Science and Research committee  Yes. Apart from research funding, institutions must be able to provide a research environment conducive to talent retention. That's critical. Allow me to explain. We say we want to attract, develop and support talent everywhere, but universities must have the means to achieve their ambitions.

Science and Research committee  One of the messages we regularly send out is that you should be very careful not to focus funding on one particular discipline. During the pandemic, for example, major investments were made in institutions involved in medical research. Even though that was an excellent initiative, it contributed to a further concentration of funding.

Science and Research committee  That's exactly it. We have university centres developing through partnerships with those environments. They might be a coastal environment or a mining environment, for example. Research develops from that and contributes to a whole ecosystem. Research then expands beyond local realities and attracts businesses from other sectors, and that then diversifies a region's economy.

Science and Research committee  The network of the Université du Québec was established to promote access to post-secondary education regardless of geographic barriers. Several years ago, a federal government statistician showed that regional populations tend not to pursue post-secondary education when the closest university is located 70 kilometres away.

Science and Research committee  Thank you for inviting me to this working meeting of the Standing Committee on Science and Research. I am the vice-president for teaching and research at the Université du Québec, which is a cooperative network of 10 institutions scattered across Quebec. Today the committee is addressing two separate but interrelated issues: attracting talent and supporting research.