Budget 2008: New funds for university research

The relatively thin federal budget released today did have some treats in it for research funding, including direct funding to the University of Calgary and University of Saskatchewan and a major funding announcement for Genome Canada.

Canada’s research granting councils will receive $80 million in new funding. $34 million will flow to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, $34 million to the Canada Institutes of Health Research, and $12 million for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

But critics are concerned that the funding announcements have too many strings attached. James Turk, executive director of the Canadian Federation of University Teachers, said that while the new funding announcements were welcome, they missed the point by targeting the funding.

For instance, the money for the Social Sciences and Humanities is earmarked for environment related or northern development research. “That excludes maybe 95 per cent of the professors from having access to that money,” Turk said. By targeting funding, very little is left to basic research that often leads to important breakthroughs for industry, he said. “Our ability to predict what is going to pay off is very bad.”

Turk also criticized the government’s move to set aside $15 million in new funding to support the indirect costs of research, such as infrastructure, arguing that it is not enough.

Budget 2008 created 20 prestigious Canada Global Excellence Research Chairs that will receive $21 million over two years. The research chairs will be focused on key areas identified by the government, including the environment, natural resources and energy, health, and communication technologies. Each chair may receive up to $10 million over seven years.

The Conservative government increased research funding to some universities, targeting the funding on key priorities including health and engineering research. Calgary got $5 million for carbon capture research. Saskatchewan got an additional $10 million to maintain the Canada Light Source.

But the most significant funding announcement was $140-million for Genome Canada, a not-for-profit corporation that funds genomics research. In previous years, the organization has received $700 million from the government of Canada, according to the Genomics Canada website. The budget claims that this latest batch of funding will “build on Canada’s knowledge and people advantage in genomics.”

The budget also promises to create a new Automotive Innovation Fund, valued at $250 million over five years, to help the automotive sector “develop innovative, greener and more fuel-efficient vehicles.”

-with a report from Joey Coleman