Science and Research Committee on April 28th, 2022

[Dr. Alice Aiken, Vice-President, Research and Innovation, Dalhousie University]

Thank you for your invitation to represent Dalhousie University here today to discuss the opportunities we have as a nation to attract and retain top research talent at our post-secondary institutions.

To address this pressing issue, we need to ask what incentives are required to attract the world's thought leaders to pursue made-in-Canada research and innovation and what investments are needed to ensure they stay in Canada to train the next generation of researchers and innovators.

The good news is that Canada has already made a lot of ground attracting and keeping talent. The Canada research chairs, CRC, and Canada excellence research chairs, CERC, programs have had a considerable impact. We were encouraged by the pledge to create 1,000 new CRCs in the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry's most recent mandate letter, and the funding for up to 25 new CERCs in the 2022 budget was also certainly welcome.

However, this encouragement is tempered by the fact that Canada is well behind many other OECD countries in the percentage of GDP we invest in research. Several of these countries are assertively increasing their investments in research. Our competition is ramping up. When it's time for the world's leading research talent to decide which country will empower them to reach their full potential, how can we ensure that Canada is their choice?

Before we consider this, let's first consider what the CERC and CRC programs have already accomplished, because there is a lot to celebrate. For instance, just last week, Nova Scotia-based company Planetary Technologies won a $1-million XPRIZE finalist prize from the Musk Foundation for their innovation that uses the ocean to capture carbon from the atmosphere.

Their goal is to remove one giga-tonne of carbon every year. This is a remarkable goal. What gives them the confidence that they can achieve it? Well, they're powered by a research partnership with Dalhousie led by CERC emeritus and current CRC Dr. Doug Wallace and the researchers he has helped attract to the university from all over the world. Technology like this is putting Atlantic Canada on the leading edge of ocean carbon capture and storage, and it would not be happening without Canada's CERC investment, which attracted Dr. Wallace to Canada.

Another example is Dalhousie's Dr. Jeff Dahn, a tier 1 CRC. For nearly 40 years, he's been a global leader in advancing the science and technology of lithium ion batteries. His research has made lithium ion batteries the preferred power source for portable electronic devices, electric vehicles and more. How have we kept him at Dalhousie? The CRC program has played a fundamental role, and the ripple effect has been tremendous.

Dr. Dahn's research lab has generated two spinoff companies, including Halifax-based Novonix, which recently celebrated its listing on the Nasdaq. More importantly, Dr. Dahn's work has attracted other top researchers and a whole new generation of graduate students from around the world to Canada. When you invest in top talent, the benefits are far-reaching in terms of the research and innovations delivered and the HQP trained.

How can we ensure that we do not lose ground? Well, CRC and CERC help attract talent; however, the value of the CRC has not increased over time and has, in fact, decreased relative to programs offered by our competitor countries. To ensure that we continue to attract the very best research, our per chair investments need to increase. To attract top talent—whether to fill chairs or not—Canada needs to ensure we have robust funding programs in place to support the groundbreaking research they want to pursue, which means investing in our federal granting agencies.

With the Naylor report investments, CIHR, SSHRC and NSERC have just caught up to their international counterparts after being underfunded for many years, but there hasn't been any new money for investigator-driven research in the last two budgets or to sustain growth in our granting agencies. We can't afford to remain idle or we will fall behind again. We also need to ensure that we have the infrastructure, equipment and personnel to support researchers with world-class ambitions. This means investing in our research environments and the upkeep and management of this important research infrastructure because, in research, the famed cinematic quote holds true: “If we build it, they will come.”

Thank you again for having me here today. It's been my great pleasure to share successes and discuss opportunities, and I'm looking forward to addressing your questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you so much, Dr. Aiken.

We will now go to the Université du Québec. Vice-President Poncelin de Raucourt will be speaking.

Welcome. The floor is yours

[Céline Poncelin de Raucourt, Vice-President, Teaching and Research, Université du Québec]

Thank you for inviting me to this working meeting of the Standing Committee on Science and Research.

I am the vice-president for teaching and research at the Université du Québec, which is a cooperative network of 10 institutions scattered across Quebec.

Today the committee is addressing two separate but interrelated issues: attracting talent and supporting research.

