Science and Research Committee on Feb. 15th, 2022

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

It's my pleasure, Mr. Hewitt. We agree that total available funding needs to increase as well.

You said your agency's share of the funding had gone up. Do you have more recent data on the proportion of research funding allocated by agency?

[Dr. Ted Hewitt]

Yes, absolutely.

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

How recent are the data, Mr. Hewitt?

[Dr. Ted Hewitt]

Those data are available, and we can share them with the committee.

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

I would like a written answer, please, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Hewitt.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Duly noted, Monsieur Blanchette-Joncas, and thank you for the questions.

You can really see the interest in the committee in this subject area, and we're so grateful to our witnesses.

We'll go to Mr. Cannings, for two and a half minutes.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you again, and I'll try to be quick.

We heard a lot about the co-operation and collaboration between the granting councils. How does that work? If I were a researcher trying to decide which of the councils to apply to...I think of my friend, Dr. Pieter Cullis, who developed the lipid nanoparticles that are an essential part of the mRNA vaccines, working at UBC. That's very basic research, but has some medical applications. I don't know whether Dr. Cullis applied to CIHR or NSERC, but are there some issues there, and how do you deal with them in the tri-councils?

I suppose anybody can answer. Dr. Hewitt has his hand up.

[Dr. Ted Hewitt]

It's an excellent question. For most researchers, they already know the answer. They know where they work. They know where their colleagues are, and they know with which agency they need to work.

We have developed a couple of mechanisms to assist those folks whose work tends to fall across the agencies. One is through the new frontiers in research fund, which has a strong interdisciplinary bent, and allows for projects to span across the research agencies. There are also other interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary funds that people can apply to, and there are programs within those funds.

One important thing I have to mention, though, is an initiative that was developed by the three agencies just recently to allow for researchers to apply to their normal agency where they would normally apply with highly interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary projects. These are now managed through a system called TAPER, which is the tri-agency initiative for merit review or peer review, where the projects can be assessed with reviewers from across the three agencies, and we've already received dozens of applications.

We're working hard to make this easier for folks to work across boundaries and across the three councils in a number of ways.

[Richard Cannings, NDP, South Okanagan—West Kootenay, BC]

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Mr. Cannings.

I'd like to thank all our witnesses. This was tremendous testimony. We thank you for your time and your expertise.

I'd also like to thank our members for their work tonight.

We will suspend to move to our second panel. We thank you all.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Good evening, everyone. We'd like to welcome you to this fifth meeting of the inaugural Standing Committee on Science and Research. We are looking forward to your testimony. We are grateful for your time, your effort and your expertise.

Tonight, we're pleased to have with us Dr. David Naylor, professor at the University of Toronto, who is appearing as an individual; from Brock University, Dr. Tim Kenyon, vice-president, research; and, from McMaster University, Dr. Karen Mossman, vice-president, research, and Dr. Gerry Wright, director of the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research.

With that, we will go to Dr. Naylor.

You will have five minutes, Dr. Naylor.

[Chad Collins, Liberal, Hamilton East—Stoney Creek, ON]

Madam Chair, just procedurally, I know that we have a vote later. I just wanted to find out whether we have unanimous consent to go through to 8:20 and then adjourn at that point in time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you, Mr. Collins. I will ask the committee.

Do we have unanimous consent to go through to 8:20?

[The Clerk of the Committee, Mr. Leif-Erik Aune]

Yes, Madam Chair. You have unanimous consent in Zoom and on the floor.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

That's terrific.

Thank you so much, Mr. Collins and committee.

We'll go over to Dr. Naylor for five minutes.

[Dr. David Naylor, Professor, University of Toronto, As an Individual]

Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I want to start by acknowledging your steadfast support for science and research over the last number of years. The leadership role you have played is greatly appreciated by the research community, I know.

I also want to thank all the members present for their public service.

Thank you for giving up yet another evening to the cause of your work. I feel privileged to be here with you. I hope to contribute usefully.

One of the points I'd like to make off the top, highlighted as well by my colleagues who are presidents of the granting agencies, is that science and research, where we focus on discoveries and downstream patents and the use of the ideas in civil society, is ultimately about people. It's about the next generation of talent and equipping subsequent generations of Canadians to lead and to make a difference in our country and in the world. What they get from advanced training in research, the discipline of science and scholarship, is a way of dealing with the world and understanding and shaping the world. It makes a massive difference to how this country unfolds in the decades ahead. It's an investment in the future.

