This paper analyzes a significant but virtually unexplored recent development within Canadian higher education, namely the growing importance of research grants to universities and academics. It addresses three main questions. First, the paper examines why and how research grants are becoming more important to Canadian universities and academics, focusing in particular on the role played by federal higher education policy. Next, it explores how the growing importance of research grants is transforming relations between and among the key players in Canadian higher education and academic research, including university administrators, academics, government, and the broader community. The paper's final section takes up some of the actual and potential implications of these changes and raises concerns about detrimental effects on Canada's universities and citizens. Prospects and possibilities for reform are also addressed.
Cet article cherche à explorer de façon préliminaire la nature et l'im‐pact de deux récentes initiatives fédérales concernant la recherche universitaire, soit la Fondation canadienne pour l'innovation et les Chaires de recherche du Canada. Une description des faits saillants de ces initiatives sera suivie d'une analyse centrée sur la manière dont ces initiatives contribuent à réorganiser les relations sociales entre les universités, le gouvernement, le secteur privé et le public général, de même que les relations au sein même de ces organismes. L'analyse considère ègalement les conséquences de cette réorganisation pour les groupes en cause afin d'éclairer les discussions et actions qu'ont engendrées ces initiatives singulières et significatives pour les études supérieures au Canada.
This paper aims to explore—in a broad and preliminary way—the nature and impacts of two recent federal initiatives related to university research, namely the creation of the Canada Foundation for Innovation and the Canada Research Chairs Program. After describing and highlighting key features of these initiatives, the paper examines how they are helping to reorganize social relations within and between universities, government, the private sector, and the general public. It also considers some implications of these changes for the various parties involved, as a means of informing the latter's discussions of, and responses to, these unique and significant developments in Canadian higher education.
The ongoing subordination of academic research to the needs of industry is a matter of growing concern to people both within and outside of Canada's universities. However, while the costs of university/industry links are increasingly well understood, the ways in which these links are being accomplished as a practical matter are not. This paper explores the complex reorganizational process in and through which control over our universities' research resources is being progressively ceded to industry. Its main focus is on how recent federal activities related to academic research both contribute and respond to this transformation. The analysis reveals how the benefits and use of our universities' research resources are being privatized, while the costs of academic research are still largely borne by the Canadian public. The implications of the new politics of university research, particularly for strategies to resist the conversion of academic research from a public resource to industry's private instrument, are addressed in the paper's final section. Résumé: La subordination continue de la recherche académique aux besoins de l'industrie est une question de plus en plus préoccupante, autant pour ceux au sein des universités canadiennes qu'à l'extérieur de celles-ci. Or, bien que nous soyons de plus en plus conscients du coût de tels rapports entre université et industrie, nous ne comprenons pas comment en pratique on est en train d'exploiter ces rapports. Cet article explore le processus complexe de réorganisation qui nous mène à céder à l'industrie le contrôle des ressources de recherche universitaires. L'objectif principal de cet article est d'examiner comment des activités fédérales récentes se rapportant à la recherche académique contribuent et répondent à cette transformation. L'analyse révèle comment on est en train de privatiser les bénéfices et l'utilisation des ressources de recherche universitaires, en même temps que le public canadien continue en grande partie à subventionner cette recherche. Les implications des nouvelles politiques sur la recherche universitaire, particulièrement en ce qui regarde la conversion de la recherche académique d'une ressource publique en instrument privé de l'industrie, sont adressées dans la section finale de cet article.
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