Science and Research Committee on Dec. 5th, 2024

[Dr. Geoff Horsman]

On excellence and inclusion, again, we would have to define terms here. Something we always have a problem with is that definitions are slippery in this world. We would have to define what “inclusion” means. “Excellence” I think we can define, through things we've talked about, like bibliometrics. That's one way to do it. “Inclusion”, however, often refers to things like emotional harm protection and safety. It means that if someone says something that offends someone who is a representative of a marginalized group, for example, that is something that must be taken into account to effect that emotional harm protection.

Now, if we mean “inclusion” in the sense of making sure that a whole range of views are included, well, that's something I can get on board with. To do that, I think, becomes difficult when you have, again, a very ideologically uniform population in an academic environment, because we're very collegial. We like to get along. You don't want to say something that might offend a colleague.

I think you would have to build in mechanisms to ensure there is inclusion of diverse ideas. I suggest that one of those might be implementing some sort of official mechanism for a devil's advocate type of approach, where you actually bring in people who can articulate the strongest possible argument on either side of an issue. I think that could culturally change things.

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

Thank you.

In a report entitled "Reality Check", David Millard Haskell writes that equity, diversity and inclusion training is ineffective and can even exacerbate prejudices.

What do you think of that conclusion?

[Dr. Geoff Horsman]

I think that conclusion seems to be strengthened all the time. We just had another report out last week or the week before from the United States, out of Rutgers University, I believe. This report actually did some experiments and showed that a lot of this diversity training actually increases negative responses toward certain groups.

For example, I believe they had people read different passages of text. One would be a text on something completely benign, like corn production in the United States, and the other passages would be from books by critical race theorists like Ibram X. Kendi. Depending on what passage they read, they would then interpret a very neutral circumstance in a different way. For example, they would say that a person applied to an elite east coast university and after an evaluation by an admissions officer, they were rejected. People who had read an Ibram X. Kendi passage, for example, would have a considerably higher likelihood—I can't remember the numbers, but say 30%—of interpreting some sort of misdeeds by the admission officer.

Again, I think there's a lot of evidence that EDI does cause problems.

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

I'd like to get your opinion on reports that have been shared by certain researchers, that they themselves and colleagues falsify their EDI statements and even lie about their convictions or use tools such as artificial intelligence and ChatGPT to circumvent funding criteria.

Consequently, without any tangible evidence that EDI criteria are effective, how can we know if this approach actually promotes or prevents science and excellence?

[Dr. Geoff Horsman]

As I understand the question, it's about whether using ChatGPT to write an EDI statement would improve the EDI statement. I guess it would probably give you a good EDI statement. The problem with an approach like that is that it highlights a serious problem, fundamentally, where people would think it's okay to outsource their thinking to ChatGPT to write an EDI statement.

I think this highlights a really important problem. When government grants require you to state what your values are that are in accord with a government research body, and that you should be promoting this set of values, what I've seen is that many colleagues are just resigned to the fact that they don't agree with it, but what are they going to do? They've made their peace with it and they will just say what they need to say. That means you're incentivizing lying.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Thank you. That's the time.

We will now turn to MP Cannings for six minutes, please.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you, and thank you to all the witnesses for being here.

I'm going to turn to Ms. Morin to talk about the criteria. This study is about the criteria used by the federal government to assess and fund research. Could you tell us how that works now? In terms of the tri-council grants, what criteria do we use when we're looking at a grant application, for instance? Mr. Longfield was talking about biases. What are the ways we get around that?

I'm not sure if you're familiar with all the tri-councils or just SSHRC, but could you try to explain to us what criteria are used now?

[Karine Morin]

I thank you for that question, because I do think that this is really the essence of what you're trying to get at. Indeed, there are many different funding opportunities across the three agencies. In each case, the funding opportunity will be framed to try to achieve different types of outcomes.

The one I was referring to, the insight grants for SSHRC, is considered the traditional investigator-driven research funding opportunity and sets forth what I think are the expected credentials of the researcher—a demonstration that the researcher will have the ability to undertake the research and also a worthwhile question that is well framed, etc.

In contrast, I can say that on the SSHRC side, there are also those funding opportunities that are much more towards collaborations of various types, partnerships of various types. What will then get evaluated is much more the selection of a partner, the fit with a partner, and the partner or collaborator being able to demonstrate a commitment to the endeavour. It really does vary greatly.

There has been a sense that there is an expectation by NSERC of EDI statements, which I think is a slight mis-characterization of what is being asked. Researchers under those discovery grants are expected to engage in the training of their graduate students, of others who are participating in the research in a lab environment and whatnot. What is being asked is that the researcher or principal investigator take on responsibilities towards fairly supporting all who are part of the research endeavour, making sure there are opportunities for the different types of individuals who are participants in the research.

