Tag Archives: Martha Piper

Canada and its review of fundamental science

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Big thanks to David Bruggeman’s June 14, 2016 post (on his Pasco Phronesis blog) for news of Canada’s Fundamental Science Review, which was launched on June 13, 2016 (Note: Links have been removed),

The panel’s mandate focuses on support for fundamental research, research facilities, and platform technologies.  This will include the three granting councils as well as other research organisations such as the Canada Foundation for Innovation. But it does not preclude the panel from considering and providing advice and recommendations on research matters outside of the mandate.  The plan is to make the panel’s work and recommendations readily accessible to the public, either online or through any report or reports the panel produces.  The panel’s recommendations to Minister Duncan are non-binding. …

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As Ivan Semeniuk notes at The Globe and Mail [Canadian ‘national’ newspaper], the recent Nurse Review in the U.K., which led to the notable changes underway in the organization of that country’s research councils, seems comparable to this effort.  But I think it worth noting the differences in the research systems of the two countries, and the different political pressures in play.  It is not at all obvious to this writer that the Canadian review would necessarily lead to similar recommendations for a streamlining and reorganization of the Canadian research councils.

Longtime observers of the Canadian science funding scene may recall an earlier review held under the auspices of the Steven Harper Conservative government known as the ‘Review of Federal Support to R&D’. In fact it was focused on streamlining government funding for innovation and commercialization of science. The result was the 2011 report, ‘Innovation Canada: A Call to Action’, known popularly as the ‘Jenkins report’ after the panel chair, Tom Jenkins. (More about the report and responses to it can be found in my Oct. 21, 2011 post).

It’s nice to see that fundamental science is being given its turn for attention.

A June 13, 2016 Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada news release provides more detail about the review and the panel guiding the review,

The Government of Canada understands the role of science in maintaining a thriving, clean economy and in providing the evidence for sound policy decisions. To deliver on this role however, federal programs that support Canada’s research efforts must be aligned in such a way as to ensure they are strategic, effective and focused on meeting the needs of scientists first.

That is why the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science, today launched an independent review of federal funding for fundamental science. The review will assess the program machinery that is currently in place to support science and scientists in Canada. The scope of the review includes the three granting councils [Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council {SSHRC}, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council {NSERC}, Canadian Institutes of Health Research {CIHR}] along with certain federally funded organizations such as the Canada Foundation for Innovation [CFI].

The review will be led by an independent panel of distinguished research leaders and innovators including Dr. David Naylor, former president of the University of Toronto and chair of the panel. Other panelists include:

  • Dr. Robert Birgeneau, former chancellor, University of California, Berkeley
  • Dr. Martha Crago, Vice-President, Research, Dalhousie University
  • Mike Lazaridis, co-founder, Quantum Valley Investments
  • Dr. Claudia Malacrida, Associate Vice-President, Research, University of Lethbridge
  • Dr. Art McDonald, former director of the Sudbury Neutrino Laboratory, Nobel Laureate
  • Dr. Martha Piper, interim president, University of British Columbia
  • Dr. Rémi Quirion, Chief Scientist, Quebec
  • Dr. Anne Wilson, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Successful Societies Fellow and professor of psychology, Wilfrid Laurier University

The panel will spend the next six months seeking input from the research community and Canadians on how to optimize support for fundamental science in Canada. The panel will also survey international best practices for funding science and examine whether emerging researchers face barriers that prevent them from achieving career goals. It will look at what must be done to address these barriers and what more can be done to encourage Canada’s scientists to take on bold new research challenges. In addition to collecting input from the research community, the panel will also invite Canadians to participate in the review [emphasis mine] through an online consultation.

Ivan Semeniuk in his June 13, 2016 article for The Globe and Mail provides some interesting commentary about the possible outcomes of this review,

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Depending on how its recommendations are taken on board, the panel could trigger anything from minor tweaks to a major rebuild of Ottawa’s science-funding apparatus, which this year is expected to funnel more than $3-billion to Canadian researchers and their labs.

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Asked what she most wanted the panel to address, Ms. Duncan cited, as an example, the plight of younger researchers who, in many cases, must wait until they are in their 40s to get federal support.

