Proceedings of the Standing Senate Committee on
Social Affairs, Science and Technology
Issue 10 - Evidence - June 14, 2010
OTTAWA, Monday, June 14, 2010
The Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology met this day at 5:02 p.m. to study the accessibility of post-secondary education in Canada.
Senator Art Eggleton (Chair) in the chair.
[Translation]
The Chair: I call this meeting to order. Welcome to the Senate Standing Committee on Social Affairs, Science and Technology.
[English]
We are in a big room and a few people are still coming because we are meeting on a Monday, and people come in from far and wide. I thank Senator Greene for being here. He is a guest on our committee. I also thank Senator Cordy.
Over the next four hours, we will focus on two subjects. The first subject will be recruitment of international students. The first two panels we have will deal with that. Our third panel will deal with the question of research in post-secondary institutions, primarily universities, and will deal with the question of the granting councils and their involvement in helping to advance research and innovation in our universities.
This first panel brings representatives from two departments. From Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, I welcome Chris Greenshields, Director of International Education and Youth Division; and Jean-Philippe Tachdjian, Deputy Director and Trade Commissioner, Edu-Canada International Promotion of Education in Canada. From Citizenship and Immigration Canada, we have Erica Usher, Senior Director of Geographic Operations.
The subject is recruitment of international students.
I understand Mr. Greenshields and Ms. Usher will speak. If you could make your presentation about seven minutes long, that would be appreciated.
[Translation]
Chris Greenshields, Director, International Education and Youth Division, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada: Canada's post-secondary education system is recognized world-wide for its excellence. For their part, Canada's universities and community colleges are pursuing internationalization as a key dimension in their institutional development strategies.
[English]
The Advantage Canada strategy seeks to promote Canada's knowledge advantage to create the best educated, most skilled and most flexible work force in the world. The strategy recognizes that other countries are challenging the competitive advantage provided by our education system as they expand and improve their own systems. It recognizes the importance of international students to achieve the goals of the strategy.
In 2007, there were 2.8 million students around the world studying outside their country, a 53 per cent increase since 1999. A 2009 report commissioned by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada found that international students contributed $6.5 billion to the Canadian economy in 2008. This surpassed the exports of coniferous lumber and coal. International students also generated about $291 million dollars in government revenue and created economic activity that sustained employment for 83,000 Canadians.
[Translation]
International students also matter to Canada's labour market and immigration policies. Students and graduates fill labour market gaps and meet immigration needs at a time when Canada faces declining birth rates and an aging population.
International students matter to Canada's foreign policy and trade agendas, as students who return to their countries after graduation retain significant ties to Canada and later become important partners in trade, political relations and global leadership.
[English]
Between 2003 and 2007, the number of international students in Canada grew at a rate of 6 per cent. In the same time period, Australia saw 41 per cent, the U.K. 89 per cent and the U.S. 27 per cent. Our competitors had developed and implemented marketing strategies for attracting international students. In an increasingly competitive environment where countries spend upwards of $35 million per year, Canada was falling behind. Canada needed a coordinated and sustained approach with both federal and provincial support if we were to compete.
In 2007, as part of the government's global commerce strategy, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada received $1 million per year over five years to launch a marketing campaign in priority markets. This included the development of a brand for education in Canada in collaboration with provinces and other federal departments.
The Imagine Education in Canada brand was launched in September 2008, with the support of all provincial and territorial governments. It is now used with considerable success, positioning Canada as an attractive study destination and education partner.
The brand's messaging, based on research with international students and education providers, speaks directly to the student. The images and words support the key message: students' dreams coming true if they study in Canada. The campaign also emphasizes the high quality of Canadian institutions, with reasonable tuition fees and the possibility of immigration. The brand is now being licensed to eligible institutions and associations so they may co- brand and leverage Canada's image and messaging.
[Translation]
Through Canada's international network of embassies and consulates, efforts under the new brand have been stepped up to support the recruitment of international students and to support the building of international education partnerships. Missions are actively engaged in hosting events, facilitating media relations, journalist tours and in providing regional outreach in priority markets as well as in emerging markets.
To enhance Canada's prestige among education professionals and to assist our institutions in building international partnerships, DFAIT has been organizing, with provincial governments, Canada pavilions in major international education events, notably in North America, Europe and the Asia-Pacific region.
