Do you know Katalin Kariko? His research on the development of messenger RNA vaccines, crucial when it came to confronting the COVID-19 pandemic, earned him the Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2023 with Drew Weissman. What is less known is that had it not been for the sacrifices of the Hungarian-American biochemist and her fierce stubbornness in seeing them through to the end, her work begun in the 1990s would have been nipped in the bud as much they were considered difficult to finance.
There have been potential innovations sacrificed on the altar of utilitarianism at all times, everywhere. But Canada today has more than its share, the concrete result of a national disengagement in scientific research over the last 20 years. In fact, the evil has become so entrenched that “we are missing the boat” of knowledge, argue more than a hundred researchers in a letter relayed by Radio-Canada and including The duty had a copy.
Launched at the instigation of engineering researcher Marc-Denis Rioux, this cry from the heart is supported by figures which confirm that while Canada applied the brakes on the financing of research and development (R&D), the vast majority of countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) were putting pressure on the accelerator. In Canada, the proportion of GDP invested in research increased from 1.86% in 2000 to 1.55% in 2022. During the same period, the average investment in research in OECD countries increased from 2.12 % to 2.72%.
And we are not talking here about the champions in the DR which are Israel (5.6%), South Korea (4.9%) or the American neighbor (3.5%). They have understood that the world of tomorrow belongs to those who will master its codes in addition to inventing the next ones. Will we measure how much our lack of ambition weakens us as the climate crisis grows, artificial intelligence rises, dematerialization intensifies, geopolitical tensions increase and aging deepens?
Two decades of keeping a low profile will have contributed to digging a gap from which it will be difficult to extricate itself. It is not only the number of research projects that has declined in the country, it is our ability to finance our labs, to invest in technologies that matter and to decently pay our researchers and students. The salary of our fellows has become so laughable that it ended up pushing them into the streets to show their distress last year.
Taking a vow of poverty to do research is absurd. How absurd it is to reject so many promising projects because funding no longer keeps up with talent. In their letter addressed to the federal Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, François-Philippe Champagne, the 123 researchers believe that these lean years have caused the loss of “an entire generation” of researchers in Canada. In addition to locking us into “the trap of utilitarianism”.
Science is unfortunately a complex creature that sometimes needs detours for an epiphany to occur. This is especially true for fundamental science, at the origin of the greatest leaps forward that our societies have known. But as we finance fewer projects, we prioritize those that have immediate applications. Even if it means stretching the moral elastic, as universities, including McGill and Concordia, have done by collaborating with a Chinese military school responsible for developing cutting-edge weapons for Beijing. Not to mention the crass inequity that science in French bears the brunt of.
Minister Champagne’s office does not deny that Canada has fallen behind in scientific research. However, he denies having participated in this disengagement. On the contrary, the Liberal government “has been working since day one to rebuild [un] ecosystem” that the “Conservative government has defunded,” argued his press secretary at Radio-Canada. But it is not enough to proclaim oneself a righter of wrongs to become one. We have to put energy and resources into it.
Last spring, the advisory committee on Canada’s federal research support system already concluded that the Canadian ecosystem was weak in a world “where other countries use their own scientific potential as a national strategic asset.” His report made increasing financial support for research and talent “the immediate priority”.
The whole proposed a vibrant plea for free and creative research, supported by agile, coordinated structures sensitive to collaborative and multidisciplinary approaches. Everything that is – still today – largely lacking in Canadian research. Certainly, the step is high and poses a serious headache for the Trudeau government. But the path of weakness and complacency poses an even greater challenge when we know that in scientific research, those who step back sooner or later end up putting themselves in danger.