Tag Archives: Canadian Institutes of Health Research

Canada’s National Research Council wins in national science reshuffle while fumbling with employee relations

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Hats off to Nassif Ghoussoub at his Piece of Mind blog for the latest information on the institutional science scene and the government’s response to last year’s (2011) Jenkins report (Review of Federal Support to R&D, aka, Innovation Canada: A Call to Action).

Nassif’s Sept. 11, 2012 posting highlights an unusually high number of recent announcements about federal funding for R&D (research and development). From the posting,

As always, politicians were crowding the Monday morning issue of the Hill Times newspaper. But today’s was different from any other day. No less than four politicians were either making “major” statements about federal plans for funding R&D, or taking the time to write about it. One wonders why we are witnessing this unusual surge of science-related interest in Ottawa’s political discourse.

Nassif makes some very provocative comments (Note: I have removed some links),

Gary Goodyear, the minister responsible for science and technology, seemed to be announcing that the National Research Council (NRC) has already won the battle of who is going to lead the federal effort of coordinating research partnerships with the industrial sector. “The NRC will be ‘transformed’ to respond to private sector demand”. How did they convince the PMO? Where are the universities? The Tri-Council [funding agencies: Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council {SSHRC}; Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council {NSERC}; and Canadian Institutes of Health Research {CIHR}]? And so much for the recommendations of the Jenkins panel, which in spite of the carefully chosen words, go quite far in the direction of suggesting the dismantlement of this venerable institution. Yet, the NRC is emerging as the ultimate winner in this sweepstakes of federal funding for industrial R&D. We can now kiss goodbye the “Industrial Research and Innovation Council” (IRIC), as recommended by the Jenkins panel and as vigorously defended by UT [University of Toronto] President, David Naylor.

I didn’t view the panel’s recommendations regarding the NRC in quite the same way in my Oct. 21, 2011 posting (which features my review of the Jenkins report). I start by commenting on the recommendation for ‘a single innovation voice’ in government and then mention the NRC,

This one seems like one of those recommendations that are impossible to implement,

  • ·Establish a clear federal voice for innovation and work with the provinces to improve coordination.
  • Currently, there is a lack of government-wide clarity when it comes to innovation. Responsibility is spread across a number of cabinet portfolios. The Prime Minister should assign responsibility for innovation to a single minister, supported by a whole-of-government Innovation Advisory Committee, evolved from the current Science Technology and Innovation Council (STIC), composed of external stakeholders, who would then work with the provincial and territorial governments to initiate a collaborative dialogue to improve coordination and impact.

I base my comment about the last recommendation on my experience with the gnashing of teeth I’ve observed when someone is going to lose an area of responsibility that is associated with power and other good things. Who do you imagine will want to give up innovation and what will they want in return?  Another question which springs to mind is this one: How are they going to develop a single voice for discussion of innovation across several federal bureaucracies with thousands of people and miles between them when even a small office of 20 people experiences difficulty doing this (again, this is based on my personal experience).

As for the suggested changes to the NRC? Well, those should provide some fodder for lively discussion. I’m sure the other items will provide conversational fodder too but it seems to me that the two I’ve highlighted in these comments are likely to be the among the most contentious.

For anyone who doesn’t recall the NRC recommendation offhand (from my Oct. 21, 2011 posting),

However, there are some major recommendations being made, notably this one about the National Research Council (from the Review of Federal Support to R&D home page),

  • Transform the institutes of the National Research Council [NRC] into a series of large-scale, collaborative centres involving business, universities and the provinces.
  • The NRC was created during World War I to kick-start Canada’s research capacity. It has a long and storied history of discoveries and innovation, including numerous commercial spin-offs. While the NRC continues to do good work, research and commercialization activity in Canada has grown immensely.  In this new context, the NRC can play a unique role, linking its large-scale, long-term research activity with the academic and business communities. The panel recommends evolving NRC institutes, consistent with the current strategic direction, into not-for-profit centres run with stakeholders, and incorporating its public policy research into other departments.

My current interpretation (based on the information in Nassif’s posting) of  the status of the NRC recommendation is that the government has conflated a couple of recommendations and instead of creating an Industrial Research and Innovation Council (IRIC; continued after), here’s the IRIC recommendation (from my Oct. 21,2011 posting),

The panel also suggests cutting down on the number of funding agencies and creating a portal or ‘concierge’ to help businesses find the right funding solution for their needs,

  • The creation of an Industrial Research and Innovation Council (IRIC) to deliver the federal government’s business innovation programs.
    • There are currently more than 60 programs across 17 different government departments. The creation of an arm’s-length funding and delivery agency – the Industrial Research and Innovation Council – would begin to streamline the process as the development of a common application portal and service to help businesses find the right programs for their needs (a “concierge”).