In order to better compete internationally, we are also working to better align all federal programs that support education promotion and we are collaborating closely with the provinces to support their efforts.
We work closely with Citizenship and Immigration Canada and clearly the programs which it has put in place are making a major contribution to strengthening Canada's offer in international education.
[English]
Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada also manages a series of award programs for foreign students and partners, including Government of Canada Awards, the Canadian Commonwealth Scholarship Program and the Emerging Leaders in the Americas Program, among many others. The Canada-U.S. Fulbright Program, the Canada- China Scholars' Exchange Program and the Canada-Chile Equal Opportunities Scholarships are other examples. We also work with other countries to facilitate scholarship awards to Canadians to study in those countries.
In recent years, we have reshaped awards to make them short term to directly support the international linkages of Canadian institutions. The student exchange program approach provides a new framework that is better aligned with government priorities, targets priority regions and promotes the internationalization of Canadian post-secondary institutions.
As part of Canada's Americas Strategy, two programs for short-term scholarships — the Canada-CARICOM Leadership Scholarships Program and the Emerging Leaders in the Americas Program — were announced by Prime Minister Harper and account for over 600 scholarships being awarded in the Americas yearly. Predicated on institutional linkages, they provide four to six months of study or research in Canada at the college, undergraduate and graduate levels for Latin American and Caribbean students.
[Translation]
Post-doctoral research fellowships aim to attract recent PhD graduates to do research in Canada. They are based on reciprocal agreements between Canada and foreign governments and are designed to provide one-year research opportunities to expose international talent to Canada's cutting edge facilities and academic expertise.
All scholarship programs foster brain circulation, promote international research collaboration and create an informed interest in Canada among future opinion leaders. Many of the awards are pursuant to a series of international agreements and other reciprocal efforts to promote two-way education exchange and youth mobility. We are also offering awards for on-line education capitalizing on Canada's strengths in this area.
[English]
In 2010, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada expects to support or facilitate close to 900 scholarships to international students. These are being closely coordinated with other programs by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, HRSDC, the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships offered by the tri-council and other awards offered through the Canadian International Development Agency, CIDA, the International Development Research Centre, IDRC, and other organizations. Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada has put in place a central website that identifies all the federal government scholarships available to international students, which allows them to directly access information on all the programs.
[Translation]
The federal government's strategy, Mobilizing Science and Technology to Canada's Advantage (2007), provides a framework to promote world-class excellence, encourage the commercialization of basic and applied research in areas of strength and opportunity and encourage partnerships involving the business, academic, and public sectors, at home and abroad. Canada has a number of bilateral Science and Technology arrangements. Canada's universities and colleges play an active role in these arrangements and representatives are members of each of Canada's Joint S&T Committees.
[English]
In conclusion, I want to stress that the department works closely with the provinces and territories, given their jurisdiction over education. We do so through the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada, with which we have a memorandum of understanding. Under the MOU, there is a formal federal-provincial-territorial body that meets regularly to coordinate activities.
Erica Usher, Senior Director, Geographic Operations, Citizenship and Immigration Canada: I would like to thank the committee for inviting me to speak. Citizenship and Immigration Canada, CIC, recognizes the contributions that international students make to Canada. With this in mind, CIC is working closely with its partners in the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, DFAIT, and the provinces and territories to improve Canada's standing as a destination of choice for international students.
Within the past five years, CIC has introduced several programs designed to increase Canada's attractiveness in this regard. First, students at eligible post-secondary institutions can apply for work permits to work part time off campus during the course of their studies. Second, these students may also apply for up to a three-year open work permit upon completion of their studies. Third, Canadian Experience Class, introduced in 2008, offers many foreign students the opportunity to apply to stay in Canada permanently after graduation and eventually become Canadian citizens.
CIC's statistics indicate over 85,000 students arrived in Canada in 2009, an increase from about 68,000 in 2005. There were nearly 200,000 foreign students present in Canada at the end of 2009, also an increase of 17 per cent from about 167,000 in 2005.
Under the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, any foreign national wishing to study in Canada for a period longer than six months is required to apply for a study permit. Residents of the United States, Greenland and Saint- Pierre and Miquelon may apply on arrival, but all other prospective students must apply for a student permit at a visa office abroad.
