AUCC stakes out funding requirements for Canadian university research

Increases sought in all areas

Universities are seeking up to $1.9 billion over the next four years to maintain and build upon Canada’s reinvigorated university research base. Armed with freshly compiled data demonstrating the impact of investments in university research, the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC) is hoping that the productivity Budget promised by Finance minister Ralph Goodale will allow post-secondary institutions to tap into a bulging federal surplus now estimated at more than $10 billion.

The AUCC is making its case for new funding as it releases a major report detailing the impact of previous investments in university research.

“We’re working with the granting councils to identify the magnitude of continuing investment (but) the total ballpark figure for all research investments required within the university sphere is between $1.5 billion and $1.9 billion,” says AUCC president Claire Morris. “That’s for the direct and indirect costs of research and infrastructure to be ramped up over a four-year period.”

Universities have received approximately $11 billion in federal investments over the past eight years and the AUCC contends that’s why an even greater financial investment is warranted.

The AUCC lays out its argument in Momentum: The 2005 Report on University Research and Knowledge Transfer. The report fulfills a commitment unveiled at the National Innovation Summit in Toronto in 2002. It pledged to periodically report on progress towards two key targets: the tripling of commercialization performance and a doubling of research performed by universities. Both targets are to be met by 2010).

The doubling of university research performance entails significant increases to the budgets of the granting councils and an increase in funding for the indirect costs of research from the current level of about 26% to 40%.

“We have to maintain the momentum in research ... This is much broader than commercialization and products getting to market,” says Morris.

The Momentum document reports that university research performance has increased more than 60% between 2000 and 2004, to $9.3 billion and is on track to double (factoring in inflation) by 2010.

While this target has obvious benefits, the same can’t be said for the commercialization target. University commercialization activity traditionally yields only modest levels of revenue, and many have questioned whether the indicator is a useful measure of innovation.

The 2002 framework agreement struck between the AUCC and then Industry minister Alan Rock was hailed as a key element of the government’s drive to move into the top five research-performing nations by 2010 — an objective that has next to no chance of succeeding. The Momentum report concedes as much, stating that after three years, “Canada has likely slipped back to its initial ranking in 15th place”.

“At the time that target was set, there was no full understanding of the limitations of the data,” says Morris. “That’s why we’ve introduced the dynamic impact measure. Knowledge is transferred in so many ways.”

University research has $50-billion impact on GDP

The dynamic impact calculation is based on an assessment developed by Univ of Montreal economist Dr Fernand Martin (see call-out). AUCC commissioned Martin to update work originally conducted in the mid 1990s with data from 2004. It contends that university R&D has had a $50-billion impact on gross domestic product.

The Momentum report also addresses the issue of faculty levels and shows that, after a drop of 10% between 1992 and 1997 (largely due to provincial cuts to operating funds), the numbers are again increasing. For 2004, the number of full-time faculty at Canadian universities is expected to reach 38,000, up 4,000 from a low of 34,000 in 1997. Enrolment has grown by 200,000 during the same period.

“Canada faces the major challenge of ensuring the country can deliver the faculty required to respond to both growing research demands and to the expectations of Canadians for greater student access to a research-enriched and internationalized university education,” states the report.

The Momentum report builds on findings the AUCC published in its October 2002 report called Trends in Higher Education (R$, October 21/02). That document also spelled out growth scenarios for the coming decade. Morris says the two reports will be updated on an alternate basis and will continue to deliver the same message.

“Many of the original architects of the 2002 Innovation Strategy are gone and their replacements are often not aware. We need to educate them,” she says. “We need to sustain the momentum because everyone else is moving so quickly.”

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