Science and Research Committee on Sept. 15th, 2025

[Grace Karram]

Political affiliation is a serious concern right now, but there are many other indicators and factors that allow us to identify groups. We are social scientists. We do well at creating metrics and following them. It is not impossible to create effective selection criteria that allow us to protect people's political affiliations—right now, we have a lot of things that are politically sensitive—but, at the same time, allow us to identify first-generation Canadians and those from groups that are not well represented in the academy and to say to them that these factors will prioritize their research so that this important issue can get on the ground.

If our application systems are so limited that our researchers are scared, we do need to re-evaluate that. Is it just EDI, or is it that we don't have a robust system of academic freedom right now that protects academics overall?

I do think that we have to make sure that these people who are coming in with high skills.... This is well documented in the medical sciences, the limitations to transitioning to Canada and to employment. We want to do the same thing for our Ph.D.s in all disciplines to make sure that we have programming that isn't EDI for the sake of faces and tokenism but that is taking people with skills and helping them transition those skills to Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We will now proceed to MP McKelvie.

MP McKelvie, you will have five minutes for your round of questions. Please go ahead.

[Jennifer McKelvie, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

We think of research as the time you start the experiment until the time you end the experiment. However, there is a lot that happens before that, and there's a lot that happens after that.

On the research funding criteria—which was the actual basis of this study and why we brought you here—I heard some great comments earlier. I'm hoping you can elaborate on that around knowledge mobilization and uptake and how we should be including, or not including, that in research criteria for awarding.

I'll start with you, Dr. Cobey.

[Kelly Cobey]

It's difficult to answer this question generally, because we have such a range of research activities in this country. There are some people who are doing purely discovery-based research. There are others who are doing community-based research, for instance, that sometimes lends itself very well to immediate translation in those communities.

We need to ask our researchers what they intend to do and understand from them and their community, through consultation, what the indicators for success might be. In some areas, immediate impact on communities, policy and the like, and mobilization in that way are some things that may be relevant. In others, that's going to be less relevant. I think we need to open up the conversations with our disciplines to consider how we define research excellence with a discipline-specific lens.

[Jennifer McKelvie, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Following up on that, I was previously an NSERC committee member for assessing applications. NSERC has a wide variety of programs. There's discovery, which is very fundamental and science-based, but then they had.... I was on the selection committees for something that was more applied, where there was knowledge mobilization. In your expert opinion, should we be having different grants and programs with different objectives?

[Kelly Cobey]

Yes, I think so. If we have mission-driven goals in this country, the incentives and rewards for achieving those goals may differ, and where they differ, we need to appropriately create the incentives.

I'll give the example of AI, which I mentioned before. In order to do AI, you need large quantities of data. We have large quantities of data that are siloed by individual researchers and their institutions. If there's a mission-driven goal to achieve that, one of the things we might want to think about incentivizing is data management, data sharing, and responsible consideration of privacy versus openness in how we approach that. I think that if we want to move toward specific mission-driven goals, we have to be considerate about how to appropriately incentivize those in that context.

[Jennifer McKelvie, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Okay. That's great.

My next question is for Dr. Karram.

My question is around curiosity and questions. We just spoke about and heard about knowledge mobilization and uptake, but I'm wondering about that curiosity and asking the right questions. In that respect, I was wondering if you could speak to where EDI might be important around that.

[Grace Karram]

Well, from the very outset, as soon as we have people from different walks of life in a room, we have different ideas. This is, I think, the nature of diversity. One of the really fascinating things we're looking at right now is models of student retention using large datasets with AI. AI cannot recognize certain groups of people, because its creators did not make it representative. As soon as we have different people sitting at the table, all of those things get corrected.

The research questions we come up with can be as global as the community we have. Right now we have major issues facing the globe. We have migration, poverty and climate change, and the students who sit in my classrooms—my doctoral students—have lived this. Their questions are at the cutting edge. They're not old and stale. They are the things we need to listen to. Curiosity is at the heart of community, I think.

[Jennifer McKelvie, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

As a follow-up to that, do you have examples of where we've gone wrong? I lean toward the medical community and not having enough diversity there to identify diseases that affect certain groups more, proportionally, and investment in those different things. Do you have examples of where a lack of diversity at the table has really set us back?

[Grace Karram]

When we look at the amazing research that's happening in our colleges, which needs to be funded more strongly, we have this applied research that is looking at how work-integrated learning, for instance, is able to build curriculum, and we're getting a much faster pipeline from post-secondary into the labour market. That's really important.

When we have people sitting at the table who've worked in other jurisdictions, they begin to make these networks. Right now, we have incredible programs happening at a few of our community colleges where we're making links to institutions in other nations. Canada plays both a development role and a learning role in seeing how places with strong, robust technical education can move forward.

The sharing of best practices internationally is one of the most effective ways to improve your post-secondary sector, which, again, is at the heart of your research. It goes wrong when we have people who have worked in only one small community, where they are. They've done an effective job, but they haven't included the diverse voices of, say, the international students—

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I'm sorry for interrupting, but the time is up.

[Jennifer McKelvie, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

We will now proceed to Mr. Blanchette-Joncas for two and a half minutes.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

My next question is for Ms. Cobey.

You mentioned earlier that the application of the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment, or DORA, was quite robust. However, the three granting agencies took six years to apply the DORA.

After such a six-year delay, how can you say that the application is robust enough? In my opinion, there is instead a lack of leadership or vision. Can you also confirm how many universities in Canada have signed DORA?

[Kelly Cobey]

Thank you for your question.

Can I clarify? The translation trailed off at the end. How many universities in Canada signed...?

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

How many universities in Canada have signed DORA?

[Kelly Cobey]

I don't know the exact number of universities. There are over 65 organizations. Some of them may not be universities. They may be publishers or funders.

Yes, we signed in 2019. My understanding is that part of the delay in implementation was due to the pandemic. However, I know of no jurisdiction in this world that is done with responsible research assessment implementation, and I don't think it's something we would ever want to be done. I think that as a federal government we will always want to be monitoring, evaluating and improving how we assess research excellence in this country and how we fund research.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

The answer is that only six universities in Canada have signed the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment. I think that can certainly lead to a hypothesis, which I'd like you to clarify for me. Does maintaining traditional indicators benefit certain actors? Does that contribute to why Canadian organizations are taking so long to join DORA?

[Kelly Cobey]

I think we don't judge the signature as the be-all and end-all to an institution's view on reforming research assessment. There are many parallel change movements that exist in our community beyond DORA that have similar messaging.

As I mentioned earlier.... For instance, I know of organizations in this country that have reached out, with senior leadership, and they're going ahead with reforming research assessment without signing DORA. There's no requirement to sign DORA to begin this approach in one's work.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you.

With that, we will end the round of questioning.

Thank you to all the witnesses for appearing today and providing important testimony. If there is anything you want to bring to the attention of the committee members that you were not able to address because of limited time, you can always send written submissions to the clerk of the committee. Once you do that, those submissions will be circulated to all members of the committee and will be taken into consideration at the time of the drafting of the report.

I really want to thank all the witnesses.

Do I have the consent of the members to adjourn the meeting?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Okay. The meeting is adjourned.