In order to approve a study permit application, the visa officer must be satisfied that the applicant is a genuine student — in other words, that the student has an offer of admission to a recognized school in Canada and that the student intends to study at that school and has sufficient funds to support him or herself. The officer must also be satisfied that the applicant is admissible to Canada, for which a medical examination may be required. Finally, concerns about fraud and program integrity are common, as the study permit process is targeted by individuals with no intention to study who are simply seeking to gain access to Canada.
Many common complaints about Canada's study permit process are based on misconceptions. For example, it is often stated that our refusal rate is very high. In fact, 75 per cent of all study permit applications worldwide were approved in 2009. At many of the visa offices processing the largest volumes of study permits, the approval rates are higher than average: 80 per cent in Beijing, 89 per cent in Seoul and 92 per cent in Paris.
The approval rate also varies depending upon the level of study. Globally, we approve over 86 per cent of students destined to university degree programs, while the approval rate for students going to other post-secondary programs — which may include language schools and private vocational colleges — is 57 per cent.
Another common misconception is about long processing times. Globally in 2009, two thirds of study permit applications were finalized in four weeks or less, including the time needed to complete medical exams.
Finally, Canada's student programs are often compared unfavourably to those of our competitors, notably Australia and the United States. However, different program and legal requirements make direct comparison difficult.
The United States requires a personal interview at the embassy for all student visa applicants. While the visa can often be issued very quickly after an interview, wait times for interviews — currently advertised as 30 days in Beijing and 43 days in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia — mean that U.S. processing times are comparable to our own. Australia, meanwhile, advertises a student visa process that takes 12 weeks for applicants from China and India, well longer than our processing times in those countries.
Finally, while Australia has long been known for recruiting large numbers of international students, it should be noted that applications from the two largest markets, China and India, have recently dropped off considerably. There may be several reasons for this, including more robust efforts at identifying fraudulent applications.
CIC is committed to improving client service at all visa offices and recognizes that there is always room for improvement. Given the broad range of countries and clientele served, CIC has implemented innovative local programs in some places to respond to the local market.
For example, in a high-volume and low-risk source country such as Korea, the visa office has long been issuing upfront, at-risk medical examinations to improve processing times. Our office in Beijing began offering a similar service in 2009. For students who provide their medical results at the time of application, 80 per cent are finalized within 15 days.
Meanwhile, our office in New Delhi, which had high application volumes but low approval rates for non-university students, launched a pilot project in 2009 in partnership with the Association of Canadian Community Colleges to improve approval rates and processing times for students destined to participating colleges while maintaining program integrity. The approval rate of students destined to 20 publicly funded community colleges through this program is currently 78 per cent, about double the previous approval rate for Indian students applying to the same colleges a year ago. In 2010, the program will be expanded to 38 participating colleges.
In conclusion, CIC is committed to the Government of Canada's goal of making Canada a destination of choice for international students. We are dedicated to the dual goals of facilitating the entry of genuine students while also maintaining the integrity of Canada's immigration programs.
Thank you. I would be pleased to answer any questions the committee may have on this topic.
The Chair: Thank you. Let me start by asking some questions of both of you, starting with Mr. Greenshields.
This image Canada program looks to be a good improvement, but according to some of the information we are still getting, we seem to be way behind the kind of investment and programming done in some other countries.
As a couple of examples, the president of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada said in his testimony to us last month that there are only 2,800 students from India studying in Canada. There are 28,000 studying in Australia, which has a smaller population tenfold. There are 28,000 students studying in the U.K. If we think about where the world is going in the 21st century, we need to be more engaged.
In your presentation you compared the increases. Canada had a 6 per cent increase between 2003 and 2007, whereas Australia went up 41 per cent, the U.K. 69 per cent and the U.S. 27 per cent. They seem to be producing a lot more. Of course, you also point out that they spend a lot more money. They spend upwards of $35 million in some cases, and here we have a program, good as it may be, that has $1 million per year over five years. We have a long way to go here, and if we believe that having international students coming into our country is to our benefit — I believe that, as I think most of us do — why are we not investing more than we are?
