Thank you, Madam Chair.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for inviting me to take part in this consultation on behalf of the Université du Québec.
My name is Christian Agbobli, and I am the vice-president of research, creation and diffusion at the Université du Québec à Montréal, one of 10 institutions in the Université du Québec network. I am pleased to share our network's comments with you.
Today, I'm going to talk about four recommendations relating to the governance, funding and mission of the new capstone organization announced in the latest budget. We see these recommendations as crucial to making the changes a success.
For this capstone organization to work, it must improve the Canadian research support system in four ways.
First, it must simplify and harmonize the system.
Second, it must make the system more representative of the research ecosystem.
Third, it must provide strategic direction.
Fourth, it must support and promote support for francophone research.
First, the new capstone organization must help streamline the Canadian research funding system. It must recognize sector-specific considerations, harmonize funding programs and simplify administrative procedures. It should increase the coherence and agility of Canada's research funding system by helping to adopt consistent, integrated and user-friendly tools for research training management.
Second, governance bodies, consultation mechanisms and evaluation committees overseen by the capstone organization should reflect the diversity of Canadian academic institutions in order to support decision-making informed by diverse research contexts. To this end, the new capstone organization's mandate must explicitly support the development of research in all of Canada's university cities and regions.
The creation of this new organization is a unique opportunity to restore the equitable distribution of research funds. This will require regular and timely engagement with working groups that are representative of the research community across the country.
In governance, means matter. We wish to emphasize the importance of providing the new capstone organization with adequate resources to accomplish its mission. The government must not rob Peter to pay Paul. The operating budgets of the current granting agencies' programs absolutely must be maintained in their entirety for the investment announced in budget 2024 to materialize.
Third, the new capstone organization should make it possible to better plan research development. As a cornerstone of Canada's research funding system, the capstone organization should make it a priority to lead the development of national research and innovation strategies. The strategy must be developed without political influence, and it must take into account Canada's geography, the centre of excellence and the cardinal values of the Canadian research support system.
We consider five of these values to be crucial: accessible funding; an independent evaluation process; the importance of free and basic research; collaboration among researchers; and diverse research purposes, methods, approaches and contexts.
In addition, implementing and monitoring this strategy should involve implementing effective tools to facilitate the collection of evidence on Canada's research and innovation performance and that of institutions.
Lastly, the creation of a new research support organization in Canada must help support research in French. This is a widespread concern in Quebec and elsewhere in the Canadian francophonie. The Université du Québec welcomes the recent creation of the external advisory group on the creation and dissemination of scientific information in French by the government. This initiative is a ray of hope for the vitality of science in French.
That said, the capstone organization need not wait for the group's findings to play a role in raising the profile of French in the research ecosystem.
Of course, as we've often said, it's important to ensure that funding applications submitted in French are treated fairly within the federal research support system. In addition to this equity measure, the capstone organization must set an example with respect to the Official Languages Act by ensuring that all the services it provides to Canadians are of equal quality in Canada's two official languages.
Thank you for your attention.