Volume 29 - Number 16 - Thursday, May 8, 1997


The Principal's Column

In recent Senate discussions of McGill priorities, there was considerable--and I believe productive--consideration of the teaching function of the University. In that context I would like also to stress the equal importance of our research function, for the distinctive character of a university like McGill is its commitment to bringing the teaching and research functions together. The added value which flows from this dynamic relationship between the two activities within the same institution is vital for both faculty and students.

The federal government's recent budget announcement in support of Canadian university research (see Reporter, February 17) and the milestone opening of the new M.H. Wong Building on the downtown campus have led me to reflect once again on the value of McGill's contribution to advancing knowledge and to say how impressed I continue to be at the tremendous work being accomplished by our talented faculty and graduate students.

Whatever the merits of the annual Maclean's magazine ranking, last fall's survey drew attention to a sometimes overlooked reality: that McGill professors lead the country in grants from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and place a close second in funding for medical and natural sciences and engineering research, despite the relatively smaller size of our faculties.

Indeed, from the information given me by the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research, it appears that regardless of the current discouraging fiscal environment, McGill research funding actually increased last year from $185 million to $190 million--an astounding leap under the circumstances, indicating increased funding from all sources, i.e., grants, contracts and fellowships.

The bittersweet truth is that the latest research success at McGill stems from a large number of relatively smaller grants than we have been accustomed to in the past, rather than from a variety of major ones.

More McGill researchers have thus received a minimum of support for their work (even if it is not at the level they need or deserve), but the proliferation of smaller grants requires a greater expenditure of administrative labour by both the researchers and the University's Research Grants Office, the Office of Technology Transfer, and the Office of International Research.

While it is clearly impossible to list the full range of the most recent McGill research successes, the following is a small sample:

  • Dean Stephen Toope, Patrick Glenn and other colleagues from the Faculty of Law have increased their activities on the international scene by obtaining grants to study comparative law in Vietnam ($100,000) and to assist in the reform of the Russian Civil Code ($910,550).
  • Several pharmaceutical companies have come together with the Quebec funding agency FRSQ to support the development of operational norms of control in biomedical research, a project directed by Professor Pierre Deschamps, of McGill's Private and Comparative Law Research Centre.
  • Arts Professor Michael Bristol's interdisciplinary team approach to studying Shakespeare in the Theatre has received a $100,000 grant from the Quebec granting agency FCAR, and Professors François Ricard and Jane Everett's successful bid for Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) funding to investigate the unpublished work and letters of Canadian novelist Gabrielle Roy was rated the best in Canada, in a field of 160 submissions.
  • The 1997 Canadian Election Study team involving McGill political scientist Elizabeth Gidengil and colleagues from the Université de Montréal and the University of Toronto, has received $713,000 from SSHRC's Major Collaborative Research Initiatives program, in partnership with Elections Canada which contributed an additional $50,000. York University will conduct the survey work.
  • Several McGill medical breakthroughs have led to spin-off companies and technology transfer. These include the new biotechnology company MethylGene based on Dr. Moshe Szyf's work with DNA, the licensing agreement between McGill (Dr. Lawrence Rosenberg), Eli Lilly, and Eastern Virginia Medical School to explore improved diabetes treatment, and LMS Labour Management Systems pursuing the results of multidisciplinary research, led by Dr. Emily Hamilton, in the area of obstetrics, biostatistics, neural networks and computer science. Exogen, a drug discovery company, whose objective is to develop new gene therapies for neuronal diseases, has also grown out of the work of McGill medical researchers, in this case Drs. Miller, Kaplan and Barker at the MNI.
  • The new Joint Centre for Structural Biology involving researchers in Biochemistry has attracted an investment of up to $1 million a year, under an agreement co-signed several months ago with the Université de Montréal, the Korean Research Institute of Bioscience and Biotechnology, Merck Frosst and other partners.
  • Professor Vijaya Raghavan, of the Department of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, was recently awarded a $1.05 million grant from the Canadian International Development Agency, for collaborative work with Environment Canada and Nankai University, China. The project involves the development and teaching of environmentally friendly microwave processing technologies, which will promote cleaner industry and a cleaner environment in China.
  • The work of Professor Don Smith, Plant Science, has led to breakthroughs in soybean cultivation and the incorporation of NORAG, whose focus is to develop and market new ways of increasing crop yield by improved nitrogen fixation in soil.
  • Three professors from McGill, including Professor Grant Ingram of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, are working with an international team of scientists on a four-year, $4.75-million project linking biologists and physical oceanographers in the study of the north water polynya, a large, ice-free area in northern Baffin Bay. The money is being provided by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC).

    The above are, of course, only examples of the enormous range of significant work being done and which we hope will continue as a hallmark of the kind of university McGill wishes to be.

There is, however, a cautionary note that must be sounded. We should never allow ourselves to make the mistake of judging the value of a research program solely by the amount of external funding it can attract. Not only are some disciplines more richly funded than others irrespective of their substantive value, but also it is important to retain the intellectual independence required to assess particular work by standards which may not always be those of other professional groups or funding agencies.




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