Thank you very much.
As a committee, you're asking for expert consultation to develop an economic strategy for 2017. You've asked Canadians what federal measures in relation to education and training would maximize our country's economic growth.
I, Kris Poduska, and my colleague Adam Sarty represent the voice of physics in our country, which is the Canadian Association of Physicists, and our organization has recommended boosting funding in two specific areas: first, in funding for merit-based fellowships to students and trainees through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, or NSERC, and their post-graduate and post-doctoral fellowship programs; and second, in funding for discovery-driven fundamental research, which is through NSERC discovery grants.
Now I'd like to explain why these two measures will help achieve your goals as well as ours.
First let me introduce you to the Canadian Association of Physicists.
With over 1,700 members, we're Canada's national association for physicists who work in industry, academia, and government. The CAP is recognized and respected for its science and technology expertise. We've testified before other House of Commons committees, including last year, at the request of the Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology, for a study on the state of disruptive technologies.
Adam and I are both university professors. Adam is based at St. Mary's University here in Halifax, and I'm based at Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland. We're here today to help promote the importance of physics, both as a fundamental science and also as a necessary component of Canada's technology-driven innovation economy.
The reason that we're making these specific budget recommendations are that attracting and retaining Canada's best talent will develop a strong base, which is essential for building a resilient and innovative workforce that will help drive Canada's entrepreneurs and businesses.
Canada's international competitiveness and capacity for sustained innovation depend on balanced support of research, including discovery-driven fundamental research. This kind of support gives freedom as well as flexibility to researchers, so that we can really push the limits of existing knowledge. In doing so, we find unexpected and sometimes even unimaginable phenomena.
Discovery research is really critical for Canada to be competitive in identifying and developing technologies that are transformative. These are sometimes called disruptive technologies. Examples of these kinds of transformative technologies include the internal combustion engine, lasers, solid-state LED lighting, and GPS, the global positioning systems. The trick is that by the very nature of these kinds of technologies make it very difficult to anticipate when and how they're going to emerge. If Canada wants to be a leader in this field, we have to do two things: we have to able to generate new knowledge, and we also have to have the people who are able to identify what pieces of that new knowledge can work together to be transformative.
The most effective national strategy is to have discovery-focused funding that's both sufficient and stable to support the broadest possible base of researchers at all stages of their careers. Now, the reason we're making that recommendation this year is that Canada is losing ground on the world stage.
As an example, the Secretary-General of the United Nations has a scientific advisory board that suggests that national research and development funding should be at 3.5% of GDP. Canada has been very far below this level, and slipping. Our R and D funding fell from 2% to 1.6% of GDP in the years between 2005 and 2014.
This year there's a federal review of fundamental science that's part of the larger innovation agenda. This exercise is supposed to be targeted to help address this very issue. The recommendations from this review panel will be out later this year. Undoubtedly they will have budget items similar to what we're requesting in terms of money for training as well as for fundamental discovery-driven research. The greatest impacts will be realized if the budget can address the panel's recommendations.
In closing, I'd like to thank the committee for this opportunity. We'd be very happy to answer any questions you might have later on.