I'll begin by recalling that students, researchers and the professional staff of our universities constitute an outstanding pool of highly qualified personnel. They support the innovation required for a green and resilient economy. At universities, as in industry and organizations generally, these people know how to generate and operationalize the knowledge required to provide innovative solutions to complex problems. Although they contribute to Canada's global impact, these highly qualified people are also essential in providing appropriate responses when global issues become challenges that are experienced by our communities at a regional and local level.

However, highly qualified staff are becoming a rare commodity, which is why we are looking for talent.

I would like to inform committee members that a very significant amount of the talent Canada needs and wants to attract and retain can be found closer to home than we think. Canada has major potential. You know as well as we do, Madam Chair, that according to the OECD, only 34% of Canadians 25 to 34 years of age have a university degree. That's 15 percentage points less than the leaders in this category.

Rather than expand on that failing, we propose to consider the opportunity that we should seize. Canada has a real and tremendous potential to expand our ranks of highly qualified personnel. A transformative approach to attracting and retaining talent would thus be to develop and support homegrown talent. This choice is a win-win because these people already have roots in our communities, which reduces the retention problem.

In other words, and this is the main message of our remarks today, Canada has an enormous pool of resources within its borders, one in which it can choose to invest. To do that, it must mobilize all Canadian universities, including those of small or medium size, and those situated outside the country's major urban centres. The privileged ties between our universities and the communities in which they are rooted, as well as the access to superior teaching that they facilitate for the populations of their cities and regions, are major assets in developing talent and science in Canada.

The Université du Québec's network is living proof of this, and I could cite many examples during our discussion. The potential for transformation that the talents we are developing represent is all the greater as we are training emerging researchers through the research being conducted at those universities.

The research being done in Canada, which is truly international in scope, and that being conducted at most Canadian institutions, is embodied in critical scientific themes for the communities that constitute Canada. Our researchers at the Université du Québec, for example, excel in fields such as coastal erosion and climate change, suicide prevention in northern communities, artificial intelligence in the mining sector, the development of wood products, indigenous knowledge and rural health care, to name only a few.

There are two angles of approach: the training of highly qualified personnel and research. We have enormous capacity for both, with some 100 active universities across the country. However, in recent years, we have observed that investment in science and research is characterized by an imbalance that may undermine that capacity. While the budgets of the granting councils have flatlined, funding programs offering limited numbers of grants, though many of very high value and for very targeted subjects, have been introduced in recent years.

Those grants have benefited very few individuals and institutions. As a result, year after year, barely 10% of Canadian researchers receive between 50% and 80% of public research funding, depending on the field.

This type of science policy, the limits of which are noted in the Naylor report, has an immediate impact on the capacities of many dozens of universities. It raises obstacles for thousands of researchers who are capable of fully participating in research and scientific development. As a few large cities or major institutions absorb most of the resources, the situation has a real impact on the development of territories and regional populations, thus diminishing their ability to attract and develop talent. We fear this may have a long-term effect on our collective ability to meet the many challenges facing all the country's sectors and regions.

We therefore suggest that this approach be revised so that we invest in programs based on three major principles: developing potential talent wherever it is across the country; supporting that potential early in students' careers; and ensuring that all sectors across the country can rely on highly qualified personnel whose scientific culture is essential to the transformations required to meet the challenges of tomorrow.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you very much.

I'd like to thank all of the witnesses for joining us tonight. Now we are going to go to questions.

I know our members are eager to learn from you. You have a really committed group here.

We will start with the six-minute rounds, beginning with Monsieur Lehoux.

The floor is yours.

You have six minutes.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thanks to the witnesses for being here with us.

My first question is for Ms. Poncelin de Raucourt.

I think it's important that we go back over a number of points you mentioned, particularly the fact that we have a lot of talent in Canada that isn't being maximized.

Would you please provide more details on how to attract talent to the regions?

[Céline Poncelin de Raucourt]

The network of the Université du Québec was established to promote access to post-secondary education regardless of geographic barriers. Several years ago, a federal government statistician showed that regional populations tend not to pursue post-secondary education when the closest university is located 70 kilometres away.

Consequently, lower levels of education are observed in certain regions. We also know that, far more so than family income, one of the determinants of enrolment in institutions of higher learning is "educational capital", whether or not the parents attended a college or university.

