Science and Research Committee on April 18th, 2024

[Céline Poncelin de Raucourt]

Thank you.

Going back to the recent increase in the number and value of scholarships—which we are absolutely delighted about—we will need to pay careful attention to the way these new funds are distributed. If they are used only to further concentrate funding, it will not improve the system.

A year or two ago, we held discussions with the granting agencies, and it was pointed out that the majority of graduate students fund their studies through scholarships paid by researchers from the grants they receive. Again, for scholarship programs, we will need to ensure that these new scholarships are distributed equitably, not based on quotas that stem from success rates for research grants, as is currently the case. The institutions where the most research funds are concentrated have the largest quotas for recruiting graduate students, so they are always concentrated in the same institutions.

We need to change that way of thinking. Our colleagues at the Canadian Association for Graduate Studies were recommending that funding be proportional to the number of graduate students. Moreover, we need to better support the vast majority of students who are supported by their supervisors through their research grants. That means also increasing the budgets of the three agencies so that they can increase the grants given through their core programs. That's my answer to your question on scholarships.

You also asked me how the smaller institutions could carve out a bigger place for themselves. The matter of the resources institutions have to respond to calls and participate in partnerships is critical. Small and medium-sized institutions have small teams that have to manage an incredible number of programs, know the rules and scramble to help the teams of researchers carry out very ambitious projects, often within very tight deadlines. We have to make sure that all institutions have equivalent means.

[Valerie Bradford, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

I'm sorry. My time is almost up.

Can you give us an idea of how master's and doctoral students fund their studies at institutions that receive less research funding?

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Very briefly, please.

[Céline Poncelin de Raucourt]

When they are not funded through grants, they are forced to find jobs on or off campus. We know that when students work a certain number of hours outside their studies, it has a negative impact on their ability to stay in school and graduate.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you very much.

We have Mr. Blanchette-Joncas for six minutes. Thank you for getting these witnesses to us today.

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

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to welcome the witnesses who are joining us for the second hour of our meeting on this very important study. My first questions are for Ms. Poncelin de Raucourt.

In your presentation, you very eloquently explained that the funding granted to francophone institutions was less than their demographic weight. I'd like you to tell us more about the effects of the concentration of federal funding and its impact on francophone communities.

[Céline Poncelin de Raucourt]

Actually, the Université du Québec has long been concerned about the decline of French in Canada, particularly in science, where the decline is especially pronounced. You have likely seen a lot of data published about the fact that, since the 1960s, barely 8% of scholarly journals created in Canada have been in French.

In the natural sciences, engineering and health fields, there are virtually no options for publishing research findings in French. As a result 90% of publications in those fields are in English, not to mention that only 5% to 12% of applications submitted to the granting agencies are written in French. Historically, the success rate for funding applications submitted in French is lower than for applications submitted in English. I could go on at length about the inequalities.

To answer your question, even among the U15 group there are only two francophone institutions, and neither of them is part of the Université du Québec or the Alliance of Canadian Comprehensive Research Universities. Meanwhile, the Université du Québec is the largest francophone university network in Canada and shares the rest of the pie, as we said earlier, with the other institutions.

To summarize, as noted in the brief from the Association francophone pour le savoir, Canadian research conducted in French is crucial for the vitality and development of francophone minority communities. For francophone communities to thrive, they need to develop knowledge about themselves, and the most appropriate language in which to do so is French. They also have to train a highly qualified workforce in their own language. Through research, institutions connect with their communities to better serve them. When research funding is concentrated, all of that is at risk.

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

Thank you for that.

I will continue with you, Ms. Poncelin de Raucourt.

We often hear from the U15 universities that Canada's system for evaluating funding applications is based strictly on the merit of researchers, and that it is cited around the world.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on that.

[Céline Poncelin de Raucourt]

In no way are we questioning the integrity of the people involved in the evaluation process. We are confident that the administrative staff and evaluators all act ethically, in compliance with the code of ethics and values of the granting agencies.

What we are questioning is the public policy choices that have led to a funding system that tends toward a concentration of funds. Among these choices are granting programs designed to heavily fund a smaller number of projects. They assign points to researchers and institutions based on the amount of funding they have received in the past or even on the outlay of institutions, which is more closely related to their wealth than to the excellence of the project or program.

When merit is based more on the funding amount already received than on the impact of previous research on the community, we lose sight of the purpose of science, which is to improve the living conditions of human communities. We need to rethink this automatic association of excellence with concentration of funding.

The value of a researcher is not measured by the funding amount they have been granted. Instead, we should take into account the impact of their findings on the scientific community.

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

Thank you.

My next question is for Mr. Larivière.

Mr. Larivière, what you said today is quite important. The U15 group's argument is that its members are research-intensive institutions that have access to infrastructure and expertise, as well as talent.

However, you say that in terms of efficiency, public funds invested in these institutions do not necessarily translate into higher productivity or more contributions to scientific publications, because of the impact of the research that is done.

Can you please tell us more about that?

[Dr. Vincent Larivière]

That is indeed is true.

Basically, the data shows—and I'm not the one saying this, it's the data—that it ultimately costs more to produce papers at universities that receive more funding.

That said, there may be reasons for this, and the issue deserves to be studied scientifically. The results are intriguing and we need to study them more in order to understand them better.

