The cries of alarm from researchers and the distress of student-researchers have turned into profound discouragement since the tabling of the last federal budget, which does not provide for any increase in funding for research, which has stagnated for twenty years.
Asphyxiated, the Canadian ecosystem sees its best elements abandon their research careers or leave the country for countries that have made research and innovation a national priority by investing sums commensurate with their ambitions. Canada, once at the head of the pack, is now stripped of this enviable status, which attracted talent from elsewhere.
If the federal government does not immediately make a substantial increase in research investments, we will witness a major brain drain – and it has already begun – warn senior researchers and the president of the Advisory Committee on the Federal Support System for Research. research (CCSFSR), Frédéric Bouchard.
The CCSFSR has thus formulated a series of recommendations to stop the bleeding, the most urgent of which is to immediately catch up financially with the three granting councils, namely the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Research Council in Natural Sciences and Engineering of Canada and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.
Depleted vital forces
Students (master’s and doctoral), postdoctoral fellows and associate researchers are the lifeblood of research laboratories, and they are crying hungry.
Djamouna Sihou Pandimadevi, who started a doctorate at the Montreal Clinical Research Institute (IRCM) in 2019 after obtaining a master’s degree at the University of Bordeaux, works a minimum of 40 hours a week in the laboratory of his thesis director. . “A doctorate is a lot of work for not a lot of money. We put a lot of effort into it, a lot of passion, we produce a lot of science, which we have to publish. It’s a long course: when I finish, I’ll be almost 30 years old, but no savings,” she explains.
Money matters weigh heavily on the shoulders of the doctoral student. “For the moment, I plan to stop science because it is not paid enough. There are people who, with just a baccalaureate, or even no baccalaureate, go to work in a bank and are paid more than us. Most of the students around me are considering leaving university science — and it’s really about funding, because I know a lot of people who really like it, but they say you can’t build a family. with that kind of salary,” she says.
In a report submitted last March following consultations with the Canadian research community, but also abroad, the CCSFSR confirms that “current support for student researchers, that is, our research succession, is at breaking point “. “The value of scholarships granted by the government to the next generation of researchers has practically stagnated over the past twenty years. They have not kept up with the rising cost of living or global trends in compensation for research trainees. This situation has considerably eroded Canada’s position […] and this erosion will be accelerated by increased investment from our international peers. »
However, it is not only the amount of scholarships that needs to be increased, but that of the research grants obtained by the laboratory directors from the three granting councils, because it is from these sums that the remuneration that the very majority of student-researchers and postdoctoral fellows, underlines the president of the CCSFSR, Frédéric Bouchard, who is also dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at the Université de Montréal
The grants that researchers get from CIHR are used to pay students, postdoctoral fellows, research associates, technicians, research assistants, as well as reagents — substances used in experiments — the cost of which has increased dramatically because of inflation, sequencing, animal facilities and microscopy services, says Tarik Möröy, director of the hematopoiesis and cancer research unit at the IRCM since 2006.
Rejected for lack of funds
The problem is that more than 80% of research grant applications are rejected. What’s more, if a project is accepted, its budget is shaved by at least 20%. “Without this last measure, we would perhaps have a 12% success rate for applications. Even if this measure is well intentioned, it thus becomes impossible to increase the salaries of our students and postdocs, whereas it would be justified”, says Mr. Möröy.
Michel Cayouette, vice-president of research and academic affairs at the IRCM, reports that the evaluation committees are completely dejected when faced with “the number of exceptional projects that cannot be funded, and this, not because they are not good, but because there are not enough funds”.
“With such low success rates, the selection process becomes random. A request may be accepted because it was discussed at the start of the day rather than at the end. Researchers then have to rewrite requests instead of doing research, and this creates discouragement in the long run. […] And this also has pernicious effects, because in the hope of having a better chance of seeing their applications accepted, researchers will be more inclined to propose less daring, not very original projects, which are not too risky. Underfunding stifles innovation, because highly innovative projects, which are inherently risky, can lead to great discoveries [comme les vaccins à ARN messager contre la COVID-19] adds Mathieu Ferron, who declined an offer of $750,000 for three years from the US National Institutes of Health. For personal reasons, he chose instead to come and work at the IRCM, where the average grant awarded by the CIHR is approximately $160,000 per year.
With a budget reduced by more than 20%, research directors can only accept a very limited number of new students, postdoctoral fellows and associate researchers. “We would like to keep as associate researchers these excellent, highly specialized researchers who did a five-year postdoctoral fellowship in our laboratory, but our grants do not allow us to do so. These highly qualified personnel will go to another country, where there is more funding, or change direction. We are starting to notice this phenomenon, because we are receiving fewer and fewer requests for postdoctoral fellowships,” reveals Mr. Cayouette.
Canada’s diminished appeal
“Canada was in the lead [des pays consacrant des investissements conséquents en recherche], but this is no longer the case. These investments are no longer commensurate with growing needs, they are no longer up to par with peer countries, and this has serious consequences: it is becoming more and more difficult to convince our best talents to work here and attract the best from elsewhere. Canada finds itself in a risk of brain drain that we have not seen for a long time,” said Mr. Bouchard.
The United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Finland, Australia and Japan, in particular, have planned to substantially increase their support for science and research, which they consider “a priority national”. “In the United States, the Republicans and the Democrats, who are often at loggerheads, support with one voice these colossal investments in fundamental and applied research”, remarks the president of the CCSFSR.
These investments, so much demanded by Canadian researchers in order to prevent a brain drain, did not appear in the Freeland budget of March 28, which greatly disappointed the Canadian research community, which says it is more concerned than ever.