Editorial - 18-4

The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) is at a crossroads. With the changing of the guard at the helm and completion of its last competition before funding levels drop, now is the time to re-evaluate its role in the national system of innovation.

Since its inception, CFI has injected almost $2.7 billion in leveraged funding into largely university-based research, creating a fiscal stimulus of nearly $6 billion. The impact of CFI funding has been phenomenal, almost single-handedly reviving a moribund sector and raising morale that was severely depressed from years of cuts and benign neglect.

It’s well known, however, that CFI funding has created enormous pressure on the federal granting councils, provincial S&T budgets and the universities themselves, not to mention the growing need for follow-on funding to replace equipment that’s rapidly becoming obsolete.

If anything, the financial resources of the CFI and the granting councils should be growing. But as of 2005, CFI’s funding capacity drops by roughly half. The federal government should move quickly to reassure the academic research community that it will not abandon support for CFI, and indicate its willingness to at least maintain its existing spending power.

The catch is that CFI has been funded up until now by year-end surpluses, and those days are quickly drawing to a close. That means making CFI in particular, and academic research in general, even higher priorities and devoting the appropriate resources. With the CFI, Ottawa has created a friendly research giant with an appetite to match. It’s feeding time.