tri-council | FrogHeart

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}

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!

FrogHeart

Commentary about nanotech, science policy and communication, society, and the arts

Tag Archives: tri-council