Science and Research Committee on Oct. 17th, 2022

[Annie Pilote, Full Professor and Dean, Faculty of Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies, Université Laval, Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences]

Good evening.

I'd like to begin by thanking the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, the committee chair, and all members of the committee for having given us the opportunity to discuss and formulate recommendations on research and publication in French in Canada.

This subject is central to our research community and our work at the Federation for the Humanities, which I have the pleasure of representing today as vice-chair of its board of directors.

As the national voice for the humanities, the federation supports a diverse community of 91,000 researchers. We actively support research in French in all of our activities, including the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Canada’s largest gathering of academics, which has contributed to the publication of 288 books in French since 2010.

During the cross-Canada official languages consultations held a little earlier this year, we emphasized that the government should address the specific challenges being faced by francophone researchers.

Access to studies in French at the master's and doctoral levels is essential if francophones are to be able to continue their studies in their language to the highest levels.

Having francophone graduate students and postdoctoral fellows is also indispensable for teams wishing to conduct their research work in French at universities in all parts of Canada. The government must support future generations of students conducting research in French, because we need their contributions to ensure a better understanding of the issues being faced by francophone communities, and to lead Canada towards a brighter future.

According to the Acfas report entitled "Portrait et défis de la recherche en français en contexte minoritaire au Canada", research in French is declining. The report gives extremely instructive examples, including the fact that French-language periodicals account for only 8% of scholarly journals created since the 1960s in Canada, and that the percentage of publications in French is steadily declining. The report also points out that researchers in francophone minority communities receive very little support from master's and PhD students in conducting their research in French, given the limited availability of graduate programs in French in their institutions.

The fact is that many francophone students who live outside Quebec are required to make the choice of either moving to continue their education in French at major universities with a broader range of graduate programs, or switching to English to continue their studies closer to home. This has been accentuating the dominance of English as their careers in science progress, and lowering the likelihood of their research objectives meeting the needs of francophone communities.

Enhanced funding would attenuate these inequalities and further support research in French in Canada, particularly in contexts where the vitality of the French language has become more vulnerable.

That being the case, we have two recommendations to make. The first is to increase financial support for graduate studies and and postdoctoral fellowships. The second is to invest in open access publishing in French.

We applaud the Standing Committee on Science and Research for recommending an increase in the number of scholarships for graduate studies and postdoctoral fellowships, and increasing their value by 25%, in addition to indexing them to the consumer price index. However, based on our calculations, a considerable increase in the size of these scholarships is required if they are to retain their value, given the inflation rate over the past two decades.

Generally speaking, we also need to think about equity issues in terms of education for the next generation of francophone researchers. As Acfas recommended, we need to ensure that success rates for funding applications are equivalent for francophone and anglophone researchers. Where inequalities persist, additional funds or programs, such as research programs for francophone communities, or support for students who have to move to study in French, might help restore the balance.

Our second recommendation is to encourage the federal government to support open access publishing in French so that research papers can be found, read and disseminated by anyone with Internet access around the world. At the moment, open access research dissemination channels are limited, leading to significant barriers to pursuing a research career, particularly for francophones. For example, the scope and outreach of their knowledge is limited, and their achievements are undervalued by research assessment systems and by their universities' promotion committees.

We therefore propose that a fund be established for open access, in order to lower the costs of publishing open access books and papers, and to broaden their scope.

The fund would include financing for simultaneous publication in both official languages of open access research to attract a wider readership. This would support a dynamic community of francophone researchers and enhance the dissemination of research in French, while allowing for interaction with a broader English-speaking public.

Investment in open access publication would contribute to the dissemination of research in French in Canada and around the world, and also contribute to the vitality of the francophone research community in the digital era. As a bilingual country, Canada should be setting an example.

To conclude, I'd like to point out that humanities researchers publish essential research in French. Investing in talent development and open science will help make them more influential and broaden the scope of their work on behalf of our community.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Professor Pilote.

We will now go to Mr. Benoit Sévigny for five minutes, please.

[Benoit Sévigny, Director of Communications, Fonds de recherche du Québec]

Good evening to the members of the Standing Committee on Science and Research.