Back to where I was going, instead of creating an IRIC the federal government is shifting at least part of that proposed mandate over to the NRC. As for establishing “a clear federal voice,” I suspect that too is becoming part of the NRC’s mandate.

I find it interesting to note that the NRC’s president (John McDougall) is from Alberta. Any guesses as to which province is home to the riding Canada’s Prime Minister represents as a member of Parliament?

This looks like  some very astute political manuevering on McDougall’s part. Oddly, he doesn’t seem to be as good at understanding employee relations. Mia Rabson’s July 5, 2012 article for the Winnipeg Free Press highlights a remarkably block-headed attempt at recognition,

Have a doughnut on your way out the door. That is the message several dozen employees of the National Research Council took away June 29 as the president of the agency issued gift cards for a coffee and a doughnut to all employees, including 65 who are being laid off this month.

“Thank you for the contribution you have made in helping NRC successfully work through our massive transformation,” read the letter from NRC president John McDougall. “To celebrate our success in gaining government support, here is a token of appreciation: have a coffee and a doughnut on me.”

A $3 gift card to Tim Hortons accompanied each letter to more than 4,000 NRC employees. It cost taxpayers more than $12,000.

It appears the ineptitude extends from the president’s office to the media relations office,

Charles Drouin, chief media relations officer for the NRC, said the letters and gift cards were a way to say thank you to employees for their work during a difficult year at the agency. He said not all employees were scheduled to leave on June 29.

“It just coincided. We wanted to try and include everyone. The president thought the note would be a good way to thank our employees.”

He added not all employees reacted badly to the gift. The president received one official complaint, said Drouin. [emphasis mine]

In the public relations business it’s generally believed that  one letter/official complaint = 100. Just because most people won’t write a letter doesn’t mean they didn’t ‘react badly’. One would expect the chief media relations officer to know that, especially since the rest of us do.

I recommend reading Nassif’s post for more about this science shuffle’s  impact on the Tri-Council funding agencies and Mia Rabson’s article for more about the NRC’s cost-cutting efforts and future plans.

Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council {SSHRC}; Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council {NSERC}; and Canadian Institutes of Health Research {CIHR}

Tissue regeneration by injection

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I’ve got two items: one from the University of Nottingham (UK) where they’re working on tissue regeneration for bones, muscles, and the heart.The second item is from Simon Fraser University (Vancouver, Canada)where the focus is on regenerating bones.

Here’s more about the work at the University of Nottingham from the [July 3, 2012] news item on Nanowerk,

The University of Nottingham has begun the search for a new class of injectable materials that will stimulate stem cells to regenerate damaged tissue in degenerative and age related disorders of the bone, muscle and heart.

The work, which is currently at the experimental stage, could lead to treatments for diseases that currently have no cure. The aim is to produce radical new treatments that will reduce the need for invasive surgery, optimise recovery and reduce the risk of undesirable scar tissue.

The research, which brings together expertise in The University of Nottingham’s Malaysia Campus (UNMC) and UK campus, is part of the Rational Bioactive Materials Design for Tissue Generation project (Biodesign). This €11m EU funded research project which involves 21 research teams from across Europe is made up of leading experts in degenerative disease and regenerative medicine.

The original July 3, 2012 news release from the University of Nottingham includes a video which offers some additional insight (sadly ,it cannot be embedded here) and more information (Note: I have removed a link),

Kevin Shakesheff, Professor of Advanced Drug Delivery and Tissue Engineering and Head of the School of Pharmacy, said: “This research heralds a step-change in approaches to tissue regeneration. Current biomaterials are poorly suited to the needs of tissue engineering and regenerative medicine. The aim of Biodesign is to develop new materials and medicines that will stimulate tissue regeneration rather than wait for the body to start the process itself. The aim is to fabricate advanced biomaterials that match the basic structure of each tissue so the cells can take over the recovery process themselves.”

The Canadian project at Simon Fraser University features a singular focus on bone regeneration, from the July 19, 2012 news release on EurekAlert,

A Simon Fraser University researcher is leading a team of scientists working to create new drugs to stimulate bone regeneration – research that will be furthered by a $2.5 million grant from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).

