Inkless Wells

Paul Wells on all the latest out of Ottawa—along with the occasional post about jazz. Follow Paul on Twitter: @InklessPW
He also offers his thoughtful perspective of Stephen Harper’s last 10 years in his recent eBook, The Harper Decade.

Categories: Capital Read, Inkless Wells

Unsure where to fit this on the all-important Starbucks-to-Tims spectrum

by Paul Wells on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 2:23pm - 30 Comments

I return from New Orleans, about which more later, to discover that there has been almost no coverage of the Prime Minister’s recent foray into the realm of the hyper-intellectual. (UPDATE: The Ottawa Citizen’s national editor will be cranky for weeks unless I point to Joanne Laucius’ typically elegant roundup.) I refer, of course, to recent announcements about the Canada Excellence Research Chairs and the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships. These new initiatives by the Harper government are designed to add another layer of possibility to Canada’s universities — a top echelon, certainly not large in number, of global-class researchers and graduate scholars.

Neither program fits the narrative the Globe has begun to pursue, with real energy, which is that plucky researchers are standing up to face this Neanderthal government, which Doesn’t Get Science. To say the least, there’s something to that narrative. But neither is it that simple. Drift, listlessness, boneheadedness in some areas is matched by real thoughtfulness in others. Here are last week’s developments.

The Excellence Research Chairs, or CERC, provide for up to $1.4 million a year for seven years to fund (a) a lead investigator and (b) a specific research project, for up to 20 such researcher/projects across the country. The goal is to get the best researchers in the world, frankly without particular regard to whether they’re Canadian. Some will be, most won’t. This has caused some grumbling among Canadian university teachers. University administrators I’ve spoken to, not surprisingly, are less eager to grumble. Last week the first-tier competition winners were announced. They’ll now be winnowed down to a final pool of grant recipients. The projects being proposed are formidable: McGill wants to do research into pain, Alzheimer’s, and a new-generation Internet; Western has somebody in mind for a green energy project; Calgary wants to “quickly” implement carbon capture and storage.

The Vanier Scholarships are designed, frankly, to resemble the Rhodes Scholarships: a mix of foreign and Canadian top-tier young scholars, pursuing specific programs of research at Canadian universities. This year’s crop of 166 scholars will, again, not fundamentally change the nature of Canada’s campuses, where tens of thousands of students are pursuing their educations. But the program ensures that the very best from abroad will give Canada a look, while Canada’s best can excel at home. (This year’s crop contains far more Canadian than foreign students. Frankly I hope that’ll change over time.)

Some of the recipients’ programs of study would make James Lunney blush: Canadian Nathaniel Sharp will study mutation rates in fruit flies at UofT, while New Zealander Richard Fitzjohn has another evolution-related course of research planned at UBC. Other Vanier Scholars don’t seem entirely motivated by PMO talking points. James Nugent’s research proposal for the UofT department of geography is entitled “Changing the Climate: Neoliberalism, Global Warming and Canadian Labour-Environmental Alliance Building.” Oralia Gomez Ramirez wants to study the organization of Mexico City sex workers at UBC (well, she wants to do the studying at UBC. The sex workers aren’t organizing at UBC. Well, maybe they are, but… oh, you get it). And onward: Inuit participation in climate-change activism, “a case study of gay-straight alliances in Ontario schools,” “an empirical investigation of sexual reoffending” — it’s so refreshing to see this government associated with anything empirical when it comes to crime — early diagnosis of breast cancer, the history of female Protestant missionaries in 19th-century China and Japan, habitat selection of woodland caribou (that’ll be Tal Adgar, from Israel, studying at Guelph), the politics of marriage in Turkey. Recipients get $50,000 a year for up to three years of study.

Again: these are new initiatives by the Harper government. They are not uncontroversial. They benefit small groups of winners, and if you don’t like that sort of thing, this is the sort of thing you won’t like. But I think they’re damned interesting and I’d hate to see them ignored.

Tags: CERC, research, Vanier scholars

More by Paul Wells

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

BTW, if the Vanier Scholarships are going to be Rhodes-y, we should definite include a mandatory curling component, or maybe lacrosse for our comrades from warmer climates.
Trillium

More good news…from Ontario

Ontario pledges $100 million for gene research

http://www.healthzone.ca/health/article/628722
Trillium

More good news, from Ontario

Ontario pledges $100 million for gene research

http://www.healthzone.ca/health/article/628722
Wayne

Thank you Paul : I have a friend who has a real bug in his bonnet about this issue and I have heard a little bit of background about the Vanier subject. But every time I start looking into to get some information it always ends up becoming partisan trype and no real data – probably becuase there is good news for the side that is the aim of the partisan no doubt. as all I can find is that indeed there is a fair amount of investment being made so what exactly is the problem?
Ian

For everyone’s reference, $50,000 is well over twice a normal PhD student’s salary (and more than a post-doc salary too, grumble grumble). It’s always a fight for the highest quality grad students and, as Paul says, this type of thing can be a huge help.

