"Health budget" pays dividends for all scholars

BRONWYN CHESTER | Calling the federal government's newest budget a "good effort," and giving it an A-, Vice Principal (Research) Pierre Bélanger lauds, in particular, the $200 million in additional funding handed out to the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and the creation of the new Canadian Institutes for Health Research. The former was established two years ago to "help modernize Canada's research infrastructure" and was originally allocated $800 million.

So far, most CFI funding has gone to medicine and the sciences, which is one reason why Bélanger is pleased by the creation of the CIHR. "We have to remember that it's not just for people in medical research, but for people in the social sciences and in technological research."

Bélanger's main concern with the budget, and the reason he didn't give it an A, is due to the meagre increase received by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The $15 million boost over three years, as compared to the $75 million increase given to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, just isn't enough, Bélanger believes.

"We'd hoped for more. [Humanities and social sciences] are clearly behind. They haven't got the same shake at all as compared to the other areas… I would have liked to have seen the amount doubled."

SSHRC's baseline budget is $106 million for 1999-2000 as compared to NSERC's $508 million. In addition, many NSERC researchers also benefit from monies allocated to the 14 Networks of Centres of Excellence -- the NCEs received an increase of $30 million per year over the next three years.

However, the creation of the CIHR should give a further boost to the humanities and social sciences. While the CIHR is awaiting legal status, to be granted through a vote of Parliament, funding for the nascent body will be channeled through existing granting agencies. Of the $50 million to be allocated annually for the next three years to the CIHR, SSHRC, for instance, will receive a further $7.5 million. NSERC will also receive $7.5 million, the National Research Council is up for an additional $5 million annually, while the lion's share, $27.5 million goes to the Medical Research Council.

Eventually, the MRC will be folded into the CIHR, explains the Faculty of Medicine's associate dean of graduate studies and research, Dr. Robert MacKenzie. He was on the executive of the 40-member task force that helped set up the CIHR and is now a member of the CIHR's interim council. MacKenzie represented his field, biomedical research, in the planning stages of the CIHR. The other two areas represented were clinical practice and social science.

Modelled somewhat on the National Institutes of Health in the U.S., the CIHR will be organized along themes which may include genetics, ageing, child and maternal health, arthritis, cancer and neurological sciences and mental health. MacKenzie adds that there will always be the option to change or merge institutes as needs for knowledge and technology change. Experts from different institutions will work together under the CIHR banner.

MacKenzie emphasizes that the same peer-reviewed, investigator-driven process of reviewing grants will apply "à la MRC," but that if, for instance, the [hypothetical] Institute of Infectious Diseases sees a need for more work in the area of hepatitis C, it could steer researchers in that direction.

"It will challenge people to go into particular areas," he says, "and allow the institute to direct the process without having to wait for an individual investigator to come forward."

MacKenzie continues, the institutes will be in a position to link up researchers from different disciplines. "A molecular biologist, for instance, may be able to create a great tool for an epidemiological study on asthma. There's the potential for tremendous synergy.

"One of the really exciting things about the creation of the CIHR is that these young people," says MacKenzie, speaking of the students and fellows in his laboratory, "now have a decent chance of having careers in health research." Medical researchers in Canada have long complained that government support for their work has lagged dramatically behind what their colleagues receive in the U.S. and other G7 countries.

Furthermore, MacKenzie believes that the eventual recasting of the MRC into the CIHR will do much to increase the visibility of health research in the eyes of the public. "To have a national visibility will [create] a focus for research and bring it closer to the healthcare system. The institutions will be in a position to get information out more quickly."

Dean of Arts Carman Miller thinks the CIHR could be a boon to his faculty, given the amount of health-related research conducted by his professors.

"This recognition of the role that the social sciences and humanities play in health research will enable a place like McGill to benefit," he says, noting the work of such scholars as anthropologist Margaret Lock, political scientist Antonia Maioni, economists Lee Soderstrom and Frank Grimard, historians Faith Wallis and Myron Echenberg, and others involved in the psycho-social-ethical science side of medicine.

Overall, Miller has fewer reservations than Bélanger regarding the implications of the budget for the humanities and social sciences, but feels that not enough is asked of the private sector.

"The government has provided leadership in this budget by demonstrating its recognition of the importance of higher education and research and this should be a challenge to them [the private sector] to match it," says Miller, citing such private sector contributions as sponsoring lecture series and creating chairs, fellowships and scholarships. "Companies benefit from the analytical and creative abilities of arts and social science graduates and they could recognize that."

Those most critical of the budget were students. A press release issued by the Canadian Federation of Students dismissed the budget as doing nothing to solve the student debt and base funding crises facing institutions of higher education.

"The bottom line is that last year's so-called education budget has done little to help students staggering under mortgage-sized debt burdens," says Elizabeth Carlyle, national chairperson of the CFS.

The CFS calls on finance minister Paul Martin to increase transfer payments to the provinces and to bolster the student loan program. A nation-wide campaign called ACCESS 2000 has been launched to address the question of accessibility to education and student debt loads.