Lead researcher Robert Young heads a team of internationally recognized experts in bone disease and drug development. The researchers are focusing on developing small molecule compounds and nano-medicines that stimulate bone regeneration, and hope to identify new therapeutic approaches by improving understanding of bone renewal biology.

Their objective is to develop new therapeutic agents that promote bone repair, regeneration and renewal, and prove their efficiency in reproducing or improving bone strength.

…

The research involves studying the “natural controls” that guide the development of cells in the bones toward either bone forming or bone resorbing cells, setting the stage for the next generation of bone regenerative therapies.

The grant is one of three announced today by the federal government targeting bone health research and totalling $7 million. The others focus on wrist fractures management and identifying bone loss in gum disease.

The funding is through the CIHR’s Institute of Musculoskeletal Health and Arthritis and addresses priorities identified at a 2009 national Bone Health Consensus Conference.

I’ve decided to focus on tissues today so there will be something about tissue engineering and jellyfish (artificial) shortly.

Grand Challenges, point-of-care diagnostics, and a note on proliferating bureaucracies

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Last week, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a $21.1 M grant over three years for research into point-of-care diagnostic tools for developing nations. A Canadian nongovermental organization (NGO) will be supplementing this amount with $10.8 M for a total of $31.9 M. (source: Dec. 16, 2011 AFP news item [Agence France-Presse] on MedicalXpress.com)

At this point, things get a little confusing. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has a specific program called Grand Challenges in Global Health and this grant is part of that program. Plus, the Canadian NGO is called Grand Challenges Canada (couldn’t they have found a more distinctive name?), which is funded by a federal Canadian government initiative known as the Development Innovation Fund (DIF). Here’s a little more from the Who We Are page,

In the 2008 Federal Budget the Government of Canada announced the creation of the Development Innovation Fund (DIF) to “support the best minds in the world as they search for breakthroughs in global health and other areas that have the potential to bring about enduring changes in the lives of the millions of people in poor countries.” The Government of Canada is committing $225 million over five years to the Development Innovation Fund.

The Development Innovation Fund will be delivered by Grand Challenges Canada working with the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR). As the Government of Canada’s lead on the Development Innovation Fund, the International Development Research Centre will draw on decades of experience managing research projects and ensure that developing country researchers and concerns are front and centre in this exciting new initiative. The initial activities of the Development Innovation Fund will be in global health.

Grand Challenges Canada is a unique and independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to improving the health and well-being of people in developing countries by integrating scientific, technological, business and social innovation both in Canada and in the developing world. Grand Challenges Canada works with the International Development Research Centre, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, and other global health foundations and organizations committed to discovering sustainable solutions to the world’s most pressing health challenges. Grand Challenges Canada is hosted by the McLaughlin-Rotman Centre for Global Health, University Health Network and University of Toronto.

So if I understand this rightly, the Canadian federal government created a new fund and then created a new NGO to administer that fund. I wonder how much money is required administratively for this NGO which exists solely to distribute DIF. I’m glad to see that someone is getting some money for research out of this but it does seem labyrinthine at best.

On a happier, more productive now, here’s the type of research this money will be used for (from the MedicalXpress.com news item),

“Imagine a hand-held, battery-powered device that can take a drop of blood and, within minutes, tell a healthcare worker in a remote village whether a feverish child has malaria, dengue or a bacterial infection,” said Peter Singer, head of Grand Challenges Canada which is partnering with the Microsoft founder Bill Gates’s charitable organization on the project.

In this last year I have posted a few times about similar projects for handheld diagnostic devices, in my Aug. 4, 2011 posting ‘Diagnostics on a credit card‘ and in my Feb. 15, 2011 posting ‘Argento, nano, and PROOF‘. There’s a lot of interest in these devices whether they’re intended for use in developing countries or not.

I have tracked down the Dec. 15, 2011 news release from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to get more details about this specific project,

The grants announced today are part of the Point-of-Care Diagnostics (POC Dx) Initiative, a research and development program with the goal of creating new diagnostic platforms that enable high-quality, low-cost diagnosis of disease, and also facilitate sustainable markets for diagnostic products, a key challenge in the developing world. This first phase of the POC Dx Initiative is focused on developing new technologies and identifying implementation issues to address the key barriers for clinical diagnostics in the developing world.