I'm here today representing Fonds de recherche du Québec, whose chief executive officer is Quebec's chief scientist. Three government organizations report to the minister responsible for science. There is a fund for each major research sector: social sciences and humanities, health sciences, and natural sciences and engineering. This resembles the structure for federal research councils.

The Fonds' mandates are to support: research groups and projects; education and research, through master's, doctoral and postdoctoral grants; partnerships development, from the local to the international level; and dissemination.

English is now the leading language of science around the world. As the bibliometric data show, the trend towards the anglicization of science has been in evidence for several decades now.

Web of Science, an exceedingly reliable database of world citations, shows that between 1980 and 2020, a 40-year period, the percentage of natural sciences and engineering papers published in French has dropped from approximately 4% to 0.1% worldwide, from 3% to 1% in Canada, and from 14% to 0.25% in Quebec. The results of the work done by Vincent Larivière, the Canada Research Chair in the Transformations of Scholarly Communication at the Université de Montréal, show similar results for scientific publications by Quebec researchers in international health science journals. For social sciences and the humanities, the percentage published in French is somewhat higher, but here too, the trend is towards anglicization.

The internationalization of research has an impact. The percentage of Quebec publications jointly written by at least one scientist from another country went from 35% in 2000 to 60% in 2019. In order of importance, Quebec's three main collaborating countries are the United States, France and Great Britain.

The goal is not so much to try to compete with science in English, but to promote science in French and enhance research and publication in French. Science in French, or in any other language, is just as important as science in English. English may well be the common language, but it rests on linguistic diversity. If language, which is tied to a region's or a country's culture, shapes our view of the world, then it must be acknowledged that it is in our best interests to promote linguistic diversity to make science richer in terms of perspectives, outcomes and impacts. While science in Quebec may be considered local compared to the rest of the world, its impacts and outcomes are nevertheless important to the people of Quebec, particularly in the social sciences and humanities, where the focus is contextualized in terms of Quebec realities.

Science in French can bank on 300 million francophones on five continents, and this number is expected to grow to 700 million by the year 2050.

As a research fund, we promote science in French through our scholarship and granting programs. As a result of our support, some 40 academic social science and humanities journals have for many years now been published and included on the Érudit journal platform.

To raise awareness of publications in French, we launched a competition in 2021 through which, every month, three French-language publications each receive a prize from us of $2000. We recently opened the competition to students to encourage the next generation to publish in French.

In 2012, we established the Relève étoile awards, awarded to three students every month, one in each sector, for one of their publications. During the first 24 months of the competition, 17 of the 72 publications that were awarded the prize were in French, whereas over the past 24 months, in 2021 and 2022, only two of the 72 were in French. That's another sign of the decline of French in science.

Quebec's chief scientist is the president of the International Network for Governmental Science Advice, a network of chief scientists and scientific advisors from around the world, in which English is the predominant language of work. That's why, under his direction, the launch of the Réseau francophone international en conseil scientifique will be announced on November 3.

In view of the importance of science in French, we will be organizing a two-day forum in the spring to take stock of the situation and determine the best ways of promoting science in French.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you so very much, Director Sévigny.

Thank you to all our witnesses. This is a really important study and we're very glad to have your expertise here.

We are going to go to our first round of questions. We will begin with Mr. Soroka. These are six-minute rounds.

Mr. Soroka, the floor is yours.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses, especially to the two who are here in person. It's great to see some people for a change, as opposed to seeing everybody on Zoom.

As we're going through this study, I'm not opposed to anything we're doing. We're trying to find out how we can create better French research in Canada. One of my concerns, though, is that it sounds like, because science and research are done internationally a lot of times....

What are other countries doing to promote the French language? As Mr. Cannings said, in France, they're even changing significantly toward English. That's what I'm concerned about. What are other countries doing?

I'm sure that what we're doing here in Canada will assist, but are the researchers still going to publish in French when, internationally, they might not get the same kinds of awards or recognition?

My first question would be to Mr. Normand and Ms. Pilote. What's your opinion on that?

That's for whichever of you would like to start off first.

[Martin Normand]

Thank you for the question.

I'll be brief.

