Evidence of meeting #111 for Science and Research in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was political.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Professor of Law, Queen's University, As an Individual
—it's for a country that doesn't do this.
Governments call their handouts “investments”. The government is claiming to make “investments” in the CBC. It's not an investment; it's a handout. An actual investment is something that you get an actual return on, a concrete return. It's that you invested this much and that you got this much return for it. That's not the way the government calculates its investments.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Valerie Bradford
That's our time. Thank you.
We're going to the next questioner now. Our next questioner is MP Chen.
You have six minutes.
Liberal
Shaun Chen Liberal Scarborough North, ON
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
I'll start with my first question for Professor Pardy.
You spoke about universities skimming 40% off the top of the money that is given through federal grants to students—
Liberal
Shaun Chen Liberal Scarborough North, ON
It's not students. Okay, help me understand. Maybe you could explain a bit further what you meant by that.
Professor of Law, Queen's University, As an Individual
When a researcher gets a tri-council grant for doing some kind of research, there are policies in place so that money comes off that grant to cover overhead costs. That's the rationale: that there are overhead costs, that you're doing the research at this institution and that, therefore, the institution needs a cut in order to cover the overhead costs.
Liberal
Shaun Chen Liberal Scarborough North, ON
Are these researchers doctoral students, or are you talking about researchers who are not students?
Professor of Law, Queen's University, As an Individual
No, they're not necessarily students. Sometimes they're faculty. Often they're faculty. This is a way—
Liberal
Professor of Law, Queen's University, As an Individual
If the students are included in the research grant, it does, sure.
The point—
Liberal
Shaun Chen Liberal Scarborough North, ON
We heard from folks from SSHRC and NSERC at our last committee meeting, so I'm just trying to understand how it works.
In terms of, for example, a SSHRC doctoral fellowship that goes to a student or an NSERC postgrad scholarship, these are monies that flow through from the granting agencies. You're saying that 40% of that, off the top, would go toward university overhead.
Professor of Law, Queen's University, As an Individual
To be clear, I'm not saying that it's always 40%. I'm not saying that it's the same at every institution. I'm not saying that it's the same for fellowships as opposed to faculty research grants. My point is that these research grants are a way to funnel money to the institutions, as well as to the individual researchers.
In other words, don't believe that this is just a government-to-individual researcher relationship. The universities have an interest in their faculty getting research grants because it affects the universities' bottom lines. They are very anxious to get their hands on this money in some way, and that's why they're so interested in their own faculty getting the grants, as I alluded to.
In some places, it gives the appearance of the universities being more interested in whether or not their faculty get grants than in the work they actually do. It's all about the money.
Liberal
Shaun Chen Liberal Scarborough North, ON
Got it.
You're a professor of law at Queen's. You mentioned in your testimony that you don't want to see the continuation of research being dictated to scholars in terms of what research and by whom. Could you share, in your experience, how the government or the tri-council agencies have been dictating the type of research that you've encountered in your work as a professor?
Professor of Law, Queen's University, As an Individual
At some of these universities, it is a common thing to have, for example, seminars or meetings for academics to come and hear from people who know how to angle, frame and write research proposals so that they will receive a favourable response from the people at the granting agencies—the councils, the peer reviewers and so on—and so that they will succeed in their attempt to get hold of research funding. In other words, it is not enough.... In an ideal world, you would get a researcher who says that they want to investigate X. They write down what they want to investigate and hand it in. That's not the way it works.
The way it works is, how am I going to get the grant? Who is there? What are their criteria? What's their background? Who's going to be evaluating me? Who can I get for a peer reviewer? I'm then going to craft it so that the thing works successfully. That is all caused by the carrot of the money.
Liberal
Shaun Chen Liberal Scarborough North, ON
You are speaking of peer review.
Let me turn to Professor Dummitt.
You also mentioned the effectiveness of peer review or lack of it. Given the shortfalls that you've identified in the peer review process, what would you suggest as the alternative?