They also give some examples of projects that will be receiving funding from this grant,

Examples of projects receiving funding:

  • Seventh Sense Biosystems, a company located in Cambridge MA, is developing TAP—a painless, low-cost blood collection device which aims to allow easy, push-button sampling of blood. This simple collection process would reduce training requirements and enable diagnostics closer to the point of need.
  • David Beebe and researchers at the University of Wisconsin are developing a sample purification system that seeks to better filter and concentrate biomarkers from patient samples. This system will be designed for use in impoverished settings.
  • Axel Scherer of the California Institute of Technology, along with collaborators at Dartmouth College, will develop a prototype quantitative PCR (qPCR) amplification/detection component module—a low cost, easy-to-use technology that can rapidly detect a wide range of diseases.

There’s additional detail about grantees in the Grand Challenges Canada Dec. 16, 2011 news release,

One grantee, Bigtec Labs in Bangalore, India, has already developed a handheld analyser called a mini-PCR (Polymerase Chain Reaction) machine capable of identifying malaria from a DNA fingerprint.

―A colleague here one day was ill with what he thought was food poisoning,” said

B. Chandrasekhar Nair, Director of Bigtec Labs. “We ran a blood sample through our mini-PCR and it turned out to be malaria.‖ Immediately treated, the colleague returned to health within a week.

With its CAD $1.3 million grant, Bigtec will use nano-materials to develop a sophisticated filter to concentrate pathogen DNA from samples of blood, sputum, urine, or nasal and throat swabs. Once concentrated, the DNA can be processed and illnesses identified in the mini-PCR.

The innovative projects receiving funding include:

 Dr. Dhananjaya Dendukuri from Achira Labs in Bangalore India, and Dr. Nandini Dendukuri from McGill University in Montreal are developing a piece of silk that can be used as a cost-effective and simple diagnostic for blood and urine samples. Called Fabchips (Fabric Chips) the woven diagnostic has the added benefit of providing jobs to local artisans and being environmentally friendly.

 Dr. David Goldfarb, a Canadian working in Botswana, is testing a simple, rapid, easy-to-use swab for the detection of diarrheal disease in the developing world.

 Dr. Wendy Stevens from the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa is testing new point-of-care technologies for the integrated management of HIV and TB treatment to encourage equity, affordability and accessibility to treatment.

 Dr. Patricia Garcia at the Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia in Peru will look at ways to overcome social and commercial barriers to delivering point-of-care diagnostic tests aimed at improving maternal and child health – two of the UN‘s Millennium Development goals for 2015.

There’s a full list of all the grantees (Grand Challenges Canada and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) and links to videos here.

Here’s a sample video of Dr. Dhananjaya Dendukuri to get you started,

Congratulations to the researchers!

Canadian Space Agency funds nanomedicine?

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I suppose it’s ignorance but I can’t quite fathom why the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) [ETA March 17, 2011: Corrected the mane of the Agency from Canada Space Agency to Canadian Space Agency] is partnering with the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) to fund nanomedicine. I don’t understand how that fits into the CSA’s mandate. The March 16, 2011 news item on Nanowerk doesn’t answer my questions,

Research on nanomedicine and regenerative medicine is designed to prevent disease and improve human health. Nanomedicine delivers medical technologies that detect or function at the molecular level to diagnose and treat disease, while regenerative medicine stimulates the renewal of bodily tissues and organs or restores function through natural and bioengineered means. Various innovations in these areas have helped combat vascular diseases, cancer, diabetes, multiple sclerosis and other chronic diseases. By promoting research in these areas, CIHR and CSA will be moving Canada to the forefront of modern medical research. [emphasis mine]

When was the Space Agency mandated to bring Canada to the “forefront of modern medical research?” I did look at the projects to see if any of them might have a ‘space travel’ component,

This funding will enable researchers to potentially:

# Identify microlesions in multiple sclerosis, using a new tool for quantifying the cause of the disease and how well a treatment is working, Dr. Daniel Côté, Université Laval;

# Create personalized nanomedicines that silence cancer-causing genes, Dr. P[ieter] Cullis, University of British Columbia;

# Develop microchip-based devices to analyze prostate cancer markers in blood, Dr. Shana Kelley, University of Toronto;

# Generate transplantable, insulin-producing cells from stem cells for diabetes, Dr. Timothy Kieffer, University of British Columbia;

# Develop innovative sensorimotor rehabilitation approaches for patients with spinal cord injuries or stroke, Dr. Serge Rossignol, Université de Montréal;

# Study how novel therapeutic interventions can regenerate blood vessels, Dr. Michael Sefton, University of Toronto; and,

# Develop nanotechnology-enabled image-guided methods of diagnosing and treating lung cancer and vascular diseases, Dr. Gang Zheng, University Health Network.

