Underfunded Canadian Scientists Migrating Southward

For years, Canadian researchers have struggled with the problems of insufficient funding and inadequate career opportunities-- situations that have been responsible for a pronounced brain drain of promising young graduates to the United States. Partial relief was supposed to come in the form of a 4 percent-per-year hike in federal science funds, slated to take effect this year and carry on for two more years. But owing to Canada's serious budget shortfall, that relief will not be forthcoming. Canada's major funding agencies, the Medical Research Council (MRC) and Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), will instead have to make do with grant funds frozen at last year's level and a 5 percent decrease in administrative budgets over the next two years. And Canadian scientists say that the southward migration of talent will continue unabated. MRC and NSERC provide funding for universities and research laboratories, roughly equivalent to the roles played by the National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation in the U.S. A third agency, the National Research Council, funds and operates 16 research facilities across Canada and faces similar cutbacks. "They're now separating the cream from the cream," says MRC spokesman Neal Morris, adding that, as it is, only one of every five applications for research grants deemed worthy by an MRC peer-review system can be funded. U.S. researchers fare a bit better at NIH, where about 25 percent of grant applications that pass peer review muster are funded, according to an NIH spokesman. Whether Canada's scientific sector woes are due more to the global economic slowdown or to a lack of commitment to basic scientific research by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's government is a matter of perspective. Since the 1960s, Canada has allowed basic funding for scientific research to "fall away," says John Polanyi, a professor of chemistry at the University of Toronto and one of Canada's two Nobelists, having taken the prize for chemistry in 1986. (The other, Gerhard Herzberg, received the chemistry prize in 1971.) Despite a 1987 report by the Prime Minister's own advisory group, the National Advisory Board on Science and Technology, urging Canada to double its university science funding, Polanyi says, the level of support for individual Canadian university scientists is half or less than that received by U.S. scientists. "That makes Canada seem not too serious about science," he says. Symptomatic of the govern-ment's lack of commitment, say some scientists, was the abolishment this spring of the Science Council of Canada, an independent body charged with evaluating the nation's scientific policy. Only the National Advisory Board, whose staff works closely with government officials, remains to mark the nation's scientific path. Other Canadian scientists quantify their criticism differently. "Overall funding in terms of the gross national product is relatively low," says Scott Tremaine, director of the prestigious Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA), located at the University of Toronto. In fact, Canada devotes only 1.4 percent of its gross national product to science, putting it among the lowest scientific spenders in the developed world. By comparison, 2.7 percent of the U.S. GNP goes for scientific research, and roughly the same amount in Germany. But those figures are misleading, says Paul LaFleche, executive assistant and senior policy adviser to the science minister. Canadian government funding of basic research compares well to spending in Europe and the United States, but falls behind in defense and industry research spending, LaFleche says. Federal science and technology expenditures have consistently outpaced the consumer price index since the Mulroney government took control in 1984, implying that funding for science has not only outstripped inflation but also increased in real dollars, LaFleche notes. It has also increased as a percentage of the federal budget, from 10 percent in 1984 to 11.5 percent today. "We have tried to ensure that the base of the university research community is well supported. Since 1984 we've had a very difficult budget period. The one thing that wasn't cut was university research grant money," he says. As for the impending federal budget freeze, science has actually fared well, given that all other granting agencies took a 10 percent immediate cut, says LaFleche. How the government crunches its numbers is of less concern to the individual Canadian scientist than how readily jobs and research funds are available, however. Researchers say it's no secret that the underfunding of Canadian science has contributed to the southward flow of major talent that's existed since the time of Alexander Graham Bell, who himself came to the U.S. to do research. And they say the current situation doesn't appear likely to stem the flood. A major reason for that phenomenon today is simple demographics. Many scientific positions in Canada were created in the 1960s at a boom time of easy money and are still occupied by now-senior staff who will not retire for another 10 to 15 years, and that leaves little maneuvering room for younger Canadian scientists within their own country, many researchers say. Government programs have attempted to alleviate that problem by stepping up money for postdoctoral research grants, but results have been flawed, scientists say. First, NSERC has put a cap on postdoctoral fellowships of $27,500 (Canadian dollars), hardly enough to pay the rent in Toronto or Montreal and 30 percent to 40 percent below comparable U.S. salaries. "It certainly does cause us difficulty in attracting people we would prefer to have, and we have made this point to NSERC," says Tre-maine, who left the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to join CITA as director shortly after it was founded nearly a decade ago. CITA has since gained worldwide prominence in the field of theoretical astrophysics. Those scientists who do choose to take advantage of expanded postdoctoral opportunities in Canada may have little choice but to leave when it comes time to seek a