Mike T.

Is this to say that two regular proposals could be funded for the cost of funding one of these extra-special proposals? (or are grants like this different from salary)

Because if it’s the latter then to break even the extra-special proposal has to have twice as much merit as an every day proposal. Which it might. I’m just sayin?

Paul Wells

I think it’s pretty fair to say these are a small number of twice-as-expensive projects.

Canuckistanian

not more than all post-docs…
seaandthemountains

…and not more than the here-to-fore top GofC SSHRC Canada Graduate Doctoral Scholarhips ($35K or up to 3 years).

does anyone know if the number of yrs attached to the Vaniers?

also Paul, not sure if you saw this while you were away.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090504.waids04/BNStory/National/

hopefully the CERCs help counter this in the future, though the story seems to me to suggest a borader more systematic issues than the CERCs could take care of.

Critical Reasoning

Paul, thanks for bringing this to our attention. Programs that benefit small groups of winners are exactly what Canada needs. The 80/20 rule applies to research funding. By attracting and pooling top scholarly talent, excellence is promoted, and excellent results are achieved.

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

I generally think this is true, i.e. that rewarding winners (rather tautologically) benefits non-winners too, since they’re shown what it takes to be winners and their performance is improved.

At the same time, the non-winners have to have enough money to survive while they’re converting themselves into winners; and I’m not entirely sure that process funding should be competitive, as opposed to Final Reward funding. In other words, if you give scholarships to grad students, you motivate undergraduates; if you endow post-doc’s, you motivate grad students; if you endow professorships, you motivate post-doc’s and junior professors and researchers.

I say this based purely on personal experience. I was in grad school at a place where all grad students were funded equally, wheras just down the road there was another school of the same general quality in which the grad students were funded based on performance. My school outperformed the other school consistently in terms of quality and quantity of research, at least in my field. The explanation we developed, based again on anecdotal evidence, was that the grad students at the other school were so busy hating each other and vying with each other that they didn’t have a lot of time left for work; and that their creative initiative was stunted, not nourished, by the fact that Big Brother, with his next year’s grants, was watching them.

So, anyway, that’s one model, perhaps different from the one here: endow centres of excellence instead of individuals and leave it to the centres themselves to select who will be funded equally in its little City State of Sweetness and Light. I don’t know which one is better, since my experience is limited to my own little field.

Wayne

Condradulations Jack M. you are the only the second person I have ever met that has ever used tautology in a sentence not only in context but spelled right as well – I always thought it was tootology :)

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

Thanks, Wayne! ‘Tis just ταὐτολογία, though (< ταὐτα [the same] + λόγος [discourse]) — pedants’ delight. Was trying to find my man Hans Gruber saying, “Benefits . . . of a classical education” on Youtube but this is the best I can find:

Critical Reasoning

Jack, that is an interesting observation. What was the school just down the road? Berkeley?

http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

Yes — which as you know is a public school like our Canadian schools — though richer: its endowment is $3 billion for 34 000 students as vs. U of T’s $1.75 billion for 45 000 students. I don’t know if that was why they had less equitable stipends or if was just that they just had a different ethos. Bit of both, maybe.

Lord Kitchener’s Own

Just for the record, U of T actually has two entire campuses you don’t seem to be counting in your 45,000 student number, and they’re not exactly tiny campuses (10,000 students each).

The student population of U of T is much closer to 70,000.
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

Ah, sorry, quite right.

perdogperday

I’ve always wondered how much of this is true. JM’s story nicely picks up the one side, which is undeniable – graduate students freak out every year about their funding, and resolve to work harder to fix it next year. Some do, some don’t, and you presumably want to support the students who do step up and make that change.

My worry is that there is a flipside to this, in that PhD completion rates are already so low as they are, and time-to-completion makes for a lot of gallows humour.

I guess you can tell that I’m a graduate student, and I’ve actually had a fair bit of success with these things (though never a multiyear award,) so I speak from a certain experience in that the monthly grind to scrounge up funds is exhausting and debilitating. It’s really tough worrying about next term’s rent while I know I can make a solid salary if I enter the job market. In addition, being continually shot down for one award or another kills the graduate student’s notoriously low self-esteem, even if you do win a few as you go.

If this perspective is true with a lot of very strong graduate students, and it presumably is, then I wonder if the endless competition isn’t self-defeating. Picking winners seems to make the most sense if you really think those MA students you are evaluating are locks to end up as tenured faculty, which is almost never true (or, at least, the tri-councils have never tracked that this is true.) If this is the case, then maybe spreading 5 or 10 grand out to a lot of strong students would help more of them graduate, perhaps even on time, which would all strengthen the pool of possible future hotshots.

