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.