Professor, Canadian Studies, Trent University, As an Individual
I think the alternative is for federal funding agencies and other institutions to really begin to think about viewpoint diversity and to put it on their radar when they're thinking about diversity.
I'm a big believer in peer review. I think peer review at its best should give us robust, better and more accurate information and scholarship, but I think we have a significant problem in higher education with a lack of viewpoint diversity. It's that lack of diversity that hampers or really diminishes the ability of peer review to work.
November 28th, 2024 / 5:30 p.m.
Liberal
Shaun Chen Liberal Scarborough North, ON
You mentioned half of academics being fearful of having their politics known. One of the concepts in qualitative research is reflexivity, where, in proposing a research study, a researcher would situate themselves in terms of their experiences and any assumptions or beliefs. I think everyone would agree that research is biased, so it's important to reflect on one's positioning.
If that is the case, do you believe that even in that respected way of conducting research and positioning oneself as a researcher, people are still afraid of situating their political views?
Liberal
Professor, Canadian Studies, Trent University, As an Individual
The quick answer is that those processes of self-reflection don't really work effectively when done by individuals. They work best when done by institutions and groups where other people are best able to call you out on what your biases are.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Valerie Bradford
Thank you.
We'll now turn to MP Blanchette-Joncas for six minutes, please.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses joining us for this second hour of our meeting.
Mr. Dummitt, you and 38 of your colleagues submitted a joint brief to the committee on May 24, 2024, as part of its study on the distribution of research funding among post-secondary institutions. In the brief, you raise concerns about DEI criteria, pointing out that DEI policies often punish small institutions and under-represented regions.
Can you explain how these policies hurt researchers at institutions that are far from large centres?
What adjustments would you recommend to make more room for those researchers while preserving academic excellence?
Professor, Canadian Studies, Trent University, As an Individual
In that brief, what we were concerned about was the way in which.... The regulatory burden on universities to meet these criteria is quite significant. It's one thing if you're the University of Toronto. My colleague here was just speaking about Lethbridge. I teach at Trent University. It's a great institution, but it just doesn't have the administrative ability to do that.
I would say, in another sense, that it also makes the questions about meeting DEI criteria really difficult. When your university is very small—this literally just came up at a research policy meeting last week, meeting these criteria—having one position has a huge impact on the overall percentage of these things.
The lack of flexibility around these things—around the criteria—just poses a huge burden at a place like Trent and, I'm assuming, at a place like Lethbridge, which it just wouldn't pose at the University of Toronto.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
Some institutions, including the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT, announced that they would no longer ask candidates applying for faculty positions to write diversity statements. Is that a step in the right direction?
Would genuine diversity within universities raise the quality of the research and teaching?
Professor, Canadian Studies, Trent University, As an Individual
I think there's a big distinction to be made between including diversity in research design, making sure your research design is accurate and effective.... Like the previous witness, Professor Kerr, was saying, it's fundamentally important to think about how that affects research design. However, it's an entirely different matter the way diversity statements are included. They expect a certain kind of language, which acts as a political loyalty test. For example, if one were to talk about the importance of a merit-based, blind assessment, like Professor Kaufmann did, that would be a signal to people assessing that research that wouldn't even have to come up in a meeting but could significantly affect their scoring on the application. Nothing would be said about someone's partisan political beliefs, but everyone would know where someone was coming from, and it could significantly reduce their chances of getting funding.
Bloc
Maxime Blanchette-Joncas Bloc Rimouski-Neigette—Témiscouata—Les Basques, QC
According to reporter Erin Anderssen, scientists are polarized. They alienate each other on the basis of their respective principles. If they don't think the same way, they don't talk to one another. In other words, they don't communicate with one another. It has been shown, however, that when researchers with opposing views collaborate, it sparks debate, fuels ideas and leads to advances in science that can make a difference. It improves productivity.
With that in mind, how can we create and support a uniform environment that fosters academic freedom if we threaten to withhold research funding when people do not comply with requirements such as DEI statements?
That is counterproductive to science and research in Canada, don't you think?