It's also an investment in excellence and equity. It's not a cost centre. It bears enormous fruit, not just in terms of, if we think about it, commercialization or application, but because those individuals who are shaped by their participation in the research enterprise, whether they stay in the academy or move elsewhere into a whole variety of roles, make a huge difference to this country. The blend of competition and collaboration that characterizes cutting-edge research is I think so important, and in some ways very Canadian—that confluence of goals, of working together in common cause, but also seeking to excel, which I think is very important.

There is a great deal more I could say about where we are in terms of our funding situation. The competition is simply intense in ways that it's never been. I simply want to wrap up by sharing some benchmarks.

We have the huge COMPETES act happening in the great United States of America to our south. Germany is another peer nation. It's had 3% annual increases in research funding for a decade, and has now started a second decade of similar increases. That's 20 years at 3%, compounding at 60%, a roughly 80% increase over that period. Obviously, the U.K. has also been investing and has provided excellent coordination to an oversight mechanism that looks more like Quebec's current granting council mechanism.

So everyone is in this game. Canada has done extremely well. We've had great leadership in so many ways, but the bar has been raised. I think we have to meet it, and ideally surpass it, in the years ahead.

That's all, Madam Chair. Thank you for your time.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you so much, Dr. Naylor, for your testimony and for being here.

We will now go to Dr. Tim Kenyon, vice-president of research at Brock University.

You have five minutes, please.

[Dr. Tim Kenyon, Vice-President, Research, Brock University]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thanks for the opportunity to share some thoughts on science and research in Canada, from my perspective and my role, and on some successes, challenges and opportunities, all at a very high thematic level.

[Technical difficulty—Editor] Of course, there are many things that could be mentioned here, but research in Canada under its granting councils—

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

I'm sorry, Dr. Kenyon—

[Dr. Tim Kenyon]

—and we've heard from three of them, I think, just tonight, from SSHRC, NSERC and CIHR....

Yes?

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Dr. Kenyon, I'm going to stop you for a second and ask that you begin again. You were frozen and we missed what you had to say.

Please start again.

[Dr. Tim Kenyon]

Thank you. That wasn't a technical glitch. I just personally freeze sometimes. I'll try to keep that from happening.

Thank you for allowing me to be here. I'm going to speak about some successes, challenges and opportunities for Canada in science and research, but all at a very high, thematic level.

There are many things that could be mentioned here, but I'll begin by noting something that we do quite well in Canada. Research in Canada is well served by the four main federal granting councils. They are SSHRC, NSERC, and CIHR, which I believe you've heard from tonight, as well as the Canada Foundation for Innovation, which supports research and innovation infrastructure across all disciplines.

In my experience, these agencies are well managed. They're based on sound principles for supporting excellent in inquiry, with clear mandates and a close engagement with the research community. While historically, no element of the research and science ecosystem in Canada has done enough to address the exclusion of researchers who are indigenous, Black or otherwise of under-represented groups, these federal granting agencies are now helping to coordinate and facilitate a more deliberate and outcomes-based approach to diversity and research. Their roles and resources can be expanded with confidence. This is not because the agencies are perfect—I'm going to talk about something they could probably do a bit better—but because for agencies of their size, they are responsive to changing research needs and imperatives.

Of the many opportunities that exist for science and research in Canada, I would mention both big science and small science.

By “big science”, I simply note a key recommendation of the 2017 Fundamental Science Review. It's as compelling today as when it was written. Some infrastructure of critical importance to Canadian research is achievable only through committed federal support over its entire life cycle. Canada boasts a few such major research facilities that are represented directly in the federal budget, but we have not capitalized—at least not yet—on the opportunity to create a strategic system and long-term planning process for determining how major research initiatives are selected for that status. The Fundamental Science Review in recommendation 4.7 proposed a way of doing so. Whether it's that way or some other way, the opportunity for Canada is to have a carefully considered implementation of national science and research facilities that enable extraordinary discovery and might address some of the generational challenges that face humanity.

What about small science? At least half of the publicly funded university researchers in Canada work at universities that are considered medium-sized or smaller. Those outside of the very few largest cities in Canada tend to be medium-sized or smaller. These institutions are the sites of research excellence by any measure. They make good on a mandate that includes contributing to science and inquiry of universal value and interest. They also play an irreplaceable role in enhancing the economic, social and cultural vitality of the regions in which they exist. Their partnerships are more likely to be local, critical to the aspirations of regional industry and business, and informed by an expert understanding of their community partners. They are also very efficient at generating one of the most important and reliable forms of research impact, namely the impact of teaching when conducted by experts actively engaged in research. As one study's authors put it, “the 'many small' approach increases the teaching research interface, and it increases total productivity.”

