Thank you very much.
Good morning, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.
My name is Alejandro Adem. I am president of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, commonly known as NSERC. Thank you for this opportunity to appear before you for a third time to discuss this critical issue.
Let me introduce my colleagues, Manal Bahubeshi, vice-president of research partnerships, and Marc Fortin, vice-president of research grants and scholarships.
As you know from your recent study, talent underpins the health, well-being and economic success of our country. The pool of talent supported by NSERC and the other granting agencies plays a critical role in powering research, innovation and economic development in Canada.
NSERC directly supports around 7,000 students and post-doctoral fellows through scholarship and fellowship awards, and we indirectly support tens of thousands more through grants to researchers who use those grants to provide trainee stipends. This indirect support for talent is a component of all our programs, including partnered research and research taking place in colleges and communities across the country, and accounts for over $400 million per year.
It is important to note that the value of scholarships and fellowships offered by the granting agencies helps dictate research stipends and other kinds of compensation for trainees and fellows across the country. It is also a fact that the value of these awards has not changed substantially in a generation. For example, NSERC's doctoral award has remained almost constant at $21,000 per year since 2004. Considering inflation, the effective award value has dropped by 42% in this period.
This poses a real challenge to students when it comes to covering their basic costs of living. We know that disadvantaged students are more likely to accumulate debt during their undergraduate degree, and may find it challenging to continue on to master's and Ph.D. level programs if financial supports are not considered viable. We also know that we are losing top talent to other countries that are able to offer significantly higher award values.
NSERC constantly re-evaluates the balance between the number of student awards it offers and the monetary value of these awards.
Recent investments by the Government of Canada have enabled the granting agencies to increase the overall number of students they support through scholarship and fellowship awards. In 2019, 600 new Canada graduate scholarships were funded across the tri-agencies. The tri-agencies are rolling out funding from budget 2022 to support over 450 Black trainees from undergraduate awards through to post-doctoral fellowships.
NSERC also recently increased award values for the undergraduate student research awards program from $4,500 to $6,000.
Also, to help provide greater stability for Ph.D. students, NSERC, SSHRC and CIHR have increased the duration of the doctoral scholarships from two or three years for certain awardees to three years for all.
Looking ahead, under the direction of the Canada research coordinating committee, NSERC is leading the development of a tri-agency talent strategy, and a large-scale evaluation of our talent programming will be publicly released this fall. The granting agencies are actively working together to ensure that our talent programming is responsive to the needs of today and tomorrow, preparing trainees with the skills that will be needed in the workforce of the future, and positioning Canada as an internationally competitive country. As such, we are exploring opportunities to modernize and streamline our talent programs to make it easier for applicants to apply and to ensure that programs continue to meet their objectives, while also meeting the needs of each agency's distinct research communities.
The talent supported by NSERC and other granting agencies is the bedrock of Canada's research and innovation ecosystem, and needs to be adequately supported if we are to prepare our workforce of tomorrow with the skills that will help Canada remain internationally competitive.
Thank you for the chance to share my thoughts with you today. I would be pleased to answer any questions you have.