Science and Research Committee on Oct. 1st, 2025

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number six of the Standing Committee on Science and Research.

Pursuant to the committee's motions on June 18 and September 17, the committee is meeting to study the impact of the criteria for awarding federal funding on research excellence in Canada.

Today’s meeting is taking place in a hybrid format. Pursuant to the Standing Orders, members are attending in person in the room and remotely using the Zoom application. I think everyone is in person today.

Before we continue, I would like to ask all in-person participants to consult the guidelines written on the cards on the table. These measures are in place to help prevent audio and feedback incidents and to protect the health and safety of all participants, including the interpreters. You will also notice a QR code on the card; it links to a short awareness video.

I would like to make a few comments for the benefit of the witnesses and members.

Please wait until I recognize you by name before speaking. Those participating by video conference, click on the microphone icon to activate your mic, and please mute yourself when you are not speaking. Those on Zoom, at the bottom of your screen you can select the appropriate channel for interpretation: floor, English or French. Those in the room can use the earpiece and select the desired channel.

I will remind you that all comments should be addressed through the chair. Members in the room, if you wish to speak, please raise your hand. Members on Zoom, please use the “raise hand” function. The clerk and I will manage the speaking order as best we can, and we appreciate your patience and understanding in this regard.

I would like to welcome our witnesses today. We have three organizations for this panel. The first one is the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, represented by Dr. Ted Hewitt, president; and Dr. Valérie Laflamme, associate vice-president, tri-agency institutional programs secretariat. The next organization is the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, represented by Anne-Marie Thompson, vice-president, research grants and scholarships; and Marcel Turcot, vice-president, strategic, corporate and public affairs. The third organization is the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, represented by Dr. Paul Hébert, president; and Jeff Moore, associate vice-president, government and external relations.

All three organizations will get five minutes for their opening remarks. We will start with Dr. Ted Hewitt.

You will have the floor for five minutes. Then, after that, we will go to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and finally to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

Dr. Hewitt, the floor is yours.

[Ted Hewitt, President, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council]

Thank you, Madam Chair, for inviting me to speak on today's critically important topic.

I'm here on behalf, as you said, of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, SSHRC. We are the federal funding agency that supports research and research training in disciplines related to social sciences and humanities, and advances partnerships and initiatives that help communities, businesses and governments apply research knowledge and insights to innovate and improve the lives of Canadians.

Within the social sciences and humanities specifically, SSHRC invests about $570 million annually in research and research training for students and post-doctoral fellows. This research explores all aspects of human thought and behaviour; it builds understanding of people and their past, present and future experiences to strengthen society, build prosperity and improve lives. The research we support covers a wide array of disciplines—from business, economics and law to philosophy, history and literature, among many others—and it contributes to Canada's economic cultural, social, technological and environmental well-being.

Just like Canadians, the research the SSHRC supports is extremely diverse and reflects the many interests and issues of importance to Canadians in every region, sector and community across the country.

It's important to stress that SSHRC research grants and fellowships are awarded through an independent merit review process designed to ensure the highest standards of excellence and impartiality. This process is undertaken in accordance with international standards that are globally recognized as the most transparent, in-depth and effective way to allocate public research funds.

Each year, merit review committees made up of volunteer university, college and community-based experts from Canada and around the world evaluate thousands of research proposals and make recommendations about which projects to fund.

Reviews are always assessed against the objectives of the particular funding opportunity, but generally reviewers evaluate the challenge outlined in the application, the plan to achieve excellence, and the expertise to succeed that the applicant has detailed. In addition, applicants must demonstrate the impact for Canadians that the proposed research will have.

The concept of research excellence is not static, I need to emphasize. Over its five decades, SSHRC has recognized and highlighted, often in collaboration with our fellow research funding agencies, components that define research excellence and good research practices. Such guidelines include those on the responsible conduct of research and on the merit review of indigenous research. Like many agencies worldwide, we also provide guidelines on the use of broadly recognized principles of equity, diversity and inclusion to promote research excellence through inclusion of the broadest possible array of human perspectives in research design and practice.

Further, SSHRC is involved in several international initiatives in adopting best practices in the assessment of scholarly research and seeking ways to modernize and remain at the forefront of applying rigorous scientific methods to improve the way we fund, practice, evaluate and communicate research.

As Canada faces many daunting challenges in a rapidly changing world, it’s more important than ever for us to invest in a vibrant research ecosystem that reflects the broad diversity of our country and can offer made-in-Canada solutions for us all. And SSHRC remains steadfast in its commitment to fuelling the research excellence across all disciplines needed for Canada to thrive.

Thank you again for your time. I very much look forward to answering any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Dr. Hewitt.

Now we will proceed to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council.

Ms. Thompson, you have five minutes for your opening remarks. Please go ahead.

