Science and Technology Policy in Canada - ?

[Tracey P. Lauriault]

It would be great to discuss Canada's Science and Technology Policy a bit!  The star spangled banner flashes brightly into our eyes and sometimes blinds us to the situation at home!  They sure are fancy in the south, but what we do here govern's us! But I agree we can leverage the good stuff from the south and infuse our dreams with potential.

Canada does not have a National Science Foundation.  We DO have 2 research arms, one called Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Committee (NSERC).  While there is some logic to having them thematically seperate, the logic of SSHRC informing science and research policy with NSERC I think overules thematic research differences.  Both are primarily funding agencies and neither of these organizations have a specific science and technology policy for the Nation.  We DO have the National Research Centre (NRC), it however is more and more going the direction of industry led/supported research according to a friend of mine who works there at the expense of more socially or environmentally relevant or public beneficial research.  They have some incredible scientists working for them but they to do not really have the mandate of public policy on science or technology.  We used to have a national science advisor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Science_Advisor_(Canada)) who was at some distance from the Government but that position was made redundant by the Harper Government.  Albeit, I do wonder how one person can fulfill that role alone. 

But alas! Canada does not have a science and technology policy but there is reference to this document Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada's Advantage — 2007 (http://www.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/ic1.nsf/en/h_00856e.html) but I have no idea how well received or implemented this document is. It is again very industry centric and not necessarily Canadian society centric.  It does seem to have a roadmap (http://www.stic-csti.ca/epic/site/stic-csti.nsf/en/h_00010e.html).  Membership names are below this press release (http://www.ic.gc.ca/epic/site/ic1.nsf/en/02069e.html).  I do not know these people but maybe some of you do!

Until we have a type of funded organization that is somewhat arms length from government we will probably have very little in terms of an integrated science, technology or data access/management/preservation strategy.  We need an org that is not just a funding agency that can only more or less track & share the research it funds and that does not just answer industry concerns.  We need one with teeth, mulah and brains!

Here is an excerpt of the Brief I submitted to the House of Commons Standing Committee on Industry, Science and Technology Committees Directorate that is again more industry centric, that explains the stuff a bit more. (http://serendipityoucity.blogsome.com/brief-submission-indu-study-on-canadian-science-and-technology/)

The creation of a Society, Science and Technology Foundation for Canada analogous to the US National Science Foundation (NSF).

• Rational: Currently in Canada we have NSERC whose focus is to fund research related to the creation of science and engineering products but does not provide S&T research direction. There is SSHRC which funds social science research but rarely funds research that is at the intersection of science, technology and society. The SSHRC now expired Innovation on the New Economy thrust was the exception. There is the National Research Council (NRC) which does Canadian science, and there is Natural Resources Canada which pursues the issue driven science of the 'New' government, Environment Canada and Health Canada and a number of regulatory organizations who do science, but there is no institution that investigates big science issues in Canada, that can bring cross disciplinary teams of scientists together on important issues, that can call upon the government agencies that do science to collaborate on specific projects or that can bridge private, academic, government and civil society expertise on particular science and technology directions.  There are also some quasi independent organizations such as the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) but it does not do research. And there are a few provincial R&D institutions however none of these are coordinated at a national scale.  Canada does not have an organization for non science and technology producing agencies to defer to if assistance is required on big national scale technology projects, and so these rely and fund large consulting firm to direct technology projects instead –this is not a good scenario but it is a typical one.  The NSF in the US has the resources and authority to mobilize scientists, specialists, engineers and experts on myriad critical science issues and to fund big and small projects alike, it could benefit from more public consultation processes as discussed above.  The NSF free online publications are stupendous and are the result of working groups comprising top US thinkers assembled to focus on one or two key issues, visions or problem areas.  The current US Cyberinfrastructure project, Super Computing Centres, GRID computing, and distributed repository systems for data storage, and transdisplinary R&S&D are the result of NSF research.  As a Canadian I would like to have a Canadian more consultative version of an NSF as our current ad hoc un-coordinated system fails us as a Nation.  We work to meet local, particular and often immediate needs but do not build or think collectively as a nation on society, science and technology at the moment.

Where do we go from here?  Maybe some of us should read the Councils docs, and see what is in there.  Although who knows if this still sticks after the recent elections.  Different provinces also have strategies, might be good to look at those too.  We would also have to assess the partisanship of the members. Some of the professional and academic research chairs look impressive, I wonder how the social aspect of technology or technological implications or ethics make it to the table if there are no experts from those areas.  We know some people are working on the procurement side of government and are pushing for more open source, but who knows about open access!

I have been annoyed by myself and a bunch of other stuff this week so if the tone is off please forgive me for I am suffering from much foot in mouth disease this week.
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Tracey P. Lauriault
https://gcrc.carleton.ca/confluence/display/GCRCWEB/Lauriault