I think that's exactly right. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research, CIHR, whose definition of research excellence includes language of inclusivity and diversity on its research excellence framework page, has that research is excellent when it's inclusive, equitable, diverse, anti-racist, anti-ableist and anti-colonial in approach and impact.
Now, probably most of us would say, “I'm not ableist. I'm not racist. I'm not a colonialist,” Those are good things, but these terms in academia.... I am familiar with progressive academia. These are very specific frameworks, often unfalsifiably formed, that have a particular way of looking at the world and are not, first and foremost, about knowledge creation. They're built on particular assumptions about how society is governed and how it ought to be changed. When you adopt that as your framework for all health and medical funding across the country, you are going to necessarily discourage certain forms of knowledge creation and encourage activist research that is not designed to help us achieve better medical and health outcomes and knowledge.
I heard a presentation earlier today about how we don't want to leave anyone on the sidelines. Well, this is leaving on the sidelines scholars who don't use an anti-racist, anti-ableist and anti-colonial approach in their hard science research on health and medicine. If I had one recommendation of what should go within the agencies, it would be that component of that research excellence framework from the beginning.