As I mentioned earlier, we need to dig deeper into this. On the one hand, we have to try to understand the factors that explain those results. On the other hand, we need to ensure an optimal uneven distribution of funding across the country so as to maximize collective benefits.

In addition, as Ms. Poncelin de Raucourt said, we have to make sure we understand the various facets of Canadian society, and that means diversifying the places where we conduct research.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Thank you very much.

Now we'll go to Mr. Cannings for six minutes.

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

Thank you.

I'd like to continue on with Dr. Larivière to talk about the issue of diminishing returns. If we want to expand the number of grants provided to Canadian researchers, especially to smaller institutions, there comes a point at which we get diminishing returns, because if the grant is so small that the researcher can't really do their research, it's basically a waste of money, I would say.

I know your results seem preliminary, but do you have any idea of what a rough minimum for a grant would be? I know it might differ among research fields, but where do you think that lower limit might be?

[Dr. Vincent Larivière]

Thank you very much for your question.

Yes, that's an interesting subject. I would remind you that, in Canada, we have the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, or NSERC, whose funding model is different from that of other funding agencies in Canada and elsewhere in the world.

Essentially, NSERC funds a much higher proportion of researchers than other funding agencies. Obviously, the amounts allocated are lower, but they still allow a professor to have, for example, a small team made up of a postdoctoral fellow and a doctoral candidate. You could say that NSERC provides a financial base for scientists.

If we want to provide a minimum amount of funding, the way NSERC operates gives us a model. So there are examples out there that work well.

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

Do you think the NSERC model would work better if it was copied in SSHRC, for instance?

[Dr. Vincent Larivière]

I believe that we need to explore this.

People often say that social sciences cost less, but they cost less because the decision was made to pay students a pittance. However, in reality, there is no reason why a student in the sciences should be paid more than a student in the social sciences and humanities. Earlier, we talked about how students survive when they are not funded. Many students in the social sciences and humanities are not surviving, even in the big universities. So they have to find a job outside the university, which hardly ever happens in the fields of medicine and natural sciences.

In my opinion, it would be interesting to explore the NSERC model, but it would mean increasing the budget of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the SSHRC.

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

Madame Poncelin de Raucourt, can you comment on that, as well? You talked about the need to provide more funding to more researchers. Where might that limit be? Could you expand on that?

[Céline Poncelin de Raucourt]

My answer is along the same lines as Mr. Larivière's.

We often look at the model used by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, or NSERC. There is also the fact that it helps a pretty good chunk of the research community achieve a certain success rate, which encourages innovation.

Rather than looking at disincentives or incentives in terms of concentrating research, we must also consider how research communities are supported throughout their lifetimes. New researchers as well as mid-career and late-career researchers must be taken into account.

In addition to looking at the amounts provided by research grants, we will also have to look at what type of support is provided to institutions. As stated previously, researchers or research teams can do the work, and they do it even better if they are supported by teams. Then there are the laboratory technicians and professionals, who often have precarious working conditions, but who are nevertheless essential to carrying out research and maintaining infrastructure, be it in the sciences or in the humanities and social sciences. As Mr. Larivière pointed out, it is wrong to say that the humanities and social sciences have no infrastructure. Researchers in the social sciences and humanities count on an increasing number of databases and artificial intelligence.

A researcher must be supported by an ecosystem, by a team made up of research professionals and lab technicians, but also people working on the administrative side. These people support researchers by managing budgets and putting together grant applications, which allows researchers to focus on their main activity.

I would like to give an example of an important issue related to research, i.e., national security. The federal government has provided funding to support institutions in their efforts to ensure the security of their research. However, the way the money was distributed still favours concentration, because it was based on the total funding handed out by the grants councils. So the University of Toronto has received huge amounts of money, but smaller institutions have received $2,000 in funding and sometimes nothing at all to support the expertise required to ensure the security of the research being done.

This shows that resources are distributed inequitably, and this places a disproportionate burden on researchers at small institutions compared to those at bigger institutions, which are supported by a slew of professionals and experts.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

Great. Thank you very much.

We have Mr. Soroka for five minutes, please.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll start off with Ms. Poncelin de Raucourt.

In light of your focus on optimizing resource allocation, what sustainable funding models has the Université du Québec developed to reduce dependency on federal funding? Can you please provide examples of where these models have successfully supported research and teaching initiatives?

[Céline Poncelin de Raucourt]

Could you repeat the question, Mr. Soroka? I didn't get the translation.

[The Chair, Liberal, Lloyd Longfield]

I've paused the time.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Thank you.

In light of your focus on optimizing resource allocation, what sustainable funding models has the Université du Québec developed to reduce dependency on federal funding? Can you provide examples where these models have successfully supported research and teaching initiatives?

[Céline Poncelin de Raucourt]

Indeed, within the Université du Québec network, more and more research is being done in partnership with all kinds of stakeholders.

For example, more than 40% of the total amount of research funding comes from private partners or organizations. More and more, our institutions are positioning themselves in their community. So they work with their community and their research is funded by their community.

I have another example. We are pooling our efforts and expertise. Institutions are working together to develop shared tools and become more independent. However, this is not the only solution. Each institution must also have the means to be able to meet its challenges. It's about the agility of each institution.

[Gerald Soroka, Conservative, Yellowhead, AB]

Given the initiatives pursued at your university, such as digital competency and mental health projects, how do you measure and report on returns on investment to funding bodies? What has the impact of the initiatives been on both student outcomes and broader academic contributions?