Another is the risk of losing the benefits of previous investments when funding rules become restrictive, such as a 14-year limit on how long the government can support one of its existing networks of centres of excellence, or the dependence of research projects that are in the national interest on funding streams that require support from provincial governments or private sources.

The current system for proposing and reviewing research grants has been criticized as cumbersome and fraught with biases that mean the best science is not always supported.

In a paper published on Friday in the research journal PLOS One, Trent University biologist Dennis Murray and colleagues combed through 13,526 grant proposals to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council between 2011 and 2014 and found significant evidence that researchers at smaller universities have consistently lower success rates.

Dr. Murray advocates for a more quantitative and impartial system of review to keep such biases at bay.

“There are too many opportunities for human impressions — conscious or unconscious — to make their way into the current evaluation process,” Dr. Murray said.

More broadly, researchers say the time is right for a look at a system that has grown convoluted and less suited to a world in which science is increasingly cross-disciplinary, and international research collaborations are more important.

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If you have time, I encourage you to take a look at Semeniuk’s entire article as for the paper he mentions, here’s a link to and a citation for it,

Bias in Research Grant Evaluation Has Dire Consequences for Small Universities by Dennis L. Murray, Douglas Morris, Claude Lavoie, Peter R. Leavitt, Hugh MacIsaac,  Michael E. J. Masson, & Marc-Andre Villard. PLOS http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0155876  Published: June 3, 2016

This paper is open access.

Getting back to the review and more specifically, the panel, it’s good to see that four of the nine participants are women but other than that there doesn’t seem to be much diversity, i.e.,the majority (five) spring from the Ontario/Québec nexus of power and all the Canadians are from the southern part of country. Back to diversity, there is one business man, Mike Laziridis known primarily as the founder of Research in Motion (RIM or more popularly as the Blackberry company) making the panel not a wholly ivory tower affair. Still, I hope one day these panels will have members from the Canadian North and international members who come from somewhere other than the US, Great Britain, and/or if they’re having a particularly wild day, Germany. Here are some candidate countries for other places to look for panel members: Japan, Israel, China, South Korea, and India. Other possibilities include one of the South American countries, African countries, and/or the Middle Eastern countries.

Take the continent of Africa for example, where many countries seem to have successfully tackled one of the issues as we face. Specifically, the problem of encouraging young researchers. James Wilsdon notes some success in his April 9, 2016 post about Africa and science advice for the Guardian science blogs (Note: Links have been removed),

… some of the brightest talents and most exciting advances in African science were on display at the Next Einstein Forum. This landmark meeting, initiated by the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and held in Senegal, brought together almost 1000 researchers, entrepreneurs, businesses and policymakers from across Africa to celebrate and support the continent’s most promising early-career researchers.

A new cadre of fifteen Next Einstein Fellows and fifty-four ambassadors was announced, and the forum ended with an upbeat declaration of commitment to Africa’s role in world-leading, locally-relevant science. …

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… UNESCO’s latest global audit of science, published at the end of 2015, concludes that African science is firmly on the rise. The number of journal articles published on the continent rose by sixty per cent from 2008 to 2014. Research investment rose from $12.9 billion in 2007 to $19.9 billion (US dollars) in 2013. Over the same period, R&D expenditure as a percentage of GDP nudged upwards from 0.36 per cent to 0.45 per cent, and the population of active researchers expanded from 150,000 to 190,000.

If you have the time, do read Wilsdon’s piece which covers some of the more difficult aspects facing the science communities in Africa and more.

In any event, it’s a bit late to bemoan the panel’s makeup but hopefully the government will take note for the future as I’m planning to include some of my critique in my comments to the panel in answer to their request for public comments.

You can find out more about Canada’s Fundamental Science Review here and you can easily participate here and/or go here to subscribe for updates.

Science and the new Canadian cabinet

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Justin Trudeau, Canada’s new Prime Minister was sworn in this morning (Nov. 4, 2015). He announced his new cabinet which holds 30 or 31 ministers (reports conflict), 15 of whom are women.

As for my predictions about how science would be treated in the new cabinet, I got it part of it right. Navdeep Singh Bains was named Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development. I believe it’s the old Industry Canada ministry and it seemed the science portfolio was rolled into that ‘new’ ministry name as I suggested in my Nov. 2, 2015 posting.  (I thought it would be Industry and Science.)  However, there is also a Minister of Science, Kirsty Duncan. This represents a promotion of sorts for the science portfolio since it was previously considered a junior ministry as signified by the  title ‘Minister of State (Science and Technology)’.