I would say that Canada doesn't have to lag behind other countries. Every country whose national language is not English is looking for ways of keeping research alive in their national language. As our colleagues in the previous group of witnesses were saying, when research is carried out in English with a view to universality, the specific contexts covered by research in the national language are lost.

Other countries are looking for approaches. Canada needs to find one too. It needs to demonstrate leadership, including in the international Francophonie, in which it is a major player. It must confirm and reaffirm that French is an international language, a scientific language, and a language that can also be used in scientific diplomacy.

[Annie Pilote]

Thank you for the question.

It's clearly a strong trend, and we won't be able to counter it completely. On the other hand, the comparison with France is flawed. France is a country where French is of course used by the majority. All its researchers are subject to the same imperatives.

The situation is different in Canada. There are two groups of researchers within the Canadian research community, and they are not subject to the same imperatives or conditions. The ground rules promote one group at the expense of the other. There is an equity issue in research produced in Canada. Francophone researchers and future generations of francophones must be able to pursue a career in research.

This means that researchers need appropriate conditions if they are to develop and learn how to help build a body of significant knowledge for their environment. They also need opportunities to disseminate their research, but not exclusively in French. They require favourable conditions for a broad dissemination of their efforts, and they should not be responsible for shouldering these tasks.

That's why we suggested encouragement for open publication, with free access in both languages. Researchers shouldn't be communicating with one another in a vacuum. We want their research findings to be widely disseminated.

With the forms of communications available to us today, it's clearly possible to disseminate research results in both languages at the same time. Researchers doing their work in French, however, can of course avail themselves of translation services. They shouldn't have to produce papers in both languages on their own.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you for that.

That's what I was concerned about. With our technology today, you wouldn't think this would be such a barrier, and we would be able to be a lot better at integrating researchers with one another, regardless of the languages they speak. I'm surprised that we're having this debate, to some degree.

I'm glad that Bill C-13 will probably take care of a lot of concerns. It seems like the other people who were asked that question don't need to see any real changes to Bill C-13, so that's good to hear as well. I'm sure you probably agree that it should be passed as soon as possible.

Mr. Sévigny, you mentioned that you also have a francophone research group that's working with other countries. Could you elaborate on how that will assist us here in Canada to get more francophone or French research papers published, not only here in Canada but worldwide, and with better recognition?

[Benoit Sévigny]

Are you alluding to an international group?

I'm not sure I understand your question.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

You mentioned that you were part of an international francophone group and that you were doing a seminar. Is that correct, or did I misunderstand that?

[Benoit Sévigny]

I had mentioned that Quebec's chief scientist was the president of the International Network for Governmental Science Advice. For several years now, he has been pointing out that most discussions are in English, and that this network is more prominent in Anglo-Saxon circles.

He is convinced that talking about science, and advising elected representatives, in a specific language, incorporates certain values. That's why he decided to establish a francophone network for scientific advice. Its purpose is to provide better advice to governments, in French for example, for francophone countries.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Okay. That's what I was talking about.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Mr. Soroka.

Now we will go to Monsieur Lauzon for six minutes.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Good evening.

I'd like to thank Mr. Normand, Ms. Pilote and Mr. Sévigny for their testimony.

Mr. Normand, you sparked my interest when you mentioned content disseminated outside Canada. Your emphasis was on the quality of translation from French to English.

Can you comment on the quality of translation into English of research work carried out in French for dissemination in other countries?

[Martin Normand]

I'd like to mention two points in connection with that.

The problem isn't particularly the translation from French to English. It's rather that when researchers decide to work in English in order to publish findings in major scholarly journals, they choose to work on more universal research topics of interest to a broader public, rather than on more specific research areas that might resonate more specifically in certain communities.

It is in fact possible to measure the extent of English-language scientific publications in major scientific journals. However, although they are very influential, they are neither read nor cited all that often. On the other hand, French papers published in local journals, and which have local relevance, are often more widely read, more frequently used, and more often cited. That's why it's important not to lose sight of the specific nature of the research subjects discussed in French.

In connection with translation into English, I'd like to point out that in some disciplines, even when francophone researchers publish in English, their anglophone colleagues don't cite them or read them. We have very accurate data on this.