For example, nearly 60% of students at some of our institutions are what are called "first-generation students".

The fact that full-fledged universities conduct research and training in various regions of Quebec really helps to recruit talented people where they live. We know that young people tend to underestimate their worth, and the proximity of institutions of higher learning can encourage them to take advantage of them.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you.

Would you have any recommendations to make to the committee on grants and how to use them more appropriately?

[Céline Poncelin de Raucourt]

One of the messages we regularly send out is that you should be very careful not to focus funding on one particular discipline. During the pandemic, for example, major investments were made in institutions involved in medical research. Even though that was an excellent initiative, it contributed to a further concentration of funding.

Lately, no investments have been made in research on anything other than the medical aspects of the pandemic, such as its impact on mental health and the adaptation of local ecosystems.

Some 15 Canadian universities receive 72% of public research funding. We aren't at all opposed to the idea of investing in centres of excellence because that has to be done. However, we must have a living ecosystem in which the capacity for innovation is spread across the country. As I was saying, the proximity of a university attracts talent but also enables the local ecosystem to innovate thanks to the involvement of researchers who clearly understand the situation and are present on the ground.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

That's the point I wanted to discuss further.

If we move universities closer to learning environments, we can develop them more effectively and enable students to contribute to them. I think research and its application are very important for science, but we have to be able to put them to use on the ground as quickly as possible.

What's your opinion on that?

[Céline Poncelin de Raucourt]

That's exactly it. We have university centres developing through partnerships with those environments. They might be a coastal environment or a mining environment, for example. Research develops from that and contributes to a whole ecosystem. Research then expands beyond local realities and attracts businesses from other sectors, and that then diversifies a region's economy.

This originates from local concerns and research and then stimulates creativity, which leads to new areas of expertise and excellence in regions that aren't merely major urban centres.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Madam Chair, how much time do I have left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

You have about a minute and a half.

[Richard Lehoux, Conservative, Beauce, QC]

Thank you very much, Ms. Poncelin de Raucourt. I hope we'll have a chance to consider the recommendations the committee may make and include that aspect, the development of our expertise in the regions, which I think is very important.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you so much, Monsieur Lehoux. We're really happy you've joined us tonight.

We'll now go to Ms. Diab for six minutes.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I would like to thank all the witnesses who are here this evening.

Thank you very much to all our witnesses tonight as we continue our study on top talent, research and innovation.

For me, as an east coaster and the MP for Halifax West, I'm always really pleased and happy to see somebody from Nova Scotia, from Atlantic Canada, take part in these discussions.

Thank you very much, Dr. Aiken, for appearing with us tonight. Let me first acknowledge your service with the forces and your long record of support to our veterans and service members. Thank you very much for that.

Let me begin by saying that it's not a secret that, in Nova Scotia and in Atlantic Canada, we have some of our most aging population. Can you tell us if that would be true of the community of scientists and researchers as well from your perspective? I would then ask: How do we ensure we attract and retain the best and brightest? Do we have enough in our domestic supply? How do we ensure that the ones we do have in Canada we keep in Canada?

We heard in previous testimony—and those are facts—that it's always more expensive, and it costs more to the researcher, to anybody coming from outside Canada, to get to know our system, how to deal with it and to build on the successes of people who are already here. Then the follow-up is: Do we have enough here? How do we do that? How do we then go and search for international students and for the brightest internationally, from your experience, from Dalhousie's and from the east coast's?

[Dr. Alice Aiken]

Thank you, Ms. Diab. I'm also thrilled to be here.

While Nova Scotia does have a disproportionately aging population compared to many other provinces, I wouldn't say that's true of the professoriate in our post-secondary sector. As you know, we have 10 universities and a community college. We are able to attract and retain a lot of talent. In fact in Nova Scotia, Halifax in particular is one of the top 10 cities in North America for the proportion of the population who are post-secondary educated.

I do actually think that we produce a lot of talent. While Dalhousie attracts a lot of students from outside of the province, many of the other universities attract more people from within the province. We are tending to grow a lot of our own talent.

