Government Announces Comprehensive Review of Canadian Science

          By Henry Stewart

Science Minister Duncan. Photo c/o Gizmodo.

The federal government has announced an independent review of billions of dollars of federal funding for science and academics.

An independent panel, expected to report "by the end of this year," will review the activities of the National Research Council (NRC), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), as well as programs like the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), the various Canada Research Chairs, Genome Canada and others.

As outlined in the June 13th, 2016 Canadian government press release, "Government of Canada Launches Review of Federal Support for Fundamental Science," the review, which will report to Science Minister Kirsty Duncan, will assess the program machinery that is currently in place to support science and scientists in Canada. 

The review will be chaired by David Naylor, the former president of the University of Toronto. Other panelists include:

• Robert Birgeneau, the former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley.

• Martha Crago, the VP of research at Dalhousie University.

• Mike Lazaridis, the co-founder of  Blackberry and Quantum Valley Investments.

• Claudia Malacrida, the associate VP of research at the University of Lethbridge.

• Art McDonald, an astrophysicist, a Nobel Laureate and the former director of the Sudbury Neutrino Laboratory.

• Martha Piper, the past and current interim president (at least until June 30th) of the University of British Columbia.

• Rémi Quirion, the first, and the current chief scientist of the Quebec provincial government.

• Anne Wilson, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) successful societies fellow and a professor of psychology at Wilfrid Laurier University.

As outlined in the June 13th, 2016 Science post, "Canada launches review of its research enterprise," chairman Naylor has been involved with this sort of a report before. As outlined in the article:

Last year, Naylor chaired a task force on health care innovation appointed by (then Prime Minister) Harper whose report, Unleashing Innovation: Excellent Healthcare for Canada, so angered the Conservative government that it refused to allow him to hold a press conference to announce his findings

The current review follows closely on both the 100th anniversary of the NRC, and a series of growing crises within the organization which have recently spilled over into the public consciousness.

Canada's new "innovation agenda" is expected to be largely in place in time for the 2016 Canadian Science Policy Conference (CSPC), which will be held in Ottawa in November 2016, at least according to the CSPC website. Here's wishing them luck. Screenshot c/o sciencepolicy.ca.

As outlined in the April 12, 2016 post, "The National Research Council Doesn't Fit Within the Current Innovation Agenda," these crises have included concerns over how Canada was being left behind in the race to turn scientific advances into useful commercial products and how the NRC fits within the current Liberal government's innovation agenda.

Science Minister Duncan, Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains and Minister of Small Business and Tourism Bardish Chagger are expected to go into a little more detail about the innovation agenda on Tuesday, June 14th, 2016 at the National Press Club in Ottawa, according to the June 13th, 2016 Federal government press advisory on, "Ministers to announce engagement on the Government of Canada's Innovation Agenda."

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Henry Stewart is the pseudonym of a Toronto based aerospace writer.

Needed: An Isaac Asimov "Mnemonic Service"

I've just finished up my first full day at the 2009 Canadian Science Policy Conference and couldn't help but notice the large number of leading experts on Canadian science, policy and innovation in attendance.

These include Gary Goodyear, Minister of State for Science and Technology, John Milloy, the Minister of Training, Colleges and Universities and Minister of Research and Innovation, Preston Manning (these days with the Manning Centre for Building Democracy) plus the presidents of the Natural Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Ontario Centres of Excellence and about 220 other scientists, engineers, policymakers, industrial R&D managers and others with an interest in the intersection of policy, science and technology.

I'm told that at least two people from the Canadian Space Agency (CSA)  were there as well and it's important for them to attend science policy conferences like this because of the CSA mandate as listed on their website which is:

To promote the peaceful use and development of space, to advance the knowledge of space through science and to ensure that space science and technology provide social and economic benefits for Canadians.

But I couldn't help but notice the overall lack of aerospace, new-space and "just plain space" focused people at the conference (with the exception of the two CSA people, Rachel Woen Tjoen from Bombardier and Kevin Shortt, President of the Canadian Space Society out of a total of 300 attendees).

This seems odd given the recent speech by Claude Lajeunesse, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada (AIAC) at the 2009 AIAC Annual General Meeting on October 14th, where he stated:

A recent AeroStrategy study commissioned by AIAC and Industry Canada on the impact of Globalization on Canada reveals that today, Canada is absent from the top 10 countries in the world for investment in Aerospace R&D, manufacturing and MRO.  Canada has not sufficiently taken advantage of the ‘investment boom’ of the past 20 years.

The full text of the speech is posted on the AIAC website here but it seems that anyone with this sort of concern would reasonably want to meet with Canadian scientists and politicians to discuss these trends and go over options on how to reverse them.

Perhaps Mr. Lajeunesse just didn't know about the event this week or perhaps he was tired and shagged out after the AIAC AGM last week. Maybe he'll attend next year.

Perhaps the real problem is that that organizations tend to focus on conversations within specific narrow specialties ("scientists" or "engineers" or "space agency representatives" or "aerospace business people") but the problems cross disciplines and require multidisciplinary solutions with awareness of issues and debates in multiple contexts using terms of reference from seemingly incompatible disciplines which may not normally socialize, compare notes or even understand each other.

We might need a "mnemonic service."

What's that you might ask? Here's an example, from "Sucker Bait", a 1954 novel by Isaac Asimov:

"Mnemonic Service," said Sheffield, patiently. "Emm-enneee- emm-oh-enn-eye-see Service. You don't pronounce the first emm. It's from a Greek word meaning memory."

