Posted by
Tracey P. Lauriault-2 on
Jan 26, 2006; 4:37pm
URL: http://civicaccess.416.s1.nabble.com/slightly-OT-Free-snail-mail-to-your-MP-well-you-need-to-buy-an-envelope-tp161p182.html
I love those maps Patrick!
I speculate that we see less of that kinda research in Canada because
of $s!
US universities are really rich. I visited UCLA, U of Arizona,
Middlebury College in Vermont, and chatted with friends from San Diego
Super Computing, Georgia Tech & Dartmouth and I was amazed. I informally
collected the following observations/data from a pretty small sample
size in an informal way, but I think they are indicators of
institutional wealth - the quality and newness of the machines in their
student computer labs, campus WIFI, incredible libraries, the really
good food in their cafeterias, the pervasiveness of students with
laptops, sports scholarships, incredibly groomed grounds, liberal social
spending for invited guest lecturers, the really nice cars in the lots,
and the presence of excellent art and new funky architecture, and the
size of their student population. Resources in the US come from alumni
& fraternity & philanthropic & big business dollars & gov, and student
fees from more students, which i think provides the necessary resources
to purchase time, space, gadgets, and student support for some cool non
mandate driven but not free research.
Canadian research centres rely on SSHRC, CFI, and NSERC along with some
private sector dollars (medical research + engineering is a bit
different!) so they are less well resourced overall, research has to be
product based (NSERC) or very focused under a social science research
program (SSHRC), with fewer and smaller alumni donations, and a much
smaller student population. Also, note the research centre that
produced those maps was physics not geography. So I speculate that
fewer monetary resources, the declining population of students in
geography, and a smaller population density in Canada, leads to less non
mandate driven research, it has led to some really good quality and
robust focused research & products but much less free style research
like the one you pointed to!
I would be willing however to put my 5bucks towards research to produce
cool Canadian cartograms!
and i would welcome a challenge to my observations, cuz, i am only guessing.
Tracey
Patrick Dinnen wrote: