Thank you, Madam Chair, for giving me the opportunity to speak today.
I am here to speak to whether modifications should be made to the criteria used for awarding federal funding for research at the three federal granting agencies: NSERC, CIHR and SSHRC.
I should begin by saying that I am not a disinterested observer. My career has benefited immensely from receiving SSHRC awards as a graduate student and as a political science professor. I believe that federally funded granting agencies are vital to the development of high-quality research and a thriving post-secondary sector in Canada.
With that said, I am here to discuss a major concern with respect to the funding criteria at the three granting agencies: the creeping integration of principles of equity, diversity and inclusion, EDI, into those agencies' remit.
Earlier this year, I conducted a study for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute on EDI at Canada's three granting agencies. My report, which is the first quantitative study of tri-council research grants that I'm aware of, found that EDI has become infused into these granting agencies, particularly SSHRC and CIHR, and that an increasingly large share of SSHRC grants have been awarded to activist EDI projects. Examples of EDI at the agencies include an EDI action plan for all three agencies; mandatory diversity and bias training modules for applicants and peer reviewers; specialized EDI grants framed in activist language, such as the shifting dynamics of privilege and marginalization grant; and CIHR's new definition of research excellence that urges research to be “anti-racist, anti-ableist, and anti-colonial in approach and impact”.
Now, troublingly, I found that granting agencies use equity, diversity and inclusion in different ways at different times to mean different things. Sometimes it is what I call mild EDI, which merely encourages diverse perspectives in research and which I broadly support. Other times, the term “EDI” is simply used as a synonym for affirmative action. However, I found that granting agencies' EDI language increasingly reflects what I call activist EDI, whereby the terms “equity”, “diversity” and “inclusion” are used to advance the particular political agenda of social justice activism—in the words of Professor Eric Kaufmann, who I believe is speaking later today—“to overthrow systems of structural racism, sexism, homophobia, and transphobia”. Now, this vague and shifting definition of EDI is a feature, not a bug. It enables researchers and granting agencies to hide behind mild EDI language while using taxpayer dollars to advance activist EDI research agendas.
There are two reasons why the growth of activist EDI at the granting agencies is especially problematic.
First, activism undermines the search for truth. Actual SSHRC grant application instructions have asked applicants questions such as “How can cisgender and straight masculinity be reinvented for a gender-equitable world?” This is in direct opposition to what granting agencies should do, which is fund research based on intellectual curiosity to be undertaken by researchers who do not yet know the answers to the questions they're asking. Instead, activist EDI-driven criteria shift research funding away from objective knowledge creation towards intellectually incurious research that first and foremost seeks to advance a political agenda rather than discover new knowledge.
Second, the growth of activist EDI undermines the legitimacy of the granting agencies themselves and of the post-secondary sector more broadly. If these agencies are seen as rewarding political projects, then Canadians—and their members of Parliament, for that matter—will start to ask whether the roughly $4 billion spent annually by these agencies could be better spent elsewhere.
My report makes several recommendations for reform, some of which require legislation but most of which can be done within the relevant ministry or even within the agencies themselves. In particular, I recommend that the agencies' enabling legislation be amended to enshrine a commitment to political and ideological neutrality. To ensure such neutrality, I also recommend that all references to EDI be removed from agency guidelines and criteria. This includes the elimination of many of SSHRC's EDI-focused grants.
The net effect of the granting agencies' trend towards EDI has been to weaken their perceived political independence and reinforce the impression that they, too, have become politicized, yet that harm is not irreparable. The granting agencies remain committed in principle to research excellence and objective knowledge creation. By removing EDI from their remit, we can ensure that fostering research excellence rather than political activism remains their top priority.
Thank you.