I suppose the project to regenerate blood vessels might have some applications appropriate for space travel/exploration but the rest leave me puzzled. If anyone has an answer or even a guess, please do leave a comment.

ETA March 17, 2011: I found the CSA’s mandate here,

The mandate of the Canadian Space Agency is:

To promote the peaceful use and development of space, to advance the knowledge of space through science and to ensure that space science and technology provide social and economic benefits for Canadians.

Off the deep end: an interview with Cheryl Geisler (part 3 of 3)

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Today is the last of the series on Cheryl Geisler and the new Faculty of Communication, Art and Technology (FCAT) at Simon Fraser University (Burnby, Vancouver, Surrey, Canada):

In addition to factors such as the global economy and faculty politics (used not pejoratively but in its most general sense), Geisler and her colleagues have to contend with an increasing emphasis from the tri-council funding agencies (Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council [SSHRC], Canadian Institutes of Health Research [CIHR], and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council [NSERC]) on open-access to research and on proving to the public that the funded research has value.

From the recent Conference Board of Canada report on trademarks, patents, and copyright, Intellectual Property in the 21st Century by Ruth Corbin (as quoted by Michael Geist on his blog here),

In discussing the tabling of a new copyright bill, it notes:

Simultaneous support for “open-access” initiatives, where appropriate – such as facilitation of the use of government data with suitable safeguards, and readier access to publicly funded research – would help to unlock tremendous stores of knowledge and balance out the resources being expended on protection of rights.

From the SSHRC report, Framing our Direction, here,

Systematic evidence about the multiple short and long-term benefits of research in the social sciences and humanities will provide a solid foundation for decisions about levels of investment. In other words, our ability to enhance research activities is closely linked with our collective efforts to demonstrate the impact and value of social sciences and humanities research to society. For this reason, we will update our programs and policies to include a more complete accounting of research results. (final para. on p. 12 in print version, p. 14 on PDF)

The SSHRC report makes it quite clear that the quantity of funding it receives is liable to be affected by how the agency and its grant recipients are able to “[demonstrate] the impact and value of social science and humanities research to society.” No doubt the other members of the tri-Council are feeling the same pressures.

In responding to a question about how FCAT will make its research more easily accessible, Geisler drew on her experience as the head of the Language, Literature and Communication Department at Rensselaear, the oldest technological university in the US. “There certainly was the desire at the National Science Foundation and other federal programmes in the US for research to be more widely disseminated and to try to incorporate outreach activities and for the same reasons [as here in Canada].

For example, the School of Contemporary Arts will move into Woodward’s [Downtown Eastside] in the fall [2010] so now we’re planning for how we will partner with the community, what kinds of non-credit programmes we’ll offer, and [the] residencies [we’ll offer] for artists in the community. We also have 3 or 4 faculty members that work with policy leaders in the area of culture to try to understand how to manage cultural resources and growth and make them a greater social benefit.” She also pointed out that there are plans to situate the Surrey City Hall near SIAT as part of an initiative to create a new city centre in that municipality. All of this is in stark contrast with SFU’s main campus, built in 1965, and situated on a mountain top.

Regardless of its mountain top status, SFU has long made an effort to reach out to its various communities through its non-credit continuing studies programmes in Vancouver at Harbour Centre, the programmes at the Morris J. Wosk Centre for Dialogue, and its longstanding presence in the Downtown Eastside through various School of the Contemporary Arts courses (Note: The school is slated to make a wholsale move into the area, Fall 2010). Unfortunately, many of these efforts fall short of reaching any community that is not in some way affiliated with the university

Geisler acknowledges that more could be done, “You have to give the public ways to option in, or to find out things or to give more clear access. That’s a good problem to work on.”

As for why she came to SFU, “I’ve always done interdisciplinary work and I led a department that had many of the same components that I saw here. In a way, I thought this was the perfect next step for me. There was no other department like mine and there’s no other faculty like [this one]. I had a sense that at FCAT there was a lot of potential and desire to interact across disciplinary boundaries and do exciting new work and I thought that’s [what] I would want to lead.”

The next and last question begged to be asked. Do you have any dreams, any fantasies about where it [FCAT] might go?