I was Minister of International Trade back in 1996 and 1997, and I remember this was an issue then. I said we have to do more. It seems that we are still saying the same thing over a decade later. International students help pay the costs of our system. They are full paying, although that may be an issue as well. The rising tuition fees may be a problem, particularly for some countries. Then we also have the benefit that when they go back, they have connections in Canada that can pay dividends in future investment and trade opportunities. Third, some of them may end up staying here and becoming contributors to our economy and quality of life. I think those benefits are considerable.
Why are we not doing more? This is a good program. Why can we not be more competitive with a country that has a smaller budget and population, such as Australia?
Mr. Greenshields: You are right; other countries are doing more. They are investing more funds. I can only say that we have stepped up our efforts considerably, and I think we are seeing results of those efforts as increases in the numbers of students. For example, you mentioned the case of India and compared the figures with Australia. In fact, as Ms. Usher indicated, the numbers are increasing.
As Ms. Usher also alluded to, Australia is in fact suffering seriously because of its approach to student recruitment in India, where it has been a disastrous situation for them because of perceptions in India of violence against Indian students and so forth. Part of the problem is that perhaps Australia's system has not had the same degree of integrity in its visa process, integrity in the sense of management and control to ensure the right and genuine students are being attracted and given visas.
I think we are seeing some clear signs. Another element of why we were less competitive was the federal-provincial dimension. In recent years, we have increased our collaboration with the provinces and territories. We are working closely together. When the provincial premiers travel abroad, most recently to India and China, for example, they are making the recruitment of international students a priority and part of their missions. The Province of Nova Scotia, for example, has developed a new approach over the recent years through EduNova. They have developed a strong marketing plan.
As a result, it is not just about dollars, although, obviously, we would like to see greater funds, because we allocate those funds to our missions abroad to undertake the marketing activities. I think we are doing it more smartly, and we are seeing the results.
The Chair: We will be getting a paper on Australia. Of course, Australia has a similar structure, two tiers of government, so the state governments there had to cooperate with their federal government. I do not know why it took so long to get it together.
This matter about the experience with Indian students I find surprising. Australia generally has the reputation of being tough on illegal immigration, so I do not understand it. We will get more information about Australia.
You said there is an increase, but the increases are small in comparison to the increases Australia, the U.K. and the United States are getting. Do we not recognize that getting numbers similar to at least what Australia gets would be very helpful to our economy?
Jean-Philippe Tachdjian, Deputy Director and Trade Commissioner, Edu-Canada International Promotion of Education in Canada, Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada: In Mr. Greenshields' remarks, we were talking about pre- 2007. In those days, prior to the brand, we had dismal results, as we have said. Since 2007, after the launch of the Edu- Canada initiative and the development of the brand, we have seen a 15 per cent growth in student numbers over two years. Obviously it does not compare with 69 per cent, but it is much better than what it was. Prior to that, over four or five years we saw only 6 per cent growth, and now between 2007 and 2009 we have seen a 15 per cent growth in numbers of new students arriving into Canada.
The Chair: Ms. Usher, you gave many statistics that sound quite hopeful. Of course, those are applications you receive. I do not know how many people are discouraged from getting into the process in the first place, but you said a substantial number of those who do apply succeed.
I have heard about a couple of the tests that you apply. One is that a person has to prove he or she has enough money to pay for tuition fees, living expenses and return transportation and must also satisfy an immigration officer that he or she will leave Canada once the studies are completed.
In the requirement concerning enough money, the rising tuition fees could be an impediment to a number of people who could be valuable to us, and you do allow people to work part time, so there is some recognition they will need additional resources. Yet, you are requiring them to prove up front that they can pay the tuition fees, living expenses and return transportation, which is everything.
Second, are you still asking prospective students to convince an officer that they will leave Canada? We now have a new program, as you pointed out, the Canadian Experience Class, so why on the one hand would we want them to satisfy an immigration officer that they will leave and on the other hand have a program that says we would like them to stay?
Ms. Usher: On the first question, for funds, we do require that the students provide evidence that they have sufficient funds. If it is a four-year program, when we issue the first permit, we require proof that they have enough for the first year. We do not require proof up front that they have funding for the full four years of their studies. It is our belief that even if we do offer them the opportunities of a work permit, students might not get work right away; so they should have sufficient funds, at least for the first year of studies, and then subsequent years they will provide the proof as they need to renew their permits or if they need to process. When they first apply, it is funds for the first year.