[Anne-Marie Thompson, Vice-President, Research Grants and Scholarships Directorate, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council]

Good afternoon, Madam Chair, and members of the committee.

I'm here today representing the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. On behalf of NSERC President Alejandro Adem, who is abroad on work-related travel, I am pleased to provide remarks for your important study.

NSERC invests over $1.4 billion each year in natural sciences and engineering research in Canada to deliver impact locally, nationally and globally. These investments build a national knowledge base through broad-based discovery-oriented research at Canada’s universities and colleges. This research catalyzes the development of highly qualified research professionals to create talent that innovative organizations need, creating over 35,000 training opportunities annually, with over 83% of trainees going on to work in R and D.

Canada is certainly well regarded by its peers internationally for supporting research excellence. Since 2015, three NSERC-supported researchers based in Canada have won Nobel Prizes in Physics.

Beyond discovery research, NSERC investments also power industry partnerships with universities and colleges, creating a culture of academic entrepreneurialism and connections between the creators and users of discovery research.

Over 2,500 partners participate in NSERC projects each year, most from industry, and 91% report benefits from the collaboration. In 2023-24, these collaborations attracted $356 million in partner contributions. NSERC funding is awarded following competitive and independent merit reviews by Canadian and international experts. The process evaluates proposals based on the applicant’s demonstration of producing meaningful and impactful research, on the originality and proposed use of the research, and on the quality of the training and mentoring provided. As funders, we recognize the need for continual modernization to stay relevant within the research enterprise. Continuous reflection and improvement in assessing research quality and impact is a consistent theme at NSERC. For example, NSERC is a signatory to DORA, the San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment.

NSERC, along with SSHRC and CIHR, are also implementing the tri-agency EDI action plan, recognizing that equity, diversity and inclusion are essential to research quality and impact.

In line with these commitments, NSERC released revised guidelines in 2022 to encourage reviewers and applicants to consider a more comprehensive range of contributions to research, training and mentoring.

NSERC asks reviewers to recognize that research contributions can take many forms: publications, datasets, public engagement or technology licensing that benefit society as a whole or enhance Canada’s research ecosystem. Different programs have different objectives, and we approach the evaluation of proposals in ways that take this into account.

Through our programs and commitment to impact, NSERC helps drive the growth of Canada's research enterprise. We continue to modernize programming and evaluation processes to deliver the greatest benefits for Canadians.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. I look forward to answering any questions you may have, and I would be happy to share with you more examples of the work NSERC is doing to promote research excellence in Canada.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Ms. Thompson.

We will now proceed to Dr. Hébert, president of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

The floor is yours. You have five minutes.

[Paul Hébert, President, Canadian Institutes of Health Research]

Madam Chair, thank you for the invitation to appear before your committee.

It’s a pleasure for me to be here for the first time as president of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, or CIHR.

Research excellence is an issue close to my heart and fundamental to CIHR’s work. Nine months ago, I accepted this role because the mission of CIHR—to improve the health, well-being, and prosperity of Canadians through research excellence—is a mission I deeply believe in. As a clinician-researcher for 33 years, I have seen first-hand how research transforms lives and health systems.

Cancer care and outcomes have dramatically improved over my lifetime. This is quite personal to me. I lost my first wife to breast cancer. It turns out that during her battle a new class of anti-estrogen medications called aromatase inhibitors became available just when she needed them. Thanks in part to excellent Canadian research, these treatments gave her more time and gave our then 10-year-old daughter eight more years with her mother.

We are now at a critical moment in human history where scientific discoveries will transform our daily lives.

Twenty-five years ago, when CIHR was created, Canadian scientists joined the human genome project. It took thousands of scientists and billions of dollars to map just one genome. Today, not only can we map a whole genome over a weekend with less than $100 but we can now edit that genome and remove disease-causing sequences using gene editing technologies called CRISPR, CRISPR-Cas9, to potentially cure diseases, including sickle-cell disease and cystic fibrosis.

This means we now have the power to transform life. Imagine now, if we couple this foundational transformation in human biology with artificial intelligence. In health and life sciences, this powerful combination will accelerate discovery at unfathomable rates. These powerful forces will generate new foundational and fundamental insights. They will affect health and health care, as well as all aspects of our social fabric. This convergence will require all of society, including our best scientists, to be at the forefront of this new revolution.

Are we ready to act boldly and together? Are we willing and ready to overcome the barriers and unlock the power of our health data, from our genome to health records, to serve the public good? Are we ready as a country to invest in being bold leaders. Canada has some of the best scientists in the world, whether they're from the two other agencies or our own and which we fund. Canada has some of the world's best scientists, I believe we can move ahead and remain global leaders. However, we are sadly falling behind.