“What people do is very interdisciplinary in the sciences, in art practice, and in design practice but the academic structure is much more reified and rigid so that students’ curricular experience often doesn’t mirror what’s going on in professional practice and in knowledge generation. Also, I think one of the consequences [of curricular rigidity] is that the public is often alienated from the university because it’s cut off from what makes academics excited.

There’s a real potential for creating new processes and faculty structures that can be responsive and be reflective of more problem-based or opportunity-based alignments [that exist] for a few years to get [a] project done. [As opposed to] ‘we all do biology here and we always do it; and a hundred years from now there’s going to be a biology dept. Departments are structured ‘as if they will always be there’ because they reflect the way the world is. I’d like to see a more exciting, project-based [approach]. I don’t know exactly how to do that but I thought this would be a place to figure [it] out.”

Thank you to Dr. Geisler for the insights and your time.

Off the deep end: an interview with Cheryl Geisler Introduction, Part 1, Part 2

Happy Weekend!

Science shenanigans made visible; a surprising (or not) appointment to CIHR; announcing a wee holiday

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Human nature, even scientists have it. They recently reasserted their human nature with the climate change controversy over possibly suppressed and/or distorted data. According to the Globe and Mail article by Doug Saunders (Breach in the global-warming bunker rattles climate science at the worst time), even scientists who agreed with the group at the University of East Anglia were not given access let alone people who were perceived as hostile to the cause. Note that word, cause.  From the article,

Unusually, even sympathetic scientists and some activists have concluded that the credibility of climate science has been seriously harmed.

“We should not underestimate the damage caused by what has happened, either for the science or for the politics of climate change, and potentially it could have some very far-reaching consequences,” said Mike Hulme, a climate scientist at East Anglia whose e-mails were among those included in the pirated files and who has been critical of the secrecy and lack of impartiality in his colleagues’ work.

Independent scientists are quick to point out that the actions described in the e-mails do not describe anything like a fabrication of global-warming evidence, and that two other major sets of historical data drawn from the same sources, both held by NASA institutions in the United States, also show a historical warming trend.

…

While such insinuations of poor scientific practice have drawn the most attention, more damaging for climate scientists are e-mails which reveal the hostile, partisan, bunker-like atmosphere at the lab, which goes to ridiculous lengths to prevent even moderate critics from seeing any of the raw data.

In one e-mail, Prof. Jones [head of the CRU] wrote that climate skeptics “have been after the CRU [Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia] station data for years. If they ever hear there is a Freedom of Information Act now in the UK, I think I’ll delete the file rather than send it to anyone.”

Jones demonstrates the kind of behaviour and communication (or lack of) that we associate with a wrongdoer trying to cover something up or with a fanatic determined to convince you at all costs. Unfortunately, human beings, even with the best of intentions, can take a wrong turn and it would seem that Jones stopped being a scientist and became a true believer.

Some of what’s being discussed in view of the public eye is the usual back and forth amongst scientists as they dispute each other’s findings in sometimes less than genteel tones and cast aspersions on each other’s methodologies. The more high profile the work, the more bitter the fight.

Very quickly, I want to direct you to Rob Annan’s latest postings on a CIHR [Canadian Institutes of Health Research] appointment, a representative from Pfizer, to their governing council and science policy in Europe. If you’re interested in science policy and the implications of some of the new decisions being made and/or taking view of science policy discussions elsewhere, please do check these postings out. Plus I just (5 minutes ago at 9:45 am PST) received this email from the folks who organized the 2009 Canadian Science Policy Conference,

We have just made the entire content of the CSPC publicly available for all Canadians at our website (http://sciencepolicy.ca), including:

  • video of keynote addresses and plenaries
  • audio of all conference sessions
  • video interviews with opinion leaders, conducted on-site at the CSPC by The Mark News
  • written report of all sessions

We are working towards the production of a comprehensive evaluation of CSPC 2009, including detailed performance measures and outcomes of the conference. To that end, we would greatly appreciate your input.

I look forward to viewing the material from the conference (thank you, organizers) when I settle down a bit. I am currently in the throes of a major transition and may not be blogging again until Dec. 17, 2009 or after.

