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Q&A with Frédéric Bouchard Chair, Advisory Panel on the Federal Research Support System; and Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Université de Montréal.
What are some key takeaways from a close look at Canada’s research and innovation ecosystem?
When it comes to research and innovation, we have a strong reputation of excellence in many areas, but we can’t be complacent. To sustain our human flourishing – including our economy, health, community well-being and global competitiveness – we have to step up efforts to move toward a knowledge-based society.
In order to succeed in research and innovation, we need highly qualified people, and this means we have to increase both the quality and quantity of our human capital. When we realize that achieving our societal goals hinges on getting better at the talent part, it becomes clear that this is not a partisan issue – it is a national interest.
What are some of the focus areas for improving outcomes?
When we prepared the report to the federal research support system last year, we saw that Canada had catching up to do in the area of mission-driven research, which other countries have been supporting in a more sustained way. That’s why we proposed that we need a way of launching mission-driven calls. The idea is that you identify a challenge – which could be related to technology, health, social issues or the economy – and the research community answers the call. We believe that funders, including government, have the right to say, “We have this problem or opportunity, and we want the research community to make a contribution.”
Why is mission-driven research important?
What sets mission-driven research apart is that it focuses on challenges. The distinction is between investigator-driven and mission-driven, i.e., whether the scientists are proposing the question to be investigated or whether the question is defined by somebody else. The more Canada becomes a knowledge-based society, the more you would expect civil society to care about certain challenges and propose calls for action.
However, if mission-driven research comes at the cost of investigator-driven research, we’re going to lose the capacity to answer mission-driven calls. Investigator-driven research needs strengthening as well. Both are needed for a vigorous research and innovation ecosystem. The idea is that knowledge is important to our flourishing – and that it needs to be leveraged across different areas of society. We have not been ambitious enough about the role of research in Canadian society, and this reflects on how we collectively care about science.
How can we raise awareness about the value of science?
We need to understand that science is not a luxury activity of advanced societies – it is the necessary condition for advanced societies. When we recognize this truth, we will see our research community as a strategic national asset.
Canada is a small country population-wise, but if we want to have privileged access to talent and ideas, we need to become a scientific superpower. And this means making sure we create the conditions for strong investigator-driven research and mission-driven research, because if we do that, we will ultimately be richer, healthier and happier.
What are some of the challenges to creating a knowledge economy?
There are a number of reasons why our transition to a knowledge economy isn’t progressing as fast as it should, among them an economy that has been heavily focused on natural resource extraction, a lower investment in R&D from industry and a relatively small internal market, where we see less competition compared to other countries.
Yet awareness is growing that if we want to continue to succeed as a trading nation, we need to boost the quantity and quality of our human capital. We need highly knowledgeable people not just in major hubs but in every community. Access to professionals who have the expertise to contribute to the success of their organization and community will help us sustain prosperity, health and community well-being.
How can we move toward a better educated populace?
What government can do is set the goal of wanting to have the world’s best educated people – and then adopt public policies to support this longer-term objective. South Korea is a good example of a country that mobilized government, public policy and private industry to advance its research and innovation standing: it went from below OECD average to almost the best in the world over the past 20 years.
As a first step, we need to agree that our future will depend on how we generate and leverage talent. We need to realize that there is no societal goal that can be achieved unless we invest in our human capital, and this requires efforts not just from the government but from all areas of society.
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