Another opportunity for research in Canada is to find ways to leverage the capacity of small- to medium-sized research universities, at least in part by ensuring that their virtues are counted as virtues, and that they are appropriately resourced for that work.

Thanks again. My job is literally better than a dream job, because I get to facilitate the work of researchers doing things that I could not have dreamed of as a child. I see Canada delivering on its ambitions to support great research and scholarship. I think we can dream bigger still, and we may need to.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Thank you so much, Dr. Kenyon.

We will now go to McMaster University.

I don't know if it's Dr. Mossman or Dr. Wright, or if you are splitting the time, but you will have five minutes. It's over to you, please.

[Dr. Karen Mossman, Vice-President, Research, McMaster University]

Thank you, Madam Chair, and good evening and thank you, all, so much for the invitation.

My colleague, Dr. Gerry Wright, a renowned infectious disease expert and lead of Canada's Global Nexus for Pandemics and Biological Threats, and I are so very pleased to be here and to talk about one of our passions, science and research in Canada.

The pandemic has given us pause, a forced opportunity, if you will, to reassess the science and research ecosystem in Canada. I'm saying this not only as the head of McMaster's research enterprise but as a researcher whose lab has never been busier since March 2020.

Canada is home to some of the brightest researchers in the world and we have the capacity to achieve scientific breakthroughs to positively impact the world. From medicine to nuclear research, from combatting climate change to pioneering the next generation of mobility, Canada has incredible and untapped potential. We need to ensure we seize and maximize this potential for the benefit of Canadians and citizens around the world.

You've heard from previous witnesses about the challenges—and there are many—but we'd like to focus on the solutions and opportunities. In particular, we would like to offer a new model of research and development as a solution to overcome some of the barriers that we face. As one of Canada's most research-intensive universities, McMaster has long been at the forefront of innovation. Problem-based learning was developed at McMaster's medical school before being exported around the world. We are home to Canada's only major nuclear research reactor, opened more than six decades ago by Prime Minister Diefenbaker in 1959. We were ahead of our time then and we continue to be forward thinking.

Now we are leading the way with Canada's Global Nexus for Pandemics and Biological Threats, an ecosystem of its own of pandemic preparedness. We see the nexus model as a path forward for research in Canada that can unlock our potential across the country. Canada's global nexus will be transformative for the advancement of Canada's science and research ecosystem. The research being undertaken goes beyond the science of vaccines and pandemics. It brings together the best minds from across the country, from public health, government departments and relevant industries, and connects them with our research expertise. This ensures business, academia and government are aligned and connected, understand each other's needs, support one another's work, and collectively mobilize the knowledge needed to benefit Canadians.

Our model removes the barriers and boundaries, co-locating experts from all sectors to capitalize on the benefits of collaboration and coordination.

Canada's global nexus is already yielding results for Canadians but there is so much more we can do. Previously, this committee had asked witnesses why Canada was the only G7 country unable to rapidly produce a vaccine. The simple answer is that Canada was not prepared at the beginning of the pandemic. Over the last two years, through partnerships, government support and our vast reservoir of talent, Canadian-based organizations, including Canada's global nexus, have pivoted their research to begin clinical trials for COVID vaccines. Not only has Canada been able to catch up to our allies, but we are poised to surpass them. Indeed, our own inhaled vaccine, effective against COVID and other variants of concern, is currently in clinical trials.

While we may indeed have lost the short game, we're by no means out. It's just the opposite, in fact. We know that with the right combination of funding and our ability to leverage Canada's existing expertise, we can win the long game. Through research, we can keep Canada competitive. As a country, we need to embrace the kinds of research that are the hallmark of McMaster: interdisciplinary, connected and collaborative. We need to be creative to ensure we attract and retain the brightest thinkers. We have already been able to repatriate three top researchers back to Canada from the United States, improve IP development and keep Canadians safe with made-in-Canada solutions. This will require not only federal investment, but new solutions and approaches, such as the nexus model.

Future federal investments need to be made with a view to leveraging expertise and partnerships. With that in mind, we are asking the federal government to partner with us to accelerate this new and unique platform. Advancing Canada's global nexus now will not only advance the rapid development of vaccines and other therapeutics, but will allow us to train the much-needed highly qualified personnel and create numerous jobs and business opportunities for Canadians.

Importantly, it will provide the evidence upon which our government leaders and agencies can develop policies and informed decisions. This is a model that Canadians should champion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Kirsty Duncan]

Dr. Mossman, I'm sorry to interrupt. There's a group of very eager members of Parliament who I know will want to ask further questions.

Thank you.