Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to thank all the members of the committee for inviting us to take part in today's meeting.
I am accompanied today by Ms. Barbara Conway, NSERC's Corporate Secretary.
First of all, NSERC's vision is that we help make Canada a country of discoverers and innovators for the benefit of all Canadians. NSERC invests in people, discovery and innovation through programs that support post-secondary research in the natural sciences and engineering in post-secondary institutions on the basis of national, peer-reviewed competitions.
In the document you have been given, you can find detailed information about NSERC's budget, which totals about $1 billion per year, divided into these four main areas.
Our clients and partners are roughly 27,000 university students and post-doctoral fellows, 12,000 university professors, 1,400 Canadian companies who are partnered with us, and 108 universities and colleges of all sizes across the country.
Our responsibility as regards official languages is to provide client services to researchers, educational institutions and partners in their official language of choice.
Both official languages are obviously used for all literature and other documentation, as well as on NSERC's website. Information sessions at institutions and conferences are given in the official language requested.
NSERC has regional offices in Moncton, Montreal, Mississauga, Winnipeg and Vancouver, all of which operate in both official languages.
All of our investments are done through peer review processes. These processes ensure that we have the capability of reviewing applications in both official languages. The programs have clear selection criteria. The primary consideration is excellence. All of the written reviews by experts from around the world are solicited in both official languages to ensure that our applicants can have the reviews in their selected language.
We also have, in our process, expert peer review committees that meet in person to recommend funding. At least two francophones are present on each peer review committee, and sufficient numbers of bilingual members are also part of these committees. Our applicants receive feedback from our committees in the language of their choice. We also provide simultaneous translation for committees, if requested, as well as special procedures if necessary.
I would now like to talk briefly about the global context of science and technology, particularly the natural sciences and engineering. We collaborate extensively with researchers both nationally and internationally, and there is tremendous researcher and student mobility. Often many of our researchers, including Francophone researchers, write their proposals and scientific articles in English, English being the language of work of most of the scientific communities internationally.
To illustrate that specific reality in our area, I would just like to give you some statistics. For the competition associated with our largest program, the Discovery Grants Program, we received 3,000 applications this year, 5 per cent of which were written in French. We have 381 selection committee members, 55 per cent of whom are able to assess proposals in French. In terms of individuals who act as external referees, we have almost 6,000 reviewers, 35 per cent of whom can read French.
In conclusion,
NSERC takes its responsibility to implement the Official Languages Act very seriously. Our primary responsibility is to provide access to our programs in both official languages, and to ensure that applications are fairly evaluated, independently of the language of submission.
Research on promoting bilingualism falls outside of our council's mandate, but we indirectly support institutions in their promotion of bilingualism by providing client service in both official languages.
Once again, thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak to you today.