As the global research landscape explodes, there's a clear imperative to strengthen Canada's science to grow our economy as well as to protect our sovereignty and security. My vision of research excellence is captured in three words, “collaboration for impact”. For me, it means fostering partnerships, building problem-focused networks, and consortia across sectors and jurisdictions that integrate diverse disciplines and perspectives to tackle major societal problems affecting all of us, including the most vulnerable. This also means that equity must be a foundational principle.

Without enabling all Canadians to benefit from our many discoveries, we risk tearing at Canada's social fabric as well as worsening health and economic outcomes. Research excellence alone will not suffice.

CIHR has the bold ambition and the funding approaches to continue supporting research excellence. We have a discovery fund that supports the best and most original science, and many mission-driven funds that target priority areas like primary care and mental health, brain health, pandemics and the opioid crisis.

As my colleagues have already told you, both approaches rely on rigorous peer review in accordance with international standards.This is how we produce impactful research that continues to change lives.

At this pivotal moment, we must not only provide all necessary resources to our top scientists, but also improve the commercialization of discoveries made right here in Canada. Otherwise, we risk enriching other countries instead of our own—as was the case with mRNA vaccines and Ozempic.

In summary, through our unwavering commitment to excellence, CIHR aims to maximize the impact of research on the health, well-being and economic prosperity of Canadians from coast to coast to coast.

Thank you. I would be pleased to answer your questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Thank you, Dr. Hébert.

We will now go to a round of questioning.

For the first round I will start with Mr. Baldinelli, for six minutes.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls—Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you to the witnesses for being with us today.

I'm going to begin with Dr. Hewitt from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

We recently had Dr. Gad Saad before this committee. He said during his testimony that:

...there has been an autocorrection of all this diversity, inclusion and equity stuff in the United States. ...I see no autocorrection taking place in Canada. If anything, I see the doubling down of all of the parasitic nonsense in Canada.

...science is a fully meritocratic thing. Nobody gives a damn about your identity markers. The best people should be doing the best science, period.

Would you agree with that statement or not?

[Ted Hewitt]

I would agree with the last part of the statement. I also believe, and I'll also say, if you'll allow me, that we believe diversity brings all viewpoints to the table, which is useful for the advancement of science. If those viewpoints are excluded, you're not going to get the best science.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls—Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON]

Some of the comments we've heard, too, talk about and touch upon things such as “viewpoint diversity”. In your comments, you talked about how “excellence is not static” and the notion of applying that to all the merit review categories and how that has all taken place.

Are the qualifications for that in a sense limiting by having some of these criteria in place and that some viewpoint diversity may be excluded?

[Ted Hewitt]

I would argue no, that in fact we see better representation as a result of guidelines we put in place. At the end of the day, nobody gets funded because they are a member of a particular group or identify with a particular group. They get funded on the basis of the excellence of their proposal, as judged by a set of criteria that we make clear from the outset and that conform to international practice.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls—Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON]

Well, it's interesting. We've also had some other professors come here.

For example, a Harvard professor, Steven Pinker, said that in terms of research capability, Canada has the reputation now of being more woke than the United States, and that in terms of losing scholars, because of some of these EDI programs and policies that are being put in place, researchers do not feel welcome here. They look for opportunities south of the border instead of looking for research opportunities here.

How would you respond to that?

[Ted Hewitt]

I'd like to see the evidence that he brought to bear with respect to the movement of researchers. I think Canada is a hugely attractive place. Positions are heavily subscribed and our funding is heavily subscribed. Our funding rates are relatively low at 35% and sometimes at 30% or even lower.

I just don't see that in the work we do or in the results of the work we fund.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls—Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON]

Thank you.

I'm going to Dr. Hébert from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

According to the EDI “in Action at CIHR”, in order to “mitigate barriers faced by underrepresented groups”, the first-class average or A+ eligibility criterion was removed from Canada graduate scholarships, the doctoral program. How is this lowering of standards increasing research excellence?

[Paul Hébert]

I would say that in most of our programs currently the issue is largely a very low success rate. We have exceptional research, and every single time we run a competition we leave exceptional research on the table. Our biggest challenge is the lack of funds. The lack of funds creates, I would suggest, very difficult competitive issues.

In terms of the equity criteria, the way we're thinking this through is, one, it's important, as some of my other colleagues said, so let's divide up what I mean. The first thing is that equity matters in issues of health services and systems. It may matter less in terms of our approach in managing test tubes.

Depending on the study and the issue, the issue of equity will be life-saving for people. As an example, the one reason why our hospitals are full right now is because of equity, largely. Our older adults, those who are lonely, isolated and financially deprived, end up unable to go home. In fact, that's how I spent my day today.

