Thank you so much for being here, witnesses. I really appreciate it.
I'm going to try to get around the horn, as they say, in terms of my questions.
I want to start with Ms. Watts-Rynard.
I particularly like your view that applied research can be the tool box of improving the country's economy. I think that's really important.
I come from a polytechnic background as well. I worked at the Nova Scotia Community College, NSCC, for 11 years. I worked at Cape Breton University, which has many aspects of applied research attached to it.
I see where you're going with that. In your opening remarks, you talked about some of the recommendations to get us to a better place. When I was in the post-secondary world, in particular in NSCC, there was often, I felt, a bit of stereotyping of applied research and the importance of it. When you talk about a capstone project, do you fear that stereotyping in terms of applied research? I totally agree with each of the panellists that applied research is a gem, but we need to invest in it and we need to have maybe slightly different criteria for it. I wonder if you could speak to that and unpack some of the recommendations.
Then I have another question or two for the other panellists.