You may recall that back in mid-November – on the back of some discussions that took place at the University Vice-President’s Network meeting in Victoria – HESA launched a call for a meeting in Ottawa focused on: i) how to coordinate and advance defence research in Canada, and ii) developing sector-wide advice on how Canada should structure future defence and security research investments. On December 15th, 77 people showed up in Ottawa to discuss exactly that.
Today, we are releasing National Defence Research Roundtable: Notes and Proceedings, a summary of the day’s conversations and the recommendations emerging from them. We’re also releasing one of the presentations made at the roundtable – a summary of how other NATO countries (and Australia) are integrating higher education and research into their defence strategies. They’re good, quick reads and you can find them here.
Just a few things about the event and the report that we want to highlight.
The first is that it is very clear that this is a dialogue that is just getting started. Although we have yet to see the details of the government’s new Defense Industrial Strategy, it is hard to imagine that the country will more easily achieve greater self-sufficiency in critical defence-related technologies in areas like AI, space, and dual-use tech without universities and colleges than with them. Yes, there are lots of barriers to co-operation on security issues between national security agencies, defence companies, and post-secondary institutes. The point is: the country’s universities and colleges are ready to do their part to have the tough discussions necessary to make these relationships work. We’ll come back to some of these difficulties in the second.
How do we know it’s just getting started? Heck, the government isn’t even close to coming up with the with the kinds of questions it wants to research yet. Without that, it’s hard to design funding programs, for the very simple reason that not all types of research questions are equally well-suited to specific types of research funding programs. What works in AI is unlikely to be what works in naval technology, for instance, or in developing new ways of working in chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) environments. The U15 has been quick off the ground in starting discussions with government about major research projects and research centres, which is great. But there aren’t many successful research ecosystems (defence or otherwise) out there that rely solely on this one type of expenditure.
Much of the discussion on December 15th consisted of reflections about how to mobilize the greatest number of talents into the push for greater defense self-sufficiency. The view of the room, overwhelmingly, was that the Government of Canada needs to consider network-based approaches to defence research – like the Australian Defence Science and Universities Network (ADSUN) and the Swedish Campus Total Defence model (though, as one expert commented, it might take a few years to get Canadian institutions to the point where the latter might be possible). Putting different research models out on the table so that their implications could be absorbed and debated was a key goal of the discussion, and one which participants took quite seriously.
What was interesting about the discussion was the clear understanding expressed that security research was fundamentally different from the kind of inquiry-based research that predominates in Canada through the tri-councils. It’s not that anyone thought that some defence-related inquiry-based research was a bad idea, but there was very definitely an understanding that working on security-related projects was going to require a different kind of client-focused attitude, and would need to be implemented with a different set of operating rules, and a new funding regime.
Just to give you a sense of the rules changes that might be necessary:
- If institutions were going to commit academic staff to security-related projects, those staff members would probably be unlikely to be in a position to publish much of their research: tenure and promotion rules would need to be re-written or re-interpreted to make sure these staff were not put at a disadvantage
- Most labs in Canadian universities’ science and engineering departments contain significant numbers of international students. Depending on how security rules are drawn up, this could create significant barriers to working across the defence/university divide.
- Intellectual property also seemed as if it might be a challenge in the sense that IP from defence-related contracts should normally go to the government or to a private-sector partner, but in many universities collective agreements state that IP belongs first and foremost to the professor involved. It was noted though that many US institutions had found ways around this problem and it was worth looking to them for inspiration.
- The issue of research overhead is going to be fraught: when institutions were getting more money from provinces and international students, they could afford to live on low indirect research costs. Defence/security-related research – particularly if it requires expensive laboratory/engineering equipment – might need to be funded differently.
None of these issues are going to be decided quickly, but by putting them forward as areas where action will clearly be needed, the roundtable put down some useful markers for follow-up. Perhaps some other actor in the sector could start to lead discussions between the sector and government on these issues: more precisely, policy in the next few months or so would be very helpful.
Anyways, here’s what you should take away from all this:
1) A lot of university and college folks showed up at very short notice to have a serious discussion about how to work together to adapt to a new set of national challenges. The sector is willing to participate actively: the issue is how to organize the discussions.
2) There are lots of different models for mobilizing academic science for the benefit of national security: the trick is to work out which problems are most amenable to which form of research framework (horses for courses, etc.). This isn’t going to work itself out quickly, but what’s important here is to think long term.
3) There are some very specific challenges from the post-secondary side that have the potential to get in the way of active partnerships, but for the most part they are solvable, and institutions are interested in working together to come up with solutions.
That’s all good news.
Many thanks to our guest speakers on December 15th: Adam Lajeunesse (Brian Mulroney Institute of Government, St. Francis Xavier University), Kendra MacDonald (Canada’s Ocean Supercluster), Melissa Judd (Vector Institute), Perry Steckly (National Centre for Critical Infrastructure Protection, Security and Resilience), Sonya Shorey (Invest Ottawa), and Philippe Lagassé (Norman Paterson School of International Affairs, Carleton University).
We’re not done with this topic: stay tuned for more National Defence Research Roundtable news next week.
One Response
No doubt you’ll get some pushback from those who see spending on national defense as war-mongering. Pay no attention.
I am, nevertheless, somewhat disturbed by the tendency to see “the kind of inquiry-based research that predominates in Canada through the tri-councils” as an obstacle, rather than a strength to be encouraged. Without inquiry-based research we’ll all be somewhat more ignorant, and that can only weaken the country. Any move towards mandated research should be matched with a corresponding strengthening of inquiry-based, curiosity-driven research.
Otherwise, this move towards mandated research would threaten to make research institutions and those who work in them less independent and less able to follow the lights of their own expertise and consciences. It’s in keeping with attacks on the independence of universities and of tenure (especially in the US) but also, and more obviously threateningly, on the independence of courts or central banks.