Rene Van Acker, “Research Of the Public, By the Public and For the Public”

Rene Van Acker, “Research Of the Public, By the Public and For the Public”

Manitoba Alternatives, published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, 2004
Rene Van Acker is Assoc. Professor, Dept. of Plant Science, University of Manitoba

Truly public research provides tremendous social and economic benefits. In our time, one of the most spectacular examples of public research effort was the publicly funded effort by the United States government to put a man on the moon. “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for man-kind.” The memorable, if not scripted words of Neil Armstrong reflected the remarkable scientific and technological advancement that was represented by man traveling to and walking on the moon in 1969. Because the moon shot was the culmination of innovations resulting from public science research funding on a grand scale, Armstrong should have expanded on his sound bite by adding “..and another tremendously valuable effort by public scientists funded by public research and development grants. ” The spin-off’s from the U.S. moon shot and space race were big. They include, for example, all current IT technologies. So publicly funded research is beneficial; what’s the problem? In Canada, the problem is that publicly funded research is being distracted and undermined by a shift in government research funding programs towards industry research matching funds. This policy direction creates a public research funding climate in Canada in which there is less opportunity for true innovation in science and less opportunity for public science to service the broad and long-term needs of the nation rather than the narrow and short-term desires of corporations.
AHe who pays the piper calls the tune.@ Over the past decade, under pressures for budget cutting, governments in Canada have reduced direct public research operating funds and changed the nature of public research funding. In a desire to increase the “efficiency” of public research funds, federal and provincial governments have been creating industry matching research funding programs. Industry matching research funds are a source of research funding which can only be had if the project is jointly funded (most often to a level of 50%) by private sources. These private sources cannot include any other government funding and they are most often private corporations. In Manitoba, in my research field (applied agricultural research) industry matching research funds now include all the major agriculture research funding initiatives; Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada=s Matching Investment Initiative (MII), Manitoba=s Agriculture and Rural Development Initiative (ARDI), the Manitoba Rural Adaptation Council (MRAC) funds and many of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) funding programs. Particularly alarming has been the creation of NSERC industry matching fund programs. In science in Canada NSERC has been the core public research fund and often the only source of funds for basic research. The industry matching fund programs in NSERC grow yearly to include a greater portion of NSERC’s budget and they now include a large number of programs including Collaborative Research and Development grants (CRD), Research Partnership Program (RPP), Research Partnership Agreements (RPA), Intellectual Property Management (IPM), Industrial Research Chairs (IRC), and the Industrial Postgraduate Scholarships (IPS). To those not directly involved in public service research it may appear that governments’ movement towards more industry matching research funds is shrewd because these programs double the research investment. The problems however, both long and short term, are many, and they work to undermine the purpose, effectiveness and value of public research. As a relatively new academic within a research intensive faculty I am intimately aware of the tradeoffs that come from the requirement for industry matching research funding programs, yet I have subscribed to many of these programs because I need to fulfill the mandate of my position, a major portion of which is to conduct research and train graduate students. Through participation in industry matching research programs I have come to recognize a number of problems inherent in these programs including:

Lack of independent research - if a research program is financially linked to a private source of funding how independent can the program be, and who benefits most from the research? Competitive private companies want to ensure that their research investments benefit them directly. At best, a compromise is the result. I have run a number of research projects using industry matched funds. In each of these projects the primary goals are to answer the immediate and specific questions posed by the industry partner. Through negotiation we have always been able to work to answer additional basic research questions but these questions have always been of secondary priority in these projects.
Lack of visionary research - Private companies have an acute need to appease short-term stock holder needs and cannot, therefore, afford long-term risk. Industry funders of research are most interested in sure things and they cannot afford to fund long shots. Dr. Baldur Stefansson created canola as a new and valuable cash crop for Canadian farmers. When Dr. Stefansson first began his research into converting inedible rapeseed into edible canola there was skepticism. He was supported in his efforts by public research funds. The public source took a long-term risk based on a vision, and after more than a decade of work there was the reward of a valuable new crop for farmers. The private sector did not begin to invest in canola breeding until after canola was created.
Lack of in-depth (basic) research – In my experience, industry partners are interested in funding only applied “near market” research. Industry relies on public researchers to explore basic science questions, in some cases in a “blue sky” manner. Private industry does not have the resources, time or diverse and in-depth expertise among their employees to conduct broad-based in-depth basic scientific research. Private industry applied research and development is dependent on publicly funded basic research.
Lack of Apublic good@ research – No private company in the agriculture industry would, for example, fund a major research and development effort to dramatically reduce pesticide and synthetic fertilizer inputs for major grain and oilseed crops in Manitoba. It would make little financial sense for them, especially in the short-term. Yet such research could produce tremendous direct benefits for farmers, consumers and the environment over the long-term. The research goals of industry are only a subset of the research goals of society.
Lack of long-term research projects - private companies develop long-term strategy documents that span only 2-3 years. How long does it take to evaluate the value of a 5 year crop rotation or two runs of a four year crop rotation? The influence of a change in crop rotation practice may not appear until 2 or 3 runs of a rotation are complete (8-12 years). Public research projects often do not meet industry timelines.
Waste of expensive research time - By having to apply more than once for every research project (once to the government funding source and once to the private source, or more than once if many private sources are required) researchers’ time is taken up in selling and re-selling their ideas, and generating redundant research proposals. I had one industry matching funds research project that required 13 partner companies in order to gather sufficient research funds. The time I spent in pushing paper for this project was far greater than the time I spent doing research for this project. With a matching research funds system, significantly less time is left for researchers to conduct research.
Premature research project termination – In applied research fields such as agriculture, it is great to see students move from graduate school to rewarding jobs. With a more intimate connection between researchers and industry, however, it is becoming more common for graduate students to leave (or be lured) to jobs before they complete their research or theses.

In agriculture, the impact of the shift to industry matching research funding can already be seen. It has now become extremely difficult to find research funds for projects that are not acutely industry goal focused or industry product focused. For example, there is now little if any funding for research into pest biology and epidemiology, sustainable cropping systems, sustainable range and pasture management, reduced pesticide approaches to crop production, or development of agronomic and cropping practices for new crops. It is not that industry is not concerned about the issues that research in these areas would address; it is that funding research in these areas is not about individual products and it is often long-term. Research in these areas, therefore, is not within corporate mandates. Industry expects governments to provide public funding for research in these areas.
In the end what goal does a shift to industry matching research funding serve? If cutting government research cost is the goal we must consider whether more value is gained in the long term for Canadian society to have government research funds matched but the research strongly linked to private concerns or the government funds not matched and the research focused on basic science and broader public benefits? In Canada we may not be planning to send a man to the moon any time soon but in order to meet less spectacular broad and long-term needs of Canadian society we need to move back towards public research funding programs which support research of the public, by the public and for the public.