Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning, everyone.
Thank you very much for the opportunity to appear before you today.
I want to, first of all, thank you again for all your work to enhance science and research in Canada.
My remarks today focus on the awarding of research funding by the federal granting agencies to Canada's post-secondary institutions. From time to time throughout the history of federal funding for research, this topic has arisen, characteristically when research support has not kept pace with growing expectations for Canada's research ecosystem.
As you know, U15 Canada is composed of the 15 leading research-intensive universities, which came together in 2012 to create an association dedicated to helping advance research and innovation policies and programs for the benefit of all Canadians. U15 Canada's focus on federal research-related activities complements the work of other associations and explains why we are pleased to be founding members of the Coalition for Canadian Research.
Canadians are rightly proud that we are home to world-class universities competing on the global stage. These universities act as domestic research hubs. They play leading roles in providing industry leaders, policy-makers and governments with access to the global pool of knowledge and to highly qualified, talented people who drive innovation across all sectors.
In many cases, research-intensive universities act as catalysts in Canada's entire diversified research ecosystem, which includes not only universities, but also research hospitals, colleges, polytechnics and other organizations.
For example, research projects funded by the Canada first research excellence fund in 2022 include 11 projects, with six involving U15 members collaborating with 18 additional institutions. Such collaborations are common in all granting programs, as illustrated by research on the environment. For example, a CFI-funded project now includes top researchers from the University of Waterloo, the University of Alberta and Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, who are studying contamination in waste management and hoping to devise cost-effective solutions.
In another example, the transforming climate action project is a major initiative led by Dalhousie University with Université du Québec à Rimouski, Université Laval and Memorial University.
It is essential to emphasize that the awarding of all research grants follows a rigorous, independent, non-partisan, merit review process involving scholars, scientists, engineers and other experts across campuses, industry and government. Canadians can be rightly proud that federal support for researchers is based on the individual merit of their work as determined by independent experts, with no preference based on the institution of the applicants. The rigorous merit review processes at the federal granting agencies have been continually updated to reflect insights and evidence about how best to make the difficult decisions to fund specific applications.
Canada is internationally recognized for its best practices in the assessment of scholarly and scientific research. Recently, the Bouchard report made recommendations for enhancing the awarding of interdisciplinary, international and mission-driven research grants. We look forward to the government's response.
The most important factor in our discussions today, however, is the increasing gap between the available funding and the growing expectations for and potential of Canada's research and innovation ecosystem. As a result, researchers from all institutions compete for insufficient funds. For this reason, U15 Canada enthusiastically supports the Bouchard report's recommendations to increase the annual core budgets of the granting councils, as well as to provide globally competitive support for graduate students and post-doctoral fellows.
A major federal investment in the research ecosystem would better support research activities in institutions of all sizes and mandates. For this reason, the current erosion of research funding will undoubtedly be a central focus of your current study, as well as your committee's continued advocacy ahead of the forthcoming federal budget.
Thank you very much.
I am looking forward to our discussion.