Regarding students' intent to leave, the Immigration Refugee Protection Act has dual intent, which authorizes people to apply in two streams, and one is a temporary with the intent to stay permanently subsequently. That is perfectly permissible, and the officers will take that into consideration. However, the officers also consider whether, if the student were to apply subsequently as a permanent resident, which is permissible, and be refused for whatever reason, the student would then return to the country of origin or whether there is a risk that person would stay in Canada illegally. That intent is being assessed by the officers.
As you have seen in the statistics, for university students applying to come to Canada, our approval rate is very high, about 85 per cent to 86 per cent. From what I have seen from my colleagues, that has not been an issue for the quality of students we are trying to attract into the Canadian Experience Class and through the programs DFAIT delivers.
The Chair: Residents of the United States, Greenland and Saint-Pierre and Miquelon may apply on arrival, but all other prospective students must apply for a study permit at a visa office abroad. Why do you make those distinctions in those countries?
Ms. Usher: Mr. Chairman, these are our neighbours. We have quite long borders with the U.S. I must admit I am not an expert at where this particular part of the law came from, but I assume that since they are neighbours and border us, we allow them to come to the border and apply for entry there.
Senator Cordy: Thank you for coming today. There are many excellent universities in Nova Scotia. We believe they are the best undergraduate universities in the country, and certainly we are trying to promote them, and the universities in Nova Scotia are working together because, on our own, it does not work. That is why I would like to come back to the Canadian government's marketing plan. It is important to have a strong federal initiative. Is it $1 million a year, or did someone say $1 million over a few years? What is the number?
Mr. Tachdjian: It is $1 million a year for five years for a total of $5 million, and this is partially for operational costs and some for salaries.
Senator Cordy: That is 2007 to 2012?
Mr. Tachdjian: Yes.
Mr. Greenshields: To clarify, this is in addition to what we already had in place for our ongoing work, for example, to reflect the resources we have deployed abroad, staff that are doing this abroad as well as some at headquarters.
The Chair: What are you spending in total yearly to complete that point?
Mr. Tachdjian: I think the total for salaries of our employees is about $1.8 million, so when you add the extra million, about $2.8 million.
Senator Cordy: Do these employees work full time on the promotion of the Canadian brand?
Mr. Tachdjian: Some work full time on education; some spend 50 per cent of their time on education and 50 per cent of their time on culture or something else. Others are trade commissioners who have education as one of their sectors, and they spend maybe 20 per cent of their time on education. When I give you that amount, I am calculating what percentage of their salaries is being devoted to education only.
Senator Cordy: Is most of the work being done by trade commissioners in embassies around the world, or is it being done from Ottawa?
Mr. Tachdjian: Most of the work is done by trade commissioners around the world or public affairs officers. It varies from mission to mission. At headquarters, the Edu-Canada group coordinates things. For example, we help the missions in their planning processes with making the connection between the institutions, the Canadian universities and colleges and the missions, and we coordinate things with the provincial governments, for example, with development of the brand. The package we provided contains examples of some of the promotional materials developed at headquarters and distributed through the embassies around the world.
Senator Cordy: Developing the brand was done in conjunction with the provinces and with universities?
Mr. Tachdjian: Yes. It was done in conjunction with the provinces. We worked together with the provincial governments on this, and it took about a year and a few months to develop. We consulted very closely with the institutions through their associations, including the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, the Association of Canadian Community Colleges, and regional associations like EduNova and the Quebec association of universities. However, the final decision was made by the federal and provincial governments.
Senator Cordy: I think Canadians would be surprised to see how much money international students bring into the economy. You said $6.5 billion. Is that per year?
Mr. Tachdjian: Yes, per year, and we consider that to be a conservative estimate.
Senator Cordy: Our marketing budget is such a miniscule amount compared to $6.5 billion going into the economy. I think you said that amount does not include direct money going to universities, like tuition. Is that correct?
Mr. Tachdjian: That includes tuition.
Mr. Greenshields: Yes, that includes tuition the international students pay. They typically pay a higher level of tuition. The figure is somewhere around $25,000.
Mr. Tachdjian: The total is $31,000.
