Kaching! That's the sound of science – everywhere in the world. Basic discoveries with no obvious material benefit have often led to vast acceleration of innovation and economic productivity in the longer run . But what's happening in Canada may be short circuiting things while the governing party professes to be trying to make them better. Thank you Phil Plait, of the Bad Astronomy blog at the Slate site, for pointing it out. Read his post in full, because Plait puts it as well as anybody could. KSJTracker will do its part by gathering up some examples of how Canada's media played this development last week.
But the short version is that the conservative gov't in Ottawa, via its National Research Council, will concentrate its in-house science budget on bottom-line research. Its NRC, by the way, is more like the US's National Science Foundation as a premier source of research than it is like the US NRC, which is a review and advisory arm of the Nat'l Acad. of Sciences. But even the US NSF is not a precise simile. Canada's NRC often does its own research in the manner that the US National Insitutes of Health operates its Bethesda operation. Pure research grants continue to flow via other agencies including from the Nat'l Sciences and Engineering Research Council to Canada's university labs.
See Grist below for the press release that puts the news fully and in the best possible light : "The refocused NRC will work with Canadian industries to bridge technology gaps, helping build a more innovative Canadian economy." Basic research, long a mainstay of the organization, will go to the way-back of the bus. Hmm. A near-exclusive focus on research that has immediate practical benefit is a hallmark of developing countries where the economies are so shot it is hard enough to pay for just a few urgent immediate needs. To be sure, the US Dept. of Energy and NASA's national labs often work as job shops and tech-transfer hothouses for business. Still, to see Canada apparently surrendering so profoundly to industry's needs while turning away from open-ended, intellectually-driven science is sad and if kept up is eventually sure to have an effect opposite to its intent.
It bears some irony and provokes small dismay that I missed this news when it arose. The press release announcing the pivot came out May 7. That's the same day I did a long post updating media coverage of the Canadian government's policy of demanding that before talking to the press its scientists get permission in advance, which can take weeks, and agree to the presence of a federal gestap.., er, government press officer, during the interview.
It also turns out that this latest shift is part of a process that has been underway up there for quite awhile, as noted in specialty press if not major media.
Stories from the last Week:
- Globe and Mail – Barrie McKenna, Ivan Semeniuk: Research council's makeover leaves Canadian industry setting the agenda; Basic science, it says here, was once the core of the same NRC that "gave the country canola and the atomic clock." I bet the practical-minded scrimpers in the country once sneered at tax money going for atomic clocks that today are absolutely vital for such practical tasks as GPS.
- Ottawa Citizen – Tom Spears: Pure science research drops sharply at National Research Council; Fine and insightful reporting here. Spears describes the rapid drop, already, in peer-reviewed-journal worthy research coming out of NRC as the now more-official policy has taken hold in the last few years. The second graf says a rising portion of NRC's 4000 employees don't trust their leaders. Next bullet – this newspaper gave the issue full vent in its op ed pages.
- On the other hand dept. Three dueling editorials..Ottawa Citizen (op-ed) Robert Atkinson: Canada is right to focus on applied research ; Author is Canadian-born president of a DC outfit, the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation. He makes a solid argument that governments should help technology transfer from lab to market. Yes, but one needs both. No good can come from starving the basic research in which practical innovation is rooted. Atkinson then gets into a muddle, arguing that what Canada really needs would be something like Silicon Valley or Research Triangle. Sure – but he does not acknowledge that in the US those places arose as penumbras of academic citadals of basic research performed with grants largely from … the US treasury. Next up, another op-ed by a doctoral student at U of B.C., David Moscrop: Pure research is the practical approach ; Good line here: "..the pursuit of techocratic narrow-mindedness will do a disservice to both Canadians and industry…", and finally from a former NRC President Roger Voyer: Canadian industry can get along without NRC: He seems worried mostly about standards, as in the metrology of science and as exemplified by the US Nat'l Institute for Standards and Technology. That's the place that does America's atomic clocks.
- Hill Times (an Ottawa 'politics and government newsweekly) Jessica Bruno : Tories 'doing away with research" in more cuts at Agriculture and Agri-Food, say unions ; Mostly a story of government austerity costing union jobs, but pertinence to this post comes with this quote from one minority-party member of Parliament, "Having already pillaged the National Research Council, Conservatives are now stripping the innovative ability of the second-largest research department, allegedly to make farmers more innovative. Now they cannot even rely on the department for science."
Previous stories, foreshadowing the news:
- Physics Today (July 2012) Toni Feder: Canada's researchers fret over shifts in funding landscape ;
- Nature News (Apr 19, 2011) Hannah Hoag: Canadian research shift makes waves / Agency's focus on industry-driven projects raises concerns that basic science will suffer.
Grist for the Mill: National Research Council Canada Press Release "Open for business: Refocused NRC will benefit Canadian industries" ;
Other not quite related but Canadian news:
- AP – Marcia Dunn: Astronaut makes "Space Oddity" music video aboard space station ; Chris Hadfield, Canadian astronaut and test pilot plus guitar player and singer, just returned from the Int'l Space Station. While up there he put together (with Earthbound colleagues) a version of David Bowie's haunting Space Oddity. The tune is about an astronaut in a capsule losing radio contact with ground control, speeding toward deep space, apparently not responding to command. It is a song of longing, perhaps despair. It strikes a chord as I close this post, in a manner not sturdy enough for deep analysis, with Canada's recent science turn. Direct link to video. It is beautifully done, with wonderful images from ISS. Hadfield's version alters the lyrics a bit. Originals by Bowie are here.
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