tenure-track position. Entry-level faculty jobs in medical research pay poorly in Canada and heap "totally unrealistic" demands on the researcher, but nonetheless attract up to 200 applications anyway, says Norbert Kartner, a postdoctoral fellow at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Kartner, who received his Ph.D. in 1988 from the Ontario Cancer Institute at the University of Toronto, has been working in the hot-topic area of cystic fibrosis. He is the coauthor of a recent highly cited paper with CF gene codiscoverer John Riordan, in whose lab he works (Hot Papers, The Scientist, Oct. 12, 1992, page 18). However, finding a permanent position is another matter, Kartner says. "I've been looking for a job in both Canada and the U.S. for about six months. I don't want to go to the U.S., but the opportunities in Canada are just about nil," he says. But a more fundamental reason young Canadian scientists may choose to seek career paths outside their own country is a perception that scientific opportunities and acclaim are limited north of the border. "There is a tendency for the best graduate students to be creamed off by institutions in the United States. They know their chances are better there," Polanyi says. Gerald Quinlan, a theoretical astronomer, says that when it came time to choose a graduate institution, both he and his friends who were serious about science considered that American schools have a better reputation than Canadian schools. Quinlan, a Montreal native, went south to Cornell University for his Ph.D. and returned to Canada as a postdoc at CITA. But he now holds a second postdoc at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "I would like to go back to Canada, but I would be going back mainly because that's where my family is, despite the better research opportunities south of the border," says Quinlan. Many researchers say the opportunities to do "big science" are limited in Canada. It's difficult for a small country to put up the capital expenditures for a big project, as exemplified in the recent waffling on Canada's share of the funds for the Gemini project, a telescope being developed with joint funding from the U.S. and Britain. But many Canadian scientists don't decry the lack of "big science" funds, pointing out that splitting up the pot is more in keeping with Canadian egalitarian, socialist ideals and may provide more individuals the liberty to do their own research. "NSERC's No. 1 priority is individual research and, for somebody like a theorist, you may be better off in Canada," says Tremaine. "If for your own individual research you have relatively modest needs, a larger fraction of the pie is left over for smaller projects." NSERC officials recently criticized the Mulroney government when it chose to fund a $236 million particle physics project, known as KAON, at the University of British Columbia. They noted that KAON will provide jobs for about 200 physicists, while NSERC funds 100 times that number of scientists with roughly double the budget of KAON. Many Canadian scientists apparently are willing to sacrifice larger research budgets for the comforts of living at home, where crime rates are lower, the air is cleaner, and a national health- care network provides a safety net for all. "Overall, Canadians would rather be in Canada because they prefer the social climate," says Kartner. And, as Polanyi puts it, "they trim their sails to suit the winds. They will not undertake problems that are too costly." With the current budgetary crisis, the Canadian government may not seem like the most promising avenue to alleviate the country's need for scientific funds. Yet the very problems inherent in the Canadian economy and demographics--small supplies of money and a far-flung population--helped create what may be its most innovative solution to the funding crunch, the Network of Centres of Excellence. Through the granting agencies, the federal government has committed $240 million to a national research and development effort that draws many of the country's top scientists into 15 networks to pursue leading-edge research in areas that, it is hoped, will bring economic benefits to Canada. "With the facilities I've been able to get access to via the network, I've been able to get good stuff done," says Chris Kenyon, a postdoc at the Respiratory Health Centre of Excellence, in Montreal. Kenyon, a British citizen and recent graduate from the University of Cambridge, pursues both basic and applied research in three- dimensional imaging of moving cells. While he's pleased with his postdoctoral situation, Kenyon says, he hasn't yet had to hit the job market for a permanent spot and doesn't know how he'll fare at that level. Provincial governments also play their part in the funding equation. In Alberta, a $300 million Heritage Fund has been endowed for biomedical research, says D. Lorne Tyrrell, chairman of the department of medical microbiology and infectious diseases at the University of Alberta. Even more significant, however, is funding from private industry. Tyrrell and two colleagues, John Elliott and Lung Chang, received a $15 million grant to be used over 10 years for antiviral drug research from Glaxo Canada Inc., based in Mississauga, Ontario. Industry funding does lean toward applied research, but Tyrrell doesn't believe that compromises Canadian science. "I think cooperation between industry and the university is necessary to remain competitive," he says, noting that the practice is already a trend in Japan and Western Europe. What Canada really lacks is a major private source of funding to take the pressure off of government agencies, says medical geneticist Louis Siminovitch, director of the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute at Mt. Sinai Hospital in Toronto. Without such funds, it may be difficult for Canada to retain its top-notch scientists, he says. "What drives a science is your very best people," says Siminovitch. "What's happened in Canada is that some of the very best people have left." Valerie Drogus is a freelance writer based in Santa Cruz, Calif.

Underfunded Canadian Scientists Migrating Southward

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