Good evening.
Thank you very much for inviting me to testify before the committee.
I want to start by emphasizing how energizing it has been to see the leadership of the standing committee addressing Canada's challenges and opportunities for building a better future through science and research. Your recommendations this year propose promising and urgently needed steps forward for Canada in what I think we all agree are turbulent times.
In contributing to your work on international moon shot programs, I would like to focus on Canada’s potential to play a leadership role in global research networks. My main conclusion, however, is that we cannot realize this potential without immediate action to respond to the rapidly increasing international competition in science and research.
This international competition is particularly focused on the development of highly qualified talent through participation in world-class research projects in our leading research universities. While all research projects aim for significant breakthroughs, discoveries and insights, the development of talent in these research projects is the guaranteed result that is crucial in the short and long term both domestically and internationally. Developing top talent in research projects not only gives Canada access to the global pool of knowledge but also ensures a supply of highly qualified individuals who can drive innovation across all sectors.
As you know, the Canadian research community is among the most highly internationalized in the world. Not surprisingly, our granting agencies have pioneered promising models of international research funding in recent years.
For example, through the transatlantic platform funding opportunity, Canada showed other national governments and funding agencies a way around the established position that money doesn't cross borders for academic research. The recent joint call for research on recovery, renewal and resilience in a postpandemic world brings together 16 humanities and social science research funding agencies from 12 countries in South America, North America and Europe. Clearly, though, such sporadic initiatives must be elevated into a systematic national framework with structures and dedicated funding envelopes.
The good news is that the advisory panel on the federal research support system will soon be recommending governance and structural steps forward to support Canadian researchers in the global research enterprise and propose mechanisms to incorporate multidisciplinary perspectives and practices to address global challenges in moon shot programs and related initiatives. The bad news is that Canada is falling behind in having the funds to develop the required highly qualified talent through participation in research projects.
Increasingly, those outside Canada are puzzled by the current level of federal support for science and research in Canada. This past Friday, for example, the magazine Science, one of the world’s top academic journals, had a headline lamenting that “In Canada, scientists are struggling with stagnant funding”. The problem for Canada with stagnant funding is that the rest of the world is significantly increasing their investments based on the conviction that science and research must inform all efforts to confront global challenges.
Most immediately, we must respond to what is happening south of the border. Over the next five years, the CHIPS and Science Act in the United States will essentially double the base budget of the National Science Foundation. This massive funding will put enormous additional pressure on Canadian universities as they struggle to compete for and retain top research talent and the best graduate students. This and similar initiatives in other countries demand our immediate attention.
Canada now ranks at the bottom of G7 countries in the number of those with graduate degrees. Moreover, Canada ranks only 28th among OECD countries in the proportion of our population with graduate degrees. In other words, our talent-based innovation ecosystem has great potential domestically and internationally, but it is operating at a scale that is too small for the challenging 21st century.
In the case of international moon shot programs, Canada risks being overlooked as a partner when we have, in fact, the potential to play a global leadership role.
Thank you very much. I look forward to your questions and comments.