Over the winter break, the Toronto Star published an editorial on research funding that deserves to be taken out to the woodshed and clobbered.
The editorial comes in two parts. The first is a reflection on whether or not the Harper government is a “caveman” or just “incompetent” when it comes to science. I suppose it’s progress that the Star gives two options, but frankly the Harper record on science isn’t hard to decode:
- The Conservatives like “Big Science” and have funded it reasonably well.
- They’re not crazy about pure inquiry-driven stuff the granting councils have traditionally done and have kept growth under inflation as a result (which isn’t great but is better than what has happened to some other areas of government funding).
- They really hate government regulatory science especially when it comes to the environment and have approached it the way the Visigoths approached Rome (axes out, with an intention to cause damage).
- By and large they’d prefer if scientists and business would work more closely together; after all, what’s state investment in research and development for if not to increase economic growth?
But that’s not the part of the article that needs a smack upside the head. Rather, it’s these statements:
Again and again, the Conservatives have diverted resources from basic research – science for no immediate purpose other than knowledge-gathering – to private-public partnerships aimed at immediate commercial gain.
And
…by abandoning basic research – science that no business would pay for – the government is scorching the very earth from which innovation grows.
OK, first of all: the idea that there is a sharp dividing line between “basic” and “applied” research is pure hornswoggle. They aren’t polar opposites; lots of research (including pretty much everything in medicine and engineering) is arguably both. Outside of astronomy/cosmology, very little modern science is for no purpose other than knowledge gathering. There is almost always some thought of use or purpose. Go read Pasteur’s Quadrant.
Second, while the government is certainly making much of its new money conditional on business participation, the government hasn’t “abandoned” basic research. The billions going into the granting councils are still there.
Third, the idea that innovation and economic growth are driven solely or even mainly by domestic basic research expenditures is simply a fantasy. A number of economists have shown a connection between economic growth and national levels of research and development; no one (so far as I know) has ever proven it about basic research alone.
There’s a good reason for that: while basic research is the wellspring of innovation (and it’s important that someone does basic research), in open economies it’s not in the least clear that every country has to engage in it to the same degree. The Asian tigers, for instance, emphasized “development” for decades before they started putting money into what we would consider serious basic research facilities. And nearly all the technology Canadian industry relies on is American, and would be so even if we tripled our research budgets.
We know almost nothing about the “optimal” mix of R&D, but it stands to reason that the mix is going to be different in different industries based on how close to the technological frontier each industry is in a given country. The idea that there is a single optimal mix across all times and places is simply untenable.
Cartoonishly simple arguments like the Star’s, which imply that any shift away from “basic” research is inherently wrong, aren’t just a waste of time; the “basic = good, applied = bad” line of argument actively infantilizes the Canadian policy debate. It’s long past time this policy discussion grew up.
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The Toronto Star OP-ED was unnecessarily biased (click-bait) but there are several elements of truth in it, at least as perceived by this science guy. Firstly, of course there is no perfect balance of basic vs applied but, in many areas of science, if you have no basic research then you must rely on second-hand access (often delayed) to apply it. This may work for a while in an area where there are other advantages (minimal IP environment, low wages and political support to build an indigenous industry) but usually this approach is unable to maintain competitiveness without discovery and direct internal access to new materials, processes, etc. Canada is poorly placed in this respect, especially as it has invested in the infrastructure to allow it to compete well in discovery research thanks to relatively strong universities and research institutes. Should more government dollars be invested in applied research? I would actually say yes, but only if it is not at the direct expense of basic science:
1. Canada’s private sector capacity and willingness to co-invest in many areas (excepting resource extraction/enrichment) is very limited. This is particularly true in the biopharma sector but also several others. There are some provincial programs that have worked well (e.g. Ontario Research Fund – requires a one third private sector match) but they rely on matching the best science with the best partners as adjudication is on both quality and potential for economic benefit. The latter tends to be self-limiting.
2. The current evaluation criteria for any of Canada’s science funding agencies (tri-councils, CFI, Genome Canada, etc) ALL require evidence of socio-economic benefit. That is a review and funding requisite. As a consequence, much lip-service/exaggeration/over-promising takes place and clearly some forms of research are deprecated. As has been repeatedly stressed by others, such criteria would have prevented the birth of biotech, monoclonal antibodies, etc as the most impactful discoveries initially have no immediate application. These criteria aren’t all due to the current government since Genome Canada and CFI have had these requisites since their inception (2000). However, they’ve since spread throughout the entire funding system. This, I think, has lead to the perception that the government is pushing far more toward applied research at the expense of fundamental/discovery research (see anecdote below).
3. Science is very difficult to evaluate, especially basic science. No metrics come close to predicting success (aside from track record but that requires selection bias – who knows how many budding geniuses have been cut down in their prime?). Applied research is presumably easier to evaluate although there are few, if any, reports on whether the shift in balance of funding has had any material effect. This dearth of evidence either way for applied research seems odd to me and is not a good sign for a government trying to make fundamental changes. Maybe it is too soon but, in that case, by the time there is evidence it may be too late to mitigate the consequences of negative impact.
4. Basic science is cheap. The more applied the research, the more expensive and higher the risk (clinical trials, production pilots, big cohorts, facilities, etc). This is one reason biologists use tractable organisms like worms and flies – they can get more done, faster, cheaper. Even mouse models are expensive. There needs to be strong justification for additional orders of magnitude of investment as well as satisfaction of safety and ethical concerns before moving forward. CIHR supports only a handful of clinical trials. If it only doubled the number, it would have to substantially reduce the number of basic science grants. This is true of other areas of research. So, if the government is keen on shifting the balance towards applied, it needs to invest much more (unless it is willing to substantially reduce support of basic science). The relative ROI very likely doesn’t warrant this (as seemingly understood by every other OECD country).
5. Let someone else do basic science, we can just import their data and build on it. Aside from it being an abdication of global responsibility, this is entirely wrong-headed. We generate preciously little IP as it stands. If we do not create knowledge, we are not going to be able to make use of it (except in “soft” terms such as best practice). Substantive new industries will not spring from relying on second-hand knowledge (never mind the vacuum created in education, HQP, etc).
6. We know enough, we just need to translate/apply what we know. This is a frequent cry from those typically moving towards the end of their career (including eminent scientists). This is hogwash as directly evidenced by embarrassing massive failure rate (and cost) of clinical trials. Research is a continual pipeline that needs constant feeding of new knowledge or it will dry up. Our ignorance is the only unlimited resource we can depend upon.
The problem is not a lack of entrepreneurial spirit or lack of desire of “basic” scientists to translate their research. The problem is that this cannot and should not be forced. Moreover, there is a dearth of capacity to receive/support such translation, a discouraging level of enthusiasm from the Canadian private sector and no money to achieve it. Perhaps reforming the SR&ED credit system would free up opportunities for better incentives for industry to support research. But right now, we are building a bridge over a horizon using the spans that connect us to ground.
Science is about building compelling evidence to support action. Perhaps the lack of evidence or rationale that the changes in research balance will be effective is why many Canadian scientists are so skeptical of government?
Anecdote: a highly respected fruit fly scientist told me yesterday that multiple CIHR Foundation Stage 1 reviewers instructed her to include clear translation to human relevance in her Stage 2 application if she wanted to be funded, even though her expertise is in flies and the work is at a stage that can only and should only be done in flies.