That said, people do travel across Canada and around the world. How we attract and retain top talent is a great question. Part of it is the ecosystem. There's something very attractive about the research ecosystem in Canada, in that unlike in the U.S., professors don't pay themselves out of their research grants. It actually costs less to do the same amount of research here because you're not paying all of the professors who are part of the research grant. It costs less to do research here than it does in the U.S. We're often able to attract big grants from the U.S. to do research here. That's one very attractive thing about Canada. A lot of U.S. professors find it very attractive. They actually have to find part of their salary through their grants. In Canada, we generally do not. Professors are generally salaried. It's an attractive environment from that perspective.

You are correct, moving to a new ecosystem for research can be very difficult and a steep learning curve, if you're not familiar with it.

I think Canadian researchers want to stay in Canada. We know that Canadian students want to stay in Canada. In fact, we have a problem with them not wanting to go and do placements internationally because we live in a good, safe country. I think that is even more important right now. I do believe we have the right environment to keep our researchers here, but we need to have the money for them to be able to pursue their interests. We really do. That is what it comes down to, quite critically.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Thank you very much for that. I really appreciate it for my colleagues on the panel. We don't often have somebody from Nova Scotia or eastern Canada. I appreciate getting that perspective from you.

You're right. For a province of a million people, we have 10 universities in Nova Scotia and a community college that has 13 campuses. I know that full well, having been the minister of advanced education when I did my provincial....

I also know that Nova Scotia has been very active in attracting and retaining international students. As well, quite frankly, we don't have to do much, but we've been attracting a lot of students from within Canada as well. Of course, Dalhousie's been a very big recipient of all the good things that are happening.

At Dalhousie, what proportion of students or researchers would you say we attract from within Canada?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Ms. Diab, you are done, I'm afraid.

You might want to ask Dr. Aiken if she wants to table an answer.

[Lena Metlege Diab, Liberal, Halifax West, NS]

Sure. If there's any information that you'd like to supply us with that we don't have time today for, we would love to have it sent to us.

Thank you.

[Dr. Alice Aiken]

I'm happy to do that.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Ms. Diab.

Mr. Blanchette-Joncas, you have the floor for six minutes.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Greetings to the witnesses who have joined us this evening.

My questions are for Ms. Poncelin de Raucourt.

Ms. Poncelin de Raucourt, you've provided an overview of Quebec's university system, which is the largest university system in Canada.

How can universities such as yours develop talent in Canada.

[Céline Poncelin de Raucourt]

As I mentioned earlier, the fact that universities are located in a place encourages students to enrol there and enables people in the labour force to go back to university to develop their talent if they so wish.

I also mentioned the population of students whose parents never went to university. The presence of those institutions is important for that population. Furthermore, when someone trains in a particular geographic region, that enhances the retention of that talent and of highly skilled personnel.

Here are some figures on this.

Approximately 100,000 students are enrolled at one university that's part of the Université du Québec system. According to an internal study, nearly 30% of students say they would never have gone to university if there hadn't been one nearby.

Furthermore, follow-up data on graduates show that students who have studied in their region generally pursue careers there. I'm thinking, for example, of nursing talent. The universities of Trois-Rivières, Rimouski and d'Abitibi-Témiscamingue offer nursing programs. Between 80% and 95% of professionals trained by those universities remain and work in those regions.

Talent is trained because a university is there, together with all its attributes: its educational mission, its research mission and its community service mission.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC]

Thank you very much for clarifying those points.

In your remarks, you said something quite striking about the concentration of funding.

It's a good thing we reinvest in science, in research, but there are also downsides to concentrating funding. You mentioned that researchers get the largest share of funding, a phenomenon you call funding concentration.

Would you please give us some examples of that?

[Céline Poncelin de Raucourt]

Yes, absolutely.

Major investments are being made in super clusters and areas of advanced expertise through the Canada first research excellence fund, the Canada excellence research chairs program and the new frontiers in research fund.

These are extremely promising investments that help in developing advanced areas. However, they also create an imbalance. In addition to funding, there has to be a genuine investment in granting councils that have mechanisms to ensure diversity and fairness in research funding.

I'd like to cite another figure.

We talked about talent. Talent is developed through student participation in research, by training the next generation. Students are supported by scholarships but also research grants awarded to researchers who then hire those students.

A study conducted in 2017 showed that 56% of students, more than half, are trained at universities where only one quarter of resources are allocated to research. The concentration of funding in the hands of researchers will also cause an imbalance in the ability of students who aren't in those major areas to participate in projects.