Thank you, Mr. Brown.
I want to thank the committee members for giving us the opportunity to speak here today.
Of course, I won't repeat everything that my colleague said. It goes without saying that the assistance promised by Ottawa this week was highly anticipated.
As a student researcher, I'll be speaking to you today specifically about research and research funding. Of course, the announcement of the extension of research grants is more than welcome. However, to mitigate the impact of the crisis, the assistance must be well managed. There are two important points.
The first point is that there are two types of funding: direct funding and indirect funding. In terms of direct funding, we're talking about students who have received a grant directly from the federal granting agencies because they applied through a competition. In terms of indirect funding, when researchers apply for a grant for a project, they may include a grant for a master's or doctoral student. The planned increase in the duration of the grants must be applied to both direct and indirect funding.
The second point to remember is the funding of the projects. A number of expenses will be incurred during the shutdown period. For example, a great deal of health research requires access to cell lines or animal lines. Maintaining these lines during the social distancing period or starting them up again afterwards will lead to additional costs and time required to complete the projects. For student researchers to be successful, they need more than just money. The financial and technical resources must also be in place so that they can complete their projects.
This concludes my presentation.
Thank you again for the invitation.