It appears science is on the Liberal agenda although how they’re going to resolve two ministers and ministries having science responsibilities should be interesting. At the top level, I imagine it’s going to be split into applied science or commercial science (Innovation) as opposed to basic science or fundamental science (Science). The problem in these situations is that there’s a usually a grey area.

Moving on, if there’s anything that’s needs to be done quickly within the science portfolios, it’s the reinstatement of the mandatory long form census. Otherwise, there’s no hope of including it as part of the 2016 census. This should induce a sigh of relief across the country from the business community and provincial and municipal administrators who have had some planning and analysis problems due to the lack of reliable data from the 2011 census and its mandated, by then Prime Minister Stephen Harper, voluntary long form census.

***ETA Nov. 6, 2015: A day after the cabinet announcement, there was an announcement reinstating the mandatory long form census about which David Bruggeman provides an update  in a Nov. 5, 2015 posting on his Pasco Phronesis blog (Note: Links have been removed),

He [Justin Trudeau] also announced his cabinet, and his government announced that it would restore the mandatory long-form census.  I’ll focus on the cabinet, but the census decision is a big deal, especially with the next one scheduled for 2016. The official list of the top tier Cabinet appointments is online.

The census decision was announced by the new Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, MP Navdeep Bains.  Minister Bains was returned to Parliament in this year’s election, having served previously in Parliament from 2004-2011.  His training is in finance and his non-Parliamentary experience has been in financial analysis.  …

If you have the time, do read David’s post he includes more detailed descriptions of the new ‘science’ cabinet appointees. And, back to the original text of this posting where I highlight two of the ‘science’ appointments.***

As for the two new ‘science’ ministers, Kirsty Duncan and Navdeep Singh Bains there’s this from the Nov. 4, 2015 cabinet list on the Globe & Main website,

Navdeep Singh Bains
[Member of Parliament {MP} for] Mississauga-Malton, Ontario

Innovation, science and economic development

Former accountant at the Ford Motor Company of Canada. Former professor at Ryerson University’s management school. Entered federal politics in Mississauga in 2004.

Kirsty Duncan
[MP] Etobicoke North, Ontario

Science

Medical geographer and former professor at the University of Windsor and University of Toronto. Has been a Liberal MP since 2008.

For those who don’t know, Etobicoke (pronounced e [as in etymology] toh bi coh), is considered a part of the city of Toronto.

There is more information about this new government in the form of a PDF listing the new Cabinet committees and their membership. I’m not sure about the protocol but it would have been nice to see Elizabeth May, MP and leader of the Green Party, listed as a member of the Cabinet Committee on Environment, Climate Change and Energy (there were three petitions asking she be named Environment Minister according to an Oct. 20, 2015 news item by Lisa Johnson for CBC [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation] news online). Perhaps she’ll be on a Parliamentary committee concerned with these issues.

More predictions

Buoyed by my almost successful prognostication, I’m going to add another couple to the mix.

I think there will be the appointment of a Chief Science Advisor (likely answering to the Prime Minister or Prime Minister’s Office) and while some might think Ted Hsu would be a good choice, I suspect (sadly) he would be considered too partisan a choice. A physicist by training, he was a Liberal Member of Parliament and the party’s science and technology critic in the recently dissolved 41st Parliament of Canada from June 2, 2011 to August 15, 2015. However, should Prime Minister Justin Trudeau choose to appoint a Parliamentary Science Officer after appointing a Chief Science Advisor to the government, Hsu might be considered a very good choice given his experience as both scientist and parliamentarian. (As I understand it, a Parliamentary Science Officer, as modeled by the UK system, is someone who gives science advice to Members of Parliament who may request such advice when dealing with bills that contain science policy or require a better understanding of science, e.g. an energy bill, when debating and voting on the measure.)

Justin Trudeau and his British Columbia connection

Amusingly, the University of British Columbia (UBC) is touting the fact that Trudeau graduated from there with an undergraduate degree in Education. From a Nov. 4, 2015 UBC news release (received in my email),

The University of British Columbia congratulates Justin Trudeau, who earned a bachelor of education from UBC in 1998, on becoming Prime Minister of Canada today.

