Thank you very much, Chair.
Before I ask a question, I want to clear up a point.
Mr. Valeriote spoke about NSERC, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. The point I want to make, because we can arrive at the wrong conclusions based on what Mr. Valeriote said, is that decisions taken by NSERC are not influenced by the government. They receive funding for research and innovation from the government, but the projects that are submitted to them are done through peer review. I believe hundreds of people are involved. They break into committees, they review applications, and they make the decisions. They don't report to the Minister of Agriculture; they report to the Minister of Industry.
I think these are important points because in this study, the agriculture committee is looking at Growing Forward and what this policy framework can do with agriculture funding for science and research. And I think the comment on NSERC was off base.
Science and innovation are important across all sectors—and in agriculture for sure. That's why we're looking at this.
As a final point, Chair, NSERC's funding in 2006 was about $860 million, and in 2009-10 it was over $1 billion. So the government has played its role in increasing funding for science and research, but when it comes down to the decision-making process and what gets approved and what doesn't, that rests with peer review within NSERC and is not within purview of the government. I wanted to clarify that because I thought it was an important point.
Following up on science and innovation within agriculture, I would like to pursue this concept of marketability. Many moons ago more research was done that did not necessarily lead to marketable solutions. Normally, the more short term the research is, the more marketable it is within the short term. People see that connection more easily.
So I wanted to ask you, Mr. Pauls, regarding short-term, mid-term, and long-term research projects, and their marketability, could you advise the committee on which kind of projects you think should take priority for the agricultural sector in this current climate? Should there be short-term projects or mid-term projects? It's probably a smattering of both, but I'm wondering if you could comment on where you see value in each of these sectors.