Thank you, Mr. Casanova.
I'll begin with a few figures on French-language research.
In the past five years, the success rates in the NSERC competition under the discovery grants program have been 49% for applications submitted in French and 63% for applications in English. NSERC measures success rates in a number of groups. This is the only group that showed a significant difference. Four hundred applications were submitted in French and 13,000 in English. Francophone researchers submit their applications in English. Those who submit in French have a much lower chance of success.
We mentioned in our opening remarks that we need to begin by setting application targets, by which I mean the percentage of applications submitted in French and success rates.
We strongly believe that solutions will come from the people who have expertise in the sectors, the funding agencies in particular. If targets are set, the people who belong to those agencies will find solutions and ways to meet those targets.
We need to begin with potential solutions that are likely to promote greater equity.
For example, researchers could be given a chance to describe research programs in French. We know that content drafted in French will run to a few more pages than in English. We could also be careful in selecting the individuals who constitute the review committees.
Considerable communication and awareness efforts will also have to be made to encourage French-language researchers to submit more grant applications in French.
In starting by determining targets that must be met, we really believe that people will come up with other potential solutions.