“It is not every day that a UBC alumnus achieves Canada’s highest office,” said Interim President Martha Piper. “As UBC celebrates its Centennial year, Mr. Trudeau’s accomplishment will serve as a prominent marker in the history of our university and count among the highest achievements of our more than 300,000 alumni.”

Trudeau is the first UBC graduate to be elected prime minister and joins fellow alumni prime ministers Kim Campbell (BA’69, LLB’83) and John Turner (BA’49) who were appointed upon securing their party leadership.

UBC would also like to congratulate alumna Jody Wilson-Raybould (LLB’99), who was appointed Minster of Justice and Attorney General of Canada, and all the other cabinet ministers appointed today.

“UBC looks forward to working with Prime Minister Trudeau and his cabinet in the coming months and continuing the strong dialogue UBC has enjoyed with our partners in Ottawa,” said Piper.

This is only amusing if you know that UBC is trying desperately to distance itself from a recent scandal where Arvind Gupta, president, stepped down (July 2015) from his position at the university only one year into his term for reasons no one will disclose. While the timing (the news release was distributed late on a Friday afternoon) and secrecy seemed suspicious, the scandal aspect developed when the chair of the UBC Board of Governors, John Montalbano called a faculty member to complain about a blog posting where she speculated about some of the pressures that may have been brought to bear on Gupta. Her subsequent posting about Montalbano’s phone call and senior faculty response excited media interest leading eventually into an investigation into Montalbano’s behaviour and charges that he was interfering with academic freedom. Recently exonerated (Oct. 15, 2015), Montalbano resigned from the board, while UBC admitted it had failed to support and protect academic freedom. Interesting, non?

Arts research at Canada’s National Institute of Nanotechnology and the University of Alberta

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Big props to the University of Alberta’s Vice-President (Research), Lorne Babiuk and Associate Vice-President (Research), George Pavlich,,  who initiated the new Scholar in Residence for Arts Research in Nanotechnology project and to Heather Graves who has snagged the position. From the Jan. 11, 2011 article by Michael Davies-Venn for the University of Alberta’s Express News,

Establishing the Scholar in Residence for Arts Research in Nanotechnology is the latest initiative by the U of A to foster interdisciplinary research among scholars in the social sciences, humanities, engineering, creative arts and sciences. Lorne Babiuk, U of A vice-president (research), says the program furthers the university’s commitment to interdisciplinary research. “The aim is to broaden the impact of the National Institute for Nanotechnology, or NINT, across the full spectrum of disciplines on campus, into areas that aren’t normally a part of the nano-scientific process,” he said.

The National Institute of Nanotechnology’s (NINT) director also had a few things to say,

Nils Petersen, NINT’s director general, says the scholar in residence program adds value to the institute. “By having colleagues from the arts join us in telling our story, perhaps in non-traditional ways, we hope more Canadians will come to understand the potential of nanotechnology.”

I’m encouraged to see that he wants to have the nanotechnology story told. This is a change of heart. I first started (in 2008) trying to get an interview from Petersen and/or Martha Piper (who was on the board for two years) both of whom stonewalled my efforts (in Petersen’s case, I persisted for 3 or 4 months and in Piper’s case, it was two years [she kept promising]). Interestingly, the NINT website does not have a news release about this new arts scholar initiative on its website. You can check for yourself.

Getting back to the arts scholar herself, here’s a little bit about Heather Graves, University of Alberta professor,

Heather Graves, a U of A English and film studies researcher, will be the first to hold the position of Scholar in Residence for Arts Research in Nanotechnology when she begins working with her colleagues at NINT. She says she will examine how researchers in nanotechnology negotiate the ambiguities of language in their research.

“This is an opportunity to watch the discourse of the new field of nanotechnology emerge and the language usage negotiated among the experts involved,” said Graves. “One of the things we hope that nanotechnologists will get out of our examination is a vocabulary that they can use to talk about what they do.”

The scholar in residence program is a three-year pilot program, funded by Alberta Innovates Technology Futures.

I look forward to hearing more about this interdisciplinary initiative in the near future. Hopefully, they will list this project on the NINT website soon.