That sort of training plan that is put forward is where we would ask that all be treated equitably; that there be a recognition that the diversity, whether it's backgrounds or academic training and whatnot, will be respected and embraced; and that there be a sense of belonging established in a research environment. It seems a relatively responsible expectation of those who have the responsibility of training the next generation.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Moving up or down the ladder, one thing that is often used to assess the expertise of a researcher is their publication record. We have the criteria used to assess those publications when they're being submitted, so it becomes kind of a “once removed” version of that.

I imagine it changes somewhat from journal to journal, but how are those papers generally assessed? What criteria are used there? Is there more of an attempt to have an anonymous reviewer situation, where the reviewer might not know who the author is? I know that the reviewer has the right to remain anonymous in some cases. What's the general system in the SSHRC world?

[Karine Morin]

Coming back to the SSHRC world, in that instance of grants, indeed a researcher would demonstrate expertise in referring to work that has been published. Certainly, there can be recognition of a very relevant journal for a particular discipline or a very good fit of having published a certain type of research in certain types of journals, so there will be that qualitative assessment, which is a reasonable assessment to make.

What gets dangerous—or perhaps a shortcut, I should say—is to look only at those publications that are right away considered highly prestigious and not to take the time to actually look for oneself, as a reviewer, at the quality of the paper that did make it into that prestigious journal. There's a notion that if you have an article in one of those journals, you must have.... That's where a peer review committee can be a little bit more of a check and balance, so that if some reviewer has a tendency to sort of say, “Oh, it was published in a prestigious journal”, others would say, “Yes, but we know the quality of it.”

That's where the DORA, the Declaration on Research Assessment, is really trying to displace that focus away from prestige, citation factors, etc. and towards the quality of the actual piece of work.

[The Chair, Liberal, Valerie Bradford]

Thank you. That's the time.

Maybe you could pursue that with your next round.

We'll now start our five-minute round with MP Viersen.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I would like to direct my questions to Mr. Geoff Horsman, Ph.D., professor of chemistry and biochemistry at Wilfrid Laurier University. Thank you, sir, for being here.

I see that you've written an op-ed recently. I haven't had a chance to read it. You ask, “How much confidence can we have in a research ecosystem that incentivizes betraying oneself?” It caught my attention just recently, and I was wondering if you could expand on that. Is this connected to the declining trust in institutions that we're seeing, or are you talking about something else?

[Dr. Geoff Horsman]

Yes, I think you're referring to a quote from an op-ed that was published in the Toronto Sun in February, entitled “Scientists and engineers to public: save us from ourselves”. It was really a plea to have some sort of intervention, perhaps, in trying to remove these EDI directives. In that particular one, I cited examples of open racial discrimination in hiring faculty. There was a call for six Black and six indigenous faculty, and it involved discrimination against those two groups.

While I agree that people are well-intentioned, I think what happens is that you end up institutionalizing racial discrimination. I don't think that instantiating this type of sectarianism in a university or a society is healthy.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Has DEI had any impact on the pursuit of excellence? Can you say one way or the other?

I just looked up the SSHRC DEI web page, and there are several pages of it. Presumably, their recommendation around DEI is that it will make our research better.

Has there been any evidence for or against that argument?

[Dr. Geoff Horsman]

I don't know. Well, it depends how you'd measure it. How would you measure improved excellence? The devil's in the details here. Are you going to get more publications, more higher-impact publications? I don't know.

Just as a logical argument, if your hiring initiatives exclude most of the population, then it seems that statistically, mathematically, you are not going to be hiring the best. The counter-argument would be that, somehow, in the normal hiring process, certain ethnicities are excluded through some vague mechanisms that are never clearly articulated. Just on a logical point, I don't understand how it can improve excellence.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

We've heard a number of times about DORA—I think that's an acronym—and the San Francisco policy.

Could you recommend those things, and can you maybe just explain them a little bit?

[Dr. Geoff Horsman]

I think probably Ms. Morin would be better placed. I am aware of them, but I am not very—

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

You're not endorsing either of them.

[Dr. Geoff Horsman]

No.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Okay.

Ms. Morin, could you maybe clarify for me a little bit what these acronyms or policies are?

[Karine Morin]

It is often referred to as DORA, the Declaration on Research Assessment.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Are they the same thing?

[Karine Morin]

Yes, that is the same document.

[Arnold Viersen, Conservative, Peace River—Westlock, AB]

Would you be recommending that as a policy to be pursued by universities across the country?

[Karine Morin]

A number of universities have signed on, as have the federal funding agencies.