Thank you. I appreciate that question.
Our awards are made on the basis of a rigorous assessment of merit, as I said. I won't go into the detail, but it involves expert scientists in the field first evaluating the science, then a higher-level committee—made up of a broader representation of academic, government, and private sector—assessing the potential overall benefits for the country, and then a third level. Our awards are based ultimately on the assessment of merit, as I've described it, albeit briefly.
When we actually look at how various-sized institutions fare as a percentage of their applications, it turns out that colleges in the country actually do slightly better than small universities and large universities. Small universities do second-best, and the large universities, the type you mentioned, are third in terms of the percentage of applications that are successful. The difference is the size of the applications, because the large universities are the ones capable of putting together the plans and proposals and maintaining some very large science facilities.
The other point that's important to keep in mind is that some of the largest awards are in the medical and health field, and there are only 16 medical schools in Canada. Therefore, in those smaller institutions you referred to that do not have medical schools, the percentage of their applications that are successful is competitive. It's just the size of the awards that is smaller, because many of their projects are in non-medical areas that don't require huge investments.