As Ms. Pilote was saying, research communities operate in silos. There may also be unconscious bias based on the fact that publications by francophone researchers are often on more specific and less universal subjects, making them less widely relevant.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

I can understand that.

Mr. Sévigny, you said that Fonds de recherche du Québec wanted to do a better job of promoting and enhancing publications in French. However, you never mentioned the Official Languages Act or Bill C-13.

Are you in favour of Bill C-13?

Do you feel that this legislation might help to promote and enhance publication in French?

[Benoit Sévigny]

I'm not very familiar with Bill C-13. I think it might, however, help to promote science in French.

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Okay.

You also caught my attention when you spoke about the Relève étoile awards. Many witnesses have mentioned the importance of acknowledging research carried out in French. You said that each award was accompanied by a grant of $2,000.

Speak to us about funding and how it would benefit researchers?

Do you think it would be possible to improve this funding program?

[Benoit Sévigny]

The purpose of the Relève étoile awards, established some 10 years ago by the chief scientist, is to promote the publications and careers of the next generation of researchers. Each award is assigned on the basis of a single publication. The competition has been functioning extremely well, and three awards are granted each month. We have noted, however, that more publications submitted to our evaluation committees are written in English than in French. This is indicative of a shift towards English.

In connection with publications in French, the chief scientist last year introduced an award for researchers who publish in French. This year, the competition was extended to include students in order to encourage them to write and publish in French. It is open not only to students, but also researchers within the francophonie across Canada .

[Stéphane Lauzon, Liberal, Argenteuil—La Petite-Nation, QC]

Right. Thank you very much.

Ms. Pilote, according to my research, four companies account for over 40% of the academic journals publication market. These are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley-Blackwell and Taylor & Francis.

According to you, what impact does this concentration of publishing companies have on francophone scholarly literature in Canada?

[Annie Pilote]

Our proposal aims specifically at distancing ourselves from this scholarly publication business to further encourage open publication. We are convinced that in future, research in French and the dissemination of knowledge in French will have to be accomplished by means of open science.

The only obstacle is the shortage of funding. Financial support is needed to enable researchers to publish their research findings so that members of the general public can have access to them, no matter where they are, even if they don't have access to university libraries.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

I'm sorry to interrupt, Professor Pilote.

Thank you very much, Monsieur Lauzon.

With that, we will go to Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas for six minutes.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to welcome the witnesses who are joining us for the second hour of the committee meeting.

Ms. Pilote, one of the things I found interesting is your idea of funding for open access publishing. Nevertheless, I'd like to look at any potential downside.

The committee heard earlier from Professor Sylvie Lamoureux, the Canada Research Chair in Language Management at the OLBI, the Official Languages and Bilingualism Institute. Among other things, she told us that the creation of the Érudit platform was a major step forward and that it was absolutely essential if we are to gain recognition for scholarly publications in French, both in Canada and internationally.

She felt, however, that the platform had some limitations, not only because of the precarious status of Canadian scholarly journals, but also because of their limited readership.

I'd like to know whether, even with the introduction of this open access platform to allow free access to publications in French and English, these limitations would arise in your area.

The professor told us that language was more than just words, but also culture and a way of thinking.

How can we arrange to obtain this open access publishing tool, which could assist and improve scientific research and publication in French in Canada?

[Annie Pilote]

I don't have all the answers on what form the open access publication process might take for research work. What we do know is that we need to look into solutions that become available to make research findings available.

However, you are altogether right when you say that it's not simply a matter of translation; hence the importance of being able to promote contacts between these intellectual areas which, all too often, remain in silos. Sometimes, concepts are very badly translated from one language to another. That's something else that puts francophone researchers at a disadvantage when the time comes to submit things like research proposals in French to obtain funding. They find themselves criticized for not citing the right authors or not using the proper concepts, because others are considered authorities in their particular scientific and intellectual spheres.

Ideas go well beyond the issue of translation. Ways have to be found to convey these intellectual domains. I believe it's possible to do so through more communication in both languages and more areas where communities can intersect, even though they currently don't speak much to one another.

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

Thank you, Ms. Pilote.

Can you give us more details about how language affects research?