Rereading this, I can see any number of cynical ways to read it, but I do think it’s a set of points worth keeping in mind.
seaandthemountains

don’t disagree, though the link i post above seems to suggest both are needed at once.

we lost not only a top scholar but almost a whole team of related scholars as well in one feel swoop.

Sisyphus

Not directly related to scholarships, which are always good things, but on the other hand ….

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090504.waids04/BNStory/National/home

sf

What about the link to the article about the researchers lured to Canada? You know, the one that the Globe did not write because it did not fit the narrative?

“the narrative the Globe has begun to pursue, with real energy, which is that plucky researchers are standing up to face this Neanderthal government, which Doesn’t Get Science”

Canuckistanian

Vanier is a great initiative. unfortunately, it is only available to students conducting research in Canada. as a consequence, my spouse wasn’t eligible for Vanier, but was happy to receive the Banting and Best CGS Doctoral Award. can’t understand why we would want our (ostensibly) best researchers only conducting research in Canada (attending a Canadian University should obviously be a requirement, nonetheless). this problem should be rectified going forward if we want to ensure the top researchers are receiving the top awards.
http://carnewsandviews.com jwl

Welcome back Paul, hope a fun time was had by all in New Orleans.

Was going to make a snarky comment about significant amount of tax dollars being spent on “history of female Protestant missionaries in 19th-century China and Japan” or “a case study of gay-straight alliances in Ontario schools” but I am temporarily not caring how much money gets wasted by various levels of government.
oompus boompus

“Neither program fits the narrative the Globe has begun to pursue, with real energy, which is that plucky researchers are standing up to face this Neanderthal government, which Doesn’t Get Science.”

PSSST! Paul.

In order for the voting public to believe that they’re exercising some kind of sacred and vital “choice” at the polls, it is critical that nobody tampers with the superficial labels which have been attached to the political parties.

By exposing Harper for the socialist that he is, you’re only causing confusion among the lumpen.

Mind you, looking at the (possibly unrepresentative) sample of opinion among the other commenters on this article, it would appear that far from being disappointed to learn that there is no choice between freedom of thought and communist-style central planning of academia, many people are delighted that higher education will be managed along the same lines as the old USSR.
Jim

The single best way to fund students and post docs is via operating grants. This ensures they have the money to do their research. It is extremely difficult to isolate the top 5-10% of students – especially graduate students except using fairly non-predictive parameters of success such as GPAs. The most successful graduate students tend to be those who have not necessarily shone academically in exams and lectures, but who instead have a knack to ask and answer the right questions.

The CERC program is otherwise known as “rent-a-Nobel” and may result in bringing outstanding scientists to Canada, although likely at the expense of losing others already here since this type of “highest bidder” approach tends to favour those jurisdictions with deep pockets (not us). I’d contend that recruitment of the best scientists depends more on the environment they are being recruited into that the value of the award and this program has the potential to be disruptive (in annoying colleagues with whom the new guy must work with). This would be easily resolved by allowing open applications.

However, the concept of elite awards is somehow nicely un-Canadian and it’s good to see it applied to science – where coming second means nothing.
catherine

I don’t think 20 chairs across Canada in targeted areas of application (the government picked out specific areas the chairs had to be in) overseen by a committee which is light on active and outstanding researchers is really going to matter much to Canadian science. Meanwhile the US is investing real money in research, including basic research, and is heavily involving active researchers in the review process. I see the Canadian program as simply government window-dressing.
catherine

I’m not sure why you say the projects are “formidable”. The specific areas which were eligible to apply included areas such as “Cleaner methods of extracting, processing and utilizing hydrocarbon fuels, including reduced consumption of these fuels” and “Health in an aging population”, so the topics you list are simply fitting into the boxes that the government allowed. Presumably any proposal about understanding the origins of life or the topology of the universe was thrown in the garbage since it didn’t fit into one of the allowed boxes.
Anna

I really don't think this is a fair comment. I happen to be a foreigner who won one of the Vaniers. Can you imagine how difficult it is to get a stipend if you are not Canadian or PR in Canada? But that's not the point: what do you think is relevant, edge-cutting research? How can you tell something is and something isn't? Honestly, I know some of the people and topics, and they are very seriously good. Bashing the elite is always very easy; why don't you come and try to do something innovative and constructive yourself?
Leo

What evidence do you offer to say that Oralia Gomez Ramirez wants to study the organization of Mexico city sex workers "at UBC"? It is simply false and it is disturbing you calumniate people so easily. Right now she is doing her field work in Mexico city, of course. She is even a visiting scholar in the prestigious "Colegio de Mexico" (the best social sciences research center in the country).
http://www.jackmitchell.ca Jack Mitchell

Good for the Harper government! This is exactly (IMHO) what we need. And thank you, Mr. Wells, for bringing this up, since I, for one, had no idea this was happening.