The captain's eyes narrowed. "He remembers things?"

"Correct, captain. Look, in a way this is my fault. I should have briefed you on this. I would have, too, if the boy hadn't gotten so sick right after the take-off. It drove most other matters out of my mind. Besides, it didn't occur to me that he might be interested in the workings of the ship itself. Space knows why not. He should be interested in everything."

"He should, eh?" The captain looked at the timepiece on the wall. "Brief me now, eh? But no fancy words. Not many of any other kind, either. Time limited."

"It won't take long, I assure you. Now you're a space-going man, captain. How many inhabited worlds would you say there were in the Confederation?"

"Eighty thousand," said the captain, promptly.

"Eighty-three thousand two hundred," said Sheffield. "What do you suppose it takes to run a political organization that size?"

Again the captain did not hesitate. "Computers," he said.

"All right. There's Earth, where half the population works for the government and does nothing but compute and there are computing subcenters on every other world. And even so data gets lost. Every world knows something no other world knows-almost every man. Look at our little group. Vernadsky doesn't know any biology and I don't know enough chemistry to stay alive. There's not one of us can pilot the simplest spacecruiser, except for Fawkes. So we work together, each one supplying the knowledge the others lack.

"Only there's a catch. Not one of us knows exactly which of our own data is meaningful to the other under a given set of circumstances. We can't sit and spout everything we know. So we guess, and sometimes we don't guess right. Two facts, A and B, can go together beautifully sometimes. So Person A, who knows Fact A, says to Person B, who knows Fact B, 'Why didn't you tell me this ten years ago?' and Person B answers, 'I didn't think it was important,' or 'I thought everyone knew that.'"

The captain said, "That's what computers are for."

Sheffield said, "Computers are limited, captain. They have to be asked questions. What's more the questions have to be the kind that can be put into a limited number of symbols. What's more computers are very literal minded. They answer exactly what you ask and not what you have in mind. Sometimes it never occurs to anyone to ask just the right question or feed the computer just the right symbols, and when that happens the computer doesn't volunteer information.

"What we need . . . what all mankind needs . . . is a computer that is nonmechanical; a computer with imagination. There's one like that, captain." The psychologist tapped his temple. "In everyone, captain."

"Maybe," grunted the captain, "but I'll stick to the usual, eh? Kind you punch a button."

"Are you sure? Machines don't have hunches. Did you ever have a hunch?"

"Is this on the point?" The captain looked at the timepiece again.

Sheffield said, "Somewhere inside the human brain is a record of every datum that has impinged upon it. Very little of it is consciously remembered, but all of it is there, and a small association can bring an individual datum back without a person's knowing where it comes from. So you get a 'hunch' or a 'feeling.' Some people are better at it than others. And some can be trained. Some are almost perfect, like Mark Annuncio and a hundred like him. Some day, I hope, there'll be a billion like him, and we'll really have a Mnemonic Service.

"All their lives," Sheffield went on, "they do nothing but read, look, and listen. And train to do that better and more efficiently. It doesn't matter what data they collect. It doesn't have to have obvious sense or obvious significance. It doesn't matter if any man in the Service wants to spend a week going over the records of the space-polo teams of the Canopus Sector for the last century. Any datum may be useful some day. That's the fundamental axiom.

"Every once in a while, one of the Service may correlate across a gap no machine could possibly manage. The machine would fail because no one machine is likely to possess those two pieces of thoroughly unconnected information; or else, if the machine does have it, no man would be insane enough to ask the right question. One good correlation out of the Service can pay for all the money appropriated for it in ten years or more."

Maybe a good place to start would be to begin attending each others parties, seminars and conferences.

Science Policies, Space Summits and Great Gossip

It's the fall conference season, that traditional period from late September until late November when we attend conferences, reacquaint ourselves with colleagues, compare notes and stay up late telling terrible stories about mutual acquaintances who are probably really nice people except for one spectacular slip-up during a previous conference.

So with that in mind here are two quick promo's for conferences I'll be attending and reporting on over the next little while.

The Canadian Science Policy Conference is this October 28th to 30th in Toronto and focused on attracting academics and others with "an interest in the intersection of policy with science and technology." Speakers include Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear, Minister for Training John Molloy and conservative populist Preston Manning.

This conference  is specifically targeted at "scientists, engineers, policymakers, industrial R&D managers, association officials, government grant recipients, students, science diplomats, government affairs specialists, public affairs officers, science writers, and others with an interest in the intersection of policy with science and technology" according to their website.

The second conference I'll be attending is organized by the Canadian Space Society, which has just released the speaker schedule for the 2009 Canadian Space Summit at the Royal Military College in Kingston Ontario on November 20th - 22nd.

The Space Summit is expecting to attract a roster of professionals, academics, government officials and enthusiasts interested in this year's theme of "Multi-Use Missions: Opportunities for Collaboration on Space Technologies."

But since I'm chairing the commercial track, you should also know that I'm especially looking for Canadian based aerospace and new-space focused firms interested in business opportunities related to the commercialization of basic science.

If you're attending either of these events, feel free to let me know and we can meet up for coffee and juicy stories.

I'm quite interested in stories from businesses (or even from CSA employees) involved with commercialization and technology transfer through the Canadian Space Agency, especially if you've had exposure to any of the items listed in this document on innovative technical opportunities.