increase in funding for our institute has been constant over the last ten years. We've been building partnerships. One of the things we strongly support and believe in at the National Research Council is domestic prosperity. That is one of the things we look at. What are the benefits to Canada of the research? That will drive anything. We don't exist to generate profits for NRC. We exist to generate value for Canada. So in our programming, benefits to producers are going to be one of the primary objectives.
To that end, we've been forming what we call value-chain consortia around these different crops. A good example is pulse. The pulse industry in Saskatchewan is very productive and very successful. It has grown by 400% in the last five to ten years. They work closely with the University of Saskatchewan. They've plateaued in terms of their technological capacity and they've got a great checkoff plan, so they have resources. So we have received funding from them because they want to start to apply some of our technologies to accelerate and improve and take their breeding programs to new levels using the technology. That is one example of where we receive funding.
We're also working with provincial governments who are willing to support because it fits their priorities. Small companies and producer groups are also investing.
We have consortia that include technology companies, SMEs, food companies, people who are end-users, and provincial governments. We're building a value chain, and I think then what we see from that model is that the research has more direction and has a more applicable use. All the partners that are necessary to make this research relevant and used and end up in the marketplace...that is the model we're advancing. As a result, we've been able to sustain our funding.
If you ask me and any researcher if we would like more money, I think you know what the answer will be. But as I said, I think we're seeing within our own institute, our own organization, a real interest and a real change in priority, in saying they've done some good work and we've funded them in the past. We think we have to find ways to reallocate resources so the priorities and the capabilities they have can benefit all Canadians.