Dennis Fitzpatrick

The View from a Research Grants Office

By Dennis Fitzpatrick

Recent science research funding news has been excellent. Significant Federal government commitments have been made. The budget of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) increased by $ 36.5 million and there has been a $200-million infusion of cash for the indirect costs of research. Combined with previous investments, (i.e. Canada Research Chairs program, Canadian Institutes of Health Research, etc.), this new national funding provides exciting opportunities for researchers. The recent announcement by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) that “Canada takes a bold step by investing $779 million in research infrastructure” demonstrates Canada’s continuing commitment to enhancing its research capacity. That said, there remain significant needs that have not been met.

State-of-the-art science requires state-of-the-art facilities. Providing, maintaining, and updating those facilities is very expensive. Universities hire excellent people, give them modest start-up packages and in the spirit of free enterprise, place the onus on these new researchers to fund their own research and research infrastructure. They must develop a CFI new investigator application, search for the provincial match and find the missing ingredient, the 20 % industry partner funding.

This places a huge burden on new researchers. Their demonstrated strengths are research and scholarship, not lobbying and fundraising. Furthermore, the partnership searches are meeting a wall of ‘funding fatigue’. While the leveraging effect of partnership programs is obvious, sustaining industry and provincial commitments is a struggle.

There are other infrastructure/equipment funding issues. For example, many well-established NSERC-funded researchers face a significant challenge when they need to re-equip or renovate their laboratory. CFI is not a viable option. It is too highly competitive, only funding the research needs of the best of the best, our international science leaders.

NSERC realizes these infrastructure needs exist, but given the level of competition and funds available for equipment within their budget, it is unlikely that requests will be funded. At the university and provincial levels, well-established researchers compete head-to-head with new hires for scarce dollars. Again they loose. The result is strong, proven scientists struggling with aging and inadequate surroundings.

A related emerging problem is ‘grant/researcher’ fatigue. Many scientists push hard; they build large, internationally significant research programs funded by multiple grants. With this success comes manuscripts, progress reports, grant applications and re-applications. All the responsibilities of success, editorial duties, peer reviews and other professional activities increase work, stress and researcher fatigue.

These are self-inflicted wounds. The university community always welcomes new funding opportunities, but the conditions attached to these opportunities may serve to exacerbate the fatigue problem. Researchers are tired of writing multiple applications; they are tired of the multiple bureaucracies; and, they are tired of being ‘business managers’ when they are really academics.

There are no simple solutions to these funding issues. The stakeholders must all come together to search for some satisfactory compromise. The system needs both further investment and fundamental reform.

Dennis Fitzpatrick is Associate VP (Academic) at the University of Lethbridge