On February 7, the Minister of Economy, Innovation and Energy, Pierre Fitzgibbon, tabled Bill 44 relating, essentially, to the reorganization of Quebec’s three research funds.
During the adoption in principle, on February 20, it was rather the Minister Delegate for the Economy, Christopher Skeete, who presented the project to the National Assembly by saying “Okay, listen, good news, we’re going to talk research and innovation”.
However, it is not certain that this bill is “good news” for researchers, because it denies, at its core, the essential autonomy of the different sectors of research by playing on “governance” ensured by “independent people”, that is to say not actively involved in research.
It is therefore indeed worth “talking” about the real content of this project beyond the ritual assertions according to which the reform would aim to “have more agile governance”, to avoid the so-called “silos” of research and to stimulate so-called “intersectoral” research.
Simplistic Ideas
By merging three boards of directors from different sectors of research, this purely bureaucratic project takes no account of the specificity of current research practices in science and engineering, health sciences and social and human sciences.
The current directors of the three funds being silent on the fundamental issues of Bill 44 for the different sectors of research, it is worth returning to the criticisms that the directors of these funds formulated in 2011 when the Liberal government of Jean Charest had, with his bill 130, proposed the same simplistic idea, but had backed away from the mobilization of researchers and the arguments presented in parliamentary committee.
The director of the Quebec Research Fund on Society and Culture (FRQSC), Jacques Babin, first reminded elected officials that the dismantling, in 2001, of the Fund for the training of researchers and research assistance ( FCAR) resulted from the fact “that he embraced too broadly”. This led to the creation of the three current funds: Nature and Technology (FRQNT), Health and FRQSC.
Mr. Babin also said “to question the capacity of a single board of directors to adequately account for the specificity of research in the human and social sciences and in arts and letters. […] as the FQRSC board of directors did with its own strategic plan. […] What will be the criteria that will govern the establishment of priorities, particularly those in the human and social sciences? How will arbitration be done between sectors? »
His colleague director of the FRQNT, Pierre Prémont, said essentially the same thing and gave as an example “the fact that there are research centers in university hospitals is not reproduced in other sectors, since it is specific to health “. It was therefore necessary to “respect the roles and cultures of each sector”.
Sectors
Today, as in 2011, we invoke the usefulness of sectoral committees that can advise a unified board of directors. Director Babin had already responded to this argument by noting: “Sectoral committees are interesting. But a board of directors is a board of directors. OK ? And a board of directors has the last word on everything. » Just like in 2011, Bill 44 does not include the fact that the sectors have separate budgets, as is currently the case.
To try to reassure researchers, we affirm that the budgets of each sector are assured! The speech was the same in 2011 and the director of the FQRNT rightly retorted that the members of its board of directors “note that Bill 130 is silent on the distribution of these budgets for each sector. There is therefore a concern to see, in the medium and short term or long term, these sectoral budgets vary inconsistently.” He therefore suggested including “in Bill 130 a measure that could protect these sectoral budgets.” As fashion was already underway for so-called “intersectoral” research, he added that his board was “worried to think that these intersectoral activities could be financed from sectoral budgets”.
In fact, the only new feature of Bill 44 – and the most problematic – relates to the composition of the CA, two-thirds of whose people must be “independent”. However, this definition excludes de facto all true experts in the three research sectors, namely researchers active within the universities where most of the research is done.
Applying to the FRQ a law adapted to Hydro-Québec or the Société des alcools is one more way of reducing the autonomy of research and ensuring that accountants or other so-called “innovators” will take charge of the “ planning” research to supposedly better “stimulate” the economy.
Some say that “times have changed” and seem to be convinced by the rhetoric of “agile governance”. We will see if during the upcoming consultations at the Parliamentary Committee on the Economy and Labor, the speakers will succeed, as in 2011, in getting the government to back down on a bill based on complete ignorance of the nature of scientific research. It may indeed be that when it comes to mobilizing researchers, times have also changed…