Yes, definitely. I'd be happy to say more about this service, which supports research in French in Canada.
What we are seeing in our small institutions, whether they are universities or campuses, is a shortage of resources on the ground. As I mentioned, if tomorrow morning I were to decide to send an application to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council, there would be no one at the University of Alberta research office to help me prepare and review my application in French. These are people with expertise in such projects, who know how to prepare a budget and choose the appropriate terminology so that the researchers can succeed in obtaining funding. Sometimes, all researchers have to do is make some minor adjustments to increase the likelihood of getting a grant. However, we no longer have this French-language expertise at the University of Alberta. And it's not just here, but everywhere, that small institutions are suffering from this shortage of resources on the ground.
We're certainly not expecting to be able to have specialists in this area at each of our institutions and campuses. On the other hand, why not establish a service that all francophone researchers in Canada can access? That's what Acfas would like: an application review service and an ethics review service for the approval of applications. Ms. Cardinal spoke about this. When we conduct research in French, but the ethics office asks us to translate our entire application into English, that's a serious disconnect for researchers.
If a Canada-wide service for ethics compliance were established and accredited by post-secondary institutions, it would support our francophone researchers by not forcing them to work twice as hard, as is currently the case when they are asked to have their applications translated so that they can be understood beyond their university. This support service would be important, because it would share resources and give these researchers access to the review and support they need to do their work. Without it, we get the impression that our research isn't important.