Cookie cutters; agility vs. rigidity; 2010 Canadian Science Policy Conference; Kate Pullinger GG 2009 award winner for fiction

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Ever wonder about all that talk about critical thinking? Supposedly that’s what education does for you, i.e. encourages critical thinking. I mention it because there’s a great little essay on The Black Hole blog about critical thinking in higher education. It’s called, Science is like Baking: The Rise of the Cookie Cutter PhD. I did have one minor quibble,

Together, these forces do what I think we should be very very scared of… they apply pressure to churn out PhDs faster, with more papers, with less flexibility in ideas and more rigid (read publishable) research project designs. So, in the end, little effort goes into helping the PhD students think critically about their field – and while I don’t believe this style of training is as far gone in the Humanities… I think it’s coming, so get yourself ready!

Sadly, I believe that the process is already gaining momentum in the humanities.

Rob Annan at Don’t Leave Canada Behind has a very pointed (scathing) analysis of a pre-budget submission from the SSHRC/NSERC/CIHR tri-council to the House of Commons Standing Committee.  [SSHRC = Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council; NSERC = Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council; CHIR = Canadian Health Institutes Research] From his posting,

… What does this mean? Sounds to me like stable, long-term funding is to be sacrificed at the altar of increased flexibility. And what exactly is a “dynamic approach” to funding research? This bureaucratic nonsense speak could have real consequences for researchers. Does agility, dynamism, and responsiveness mean that the agencies will be rapidly changing funding priorities from year to year? Will the agencies just start chasing the hottest trends?

Annan’s concern about “agility, dynamism and responsiveness” as a funding agency priority would seem to contradict The Black Hole’s essayist’s concern “with more papers, with less flexibility in ideas and more rigid (read more publishable) research project designs.”

In fact, we could end up with a situation where both apply. Imagine this. (1) A researcher applies for a ‘trendy’ area of research thereby fulfilling the funding agency’s dynamic, responsive funding requirement. (2) The researcher or PhD student’s academic institution or employer constrains the researcher to pump out multiple papers from a rigid research design under the funding agency’s the rubric of being responsive and agile.

Frankly, I’d like to see a little more agility and dynamism but I’d like it see it applied effectively. Sadly, I believe that my little scenario is more likely than not. The funding agencies are scrambling for money and, with the best of intentions, will do what it takes to get more so they can fulfill their mandate of supporting research. Meanwhile, the academic institutions will pay lip service to agility and dynamism while they apply the principles of rigidity and conformity used in production lines to pump out more product (publishable papers, awards, etc.) so they can maintain themselves and provide (their raison d’etre) education.

On other notes: there is a 2010 Public Science in Canada | Strengthening Science and Policy to Protect Canadians conference coming up in May. The keynote speakers are Stephen Lewis in an as yet untitled talk and [David] Suzuki and [Preston] Manning on Science: A Public Dialogue.  (Is there a Canadian science conference or science event where Preston Manning isn’t giving a keynote address?) More details can be found here.

On a personal note, congratulations to the Governor General’s latest fiction award winner, Kate Pullinger for the Mistress of Nothing. She was one of the leaders and teachers in my master’s programme (Creative Writing and New Media) at De Montfort University in the UK. I’m grateful that I had a chance to study in the programme (which was canceled after its 3rd year). I was able to experiment with creative writing techniques and science writing and that was a privilege.

Science funding cuts in the Canadian 2009 budget

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Lost in all the excitement over Genome Canada’s disappearance from the budget is the drop in funding allocations for all three national research councils, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), National Research Council (NRC), and I think they’re including the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) as the third one even though the name isn’t quite right. You can read up on the situation here and notice how the other three institutions are hardly mentioned.

Interestingly there was a recent article (Sat., Jan. 24, 2009) in the Globe and Mail about health research in Canada and how a great many US researchers flocked up because their funding was being limited and cut off in the US. Two researchers interviewed for the article mentioned that they were seeing similar signs of a freeze or even loss of funds, as they’d experienced in the US, on the horizon here as they were having problems with funding requests. (As I recall, the focus was on stem cell research but it might have been something else too.)

I am concerned in a general sense although I’m not a big fan of all this genomic mapping. How does mapping the genome of any organism help? As far as I can tell, all they’ve done is identify characteristics but they don’t understand how any of it works together. (I’m going to see if I can find a quote from Denise Caruso about genes and mapping them. As I recall, it hasn’t really amounted to anything much.)

While I disagree with some of the emphasis, I’m still concerned that all the science funding is being pulled back at this time. The whole thing is in stark contrast to the Obama administration’s interest in revitalizing and strengthening research in the US by pumping additional funds.