Thank you.
I would just simply agree with much of what's been said. From the perspective of SSHRC and the social sciences and humanities, we tend to see the basic versus applied issue as more of a continuum. People do work that may be seen as very basic but then it leads to applications through others and the work of others. Some people do work that spans the entire spectrum.
We've designed our programs in such a way as to allow for individuals to seek funding at both ends of the spectrum and in between, whether that's through our insight grant program, more on the basic side, or through partnerships, more on the applied side.
One of the things I would add, though, just in terms of your question about innovation and impact, is that particularly in our disciplines it's very difficult sometimes to show what that impact is. In terms of work, for example, that may lead to policy change, that then becomes incorporated, and that then is taken advantage of within industry. It's quite often difficult to understand precisely what the pathways were. Personally, I would advocate for a bit more forensic investigation, in terms of working back.
I can give you a brief example of a disruptive technology that has a profoundly social science question attached to it, and that is that in the forestry industry it is now possible to build tall structures completely of wood. So you could build a 20-storey tower or a 40-storey tower, I think, completely out of wood. I'm not sure who'd want to live on the 39th floor, so it's a disruptive technology with no home.
Ontario has determined that now you can build a six-storey structure out of wood, so policy has changed, and that was as a result of research, undoubtedly. Perhaps on the safety side, that's reasonable. But the question is whether you would want to live on the 39th floor and what research would change Canadian attitudes about that, or not.