From my perspective, equity matters, because if we don't take care of some of those issues, then we don't study them and understand them. Depending on the studies we do, that's important. I would argue that our approach generally has been not so much cookie-cutter, as you're suggesting, but rather problem focused. Depending on the issue we focus on, equity takes on a very important role.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls—Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON]

I appreciate your comments and your statement about how scientific discoveries will transform our lives.

You also talked about limited finances. We're talking about $4 billion being committed by the federal government to research excellence, and about $311 million of that goes to the research chairs. Those dollars that are being put towards this research are precious. As this government goes through its budget ideas and this notion of spending less to invest more, they're going to be looking at all agencies with regard to their funding allocations. Sometimes when we look at issues such as EDI —

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Sorry, your time is up.

[Tony Baldinelli, Conservative, Niagara Falls—Niagara-on-the-Lake, ON]

—and their requirements, we're limiting the possibilities and the pool of talent that is going to be able to do that type of hugely important research, I would suggest.

[The Chair, Liberal, Salma Zahid]

Sorry for interrupting, but the time is up. Maybe you will get an opportunity in the second round to respond to that.

With that, we will now move to MP McKelvie for six minutes.

Please go ahead.

[Jennifer McKelvie, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Dr. Hébert, you mentioned “collaboration for impact”. I was very excited to hear you mention that statement.

The intent of this study has always been to undertake a study on the impact that various criteria for awarding federal funding have on research excellence in Canada.

In that spirit of collaboration, I was wondering if I could go to each of the agencies so you could quickly speak to how you are moving towards funding collaborative interdisciplinary research that brings multiple groups together. One of my favourite examples of that is the microbiome of humans. From a medical perspective, we largely looked at the hundred that could kill us, but we know if we bring in soil scientists, that might be traditionally funded under NSERC, because they have different tools and techniques that could be used. Certainly, if you bring forward anthropologists and people who look at diets, that might be funded under SSHRC, and you could really start to have real discovery and catalysts for real discovery.

Could each of you speak to how you're evolving to fund that interdisciplinary science?

[Paul Hébert]

I won't speak to the TIPS programs, because there are a number of issues of programming that we do at the broader level.

For our agencies, in the one-third of our funds that we use strategically, the approaches that we're starting to use are network support strategies. You bring consortia or groups together to do exactly what you just said, for example, on issues of opioids, where the discovery of new forms of therapeutics might change our approach to addiction.

Pandemics are a problem for all of us. We're bringing together folks who are interested in all kinds of different aspects of that.

Regarding engineering and chemistry, I was at UBC the other day, and I was flabbergasted by what I saw. These chemists were exploring new ways of tagging molecules of designer drugs, and all the while they were testing their new approaches in rural B.C. They are making a transformation by thinking of how they work and by working with physicians and systems in a way to transform our future.

That type of stuff is happening everywhere in our country. Our approach to doing that is to basically light it up and build together consortia of interest, but it comes from our community. Most of what we do is bottom-up. If the ecosystem is ready to move in a direction, we incentivize it in all kinds of different ways. That can be through our projects or our network thinking, but we can't do it alone.

In health and health care, in a lot of what we do, the provinces have a huge role to play. They have to fund the scientists, the universities and the hospitals we support to do their work.

[Jennifer McKelvie, Liberal, Ajax, ON]

I'll quickly see if NSERC and SSHRC have anything to add to that or if I can move to the next question.

[Anne-Marie Thompson]

I can quickly add to the discussion.

To your point, interdisciplinary research is often the intersection of where very interesting science happens, so beyond the chairs and the tri-agency programming, we do of course collaborate across the agencies across several specific calls.

We also encourage where there are at least two different disciplinary areas; we have a specific program for that. If somebody is doing something that meets at the intersection of SSHRC and CIHR, we're able to accommodate that on a smaller scale.

At NSERC, we have over 21 collaborations with other science-based departments and agencies, so we really wanted to connect that science that is happening in academia with the federal government.

[Ted Hewitt]

It was mentioned earlier that there's an investment of about $4.2 billion, and about a quarter of that or maybe a little more is dedicated to interdisciplinary programming.

Some of them extend back to the previous government. The Canada first research excellence fund is a very large program of about $250 million to $300 million a year that is invested explicitly in interdisciplinary programming of large scale and import.

We have our new frontiers in research fund, which has as a mandate international research and interdisciplinary research at the cutting edge.

We work together as agencies. We developed a program in response to concerns of researchers over the years about how they can get funded if their work crosses agency boundaries. We've now created a program we call TAIPR, which is the tri-agency interdisciplinary peer review program, in which people can apply to any of our agencies by ticking a box indicating that this goes across agencies, and it gets put through a separate peer review mechanism. We're working very hard to ensure those opportunities are, in fact, growing and not decreasing.

[Paul Hébert]

I would also suggest we have the same kind of frame of mind in our international programming. What you're hearing is all of us work together in various ways, and we also have an approach to do this internationally.