Mr. Greenshields: Yes, $31,000 per head per year. It is a very impressive figure. We conducted that study for that reason. The Minister of International Trade released the study last fall, and I think it has made some impact on the importance.
As I mentioned in my remarks, it is not just a matter of the economic impact. If you look at smaller communities around Canada, it also has a very important impact well beyond the immediate financial impact in contributing to their economic development goals, including immigration and so forth.
We have done a lot of work to demonstrate the importance. For example, it is Canada's second-largest export to China. It is a major export to other countries, as well. It plays a significant role for Canada.
Senator Cordy: I think that is a lot of money. I know you are right: It is more than a dollar figure these international students are bringing to Canada. It is wonderful for the universities and for the Canadian students who have the privilege of learning from students of other countries. However, looking at the $2.8 million I think you said we are spending compared to the $6.5 billion we are bringing in, it seems like it would be good to substantially increase the budget on that.
Ms. Usher, you said students can apply for work permits while studying, but this must be done before they come to Canada; is that correct?
Ms. Usher: No, they can apply for work permits from within Canada. For example, they can apply for an off-campus work permit after they arrive here. They do that through our office in Vegreville.
Senator Cordy: If they were in Halifax, they could apply there, could they not?
Ms. Usher: Absolutely. It is all done online.
Senator Cordy: What percentage of students are approved for part-time work while attending university? Do you have those numbers?
Ms. Usher: I do not have those figures with me. However, they are normally approved automatically if they are eligible.
Senator Cordy: It is quite high, then.
Senator Greene: First, I would like to commend you for the work you are doing. I believe the programs and policies are exactly right for Canada at this point in time. I particularly commend you for the progress we have made as a country since 2007, and probably since 2005.
I am also interested in advertising and marketing. Senator Cordy has asked almost all my questions. I have a couple, though. Do the universities play any kind of a role in marketing externally? Do they piggyback onto what you are doing?
Mr. Greenshields: Yes. This was a point I might have raised in response to Senator Cordy. Indeed, the institutions are making the bulk of the investments in the recruitment effort. I believe the figure the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada uses is that, on average, a university in Canada spends about $3 million or $4 million per year on international requirement efforts.
Senator Greene: Is that a single university?
Mr. Greenshields: Yes, that is the average per university.
Senator Greene: Taken together, it must be in the $50-million range across Canadian universities. Would that be right?
Mr. Greenshields: I did not understand the question.
Senator Greene: If you took that as an average figure and multiplied by the number of universities, you would get quite a large sum.
Mr. Greenshields: It would be $300 million or $400 million, yes. Institutions in Australia, the U.S. or wherever are also funding similar expenses. In Australia they would be spending far more because the average university in Australia derives 25 per cent of its budget from foreign students. It is one way the Australian post-secondary education system is funded.
We as government are really playing the role of supporting their efforts. Over the years, students have told us and our research has shown that in order to achieve success, students choose the country. The provinces and institutions both recognized that there needed to be a common brand, and that was part of the stimulus to move that effort forward.
Basically, our missions abroad are supporting the recruitment efforts of the institutions by organizing missions, fairs, pavilions, and so on to support their efforts. Ultimately, the students want to be able to come to the university or college and ask what kind of programs they offer, what a degree from their university means for them and their career wishes.
Senator Greene: Do provincial governments participate in this at all?
Mr. Greenshields: Yes, they do. Provincial governments have programs to support their institutions' efforts abroad. EduNova receives funding from the Province of Nova Scotia and is in effect the marketing arm of the province in the area of education. For their part, the institutions also contribute to its budget. The investments are being made at both levels of government and by the institutions themselves.
Mr. Tachdjian: I want to say the provincial governments are more and more interested in the sector. For example, the Government of Ontario recently announced it wanted to increase by 50 per cent over five years the number of international students registered in Ontario universities and community colleges. At the same time, it will invest significant amounts in marketing.
The British Columbia Council for International Education gets money from the B.C. government. These are all our partners, and we work very closely with them in our planning and our preparations. When they decide to go out with their institutions, we are there to provide support through the embassies.
Senator Greene: What was been the support of the Nova Scotia government? In Nova Scotia, we have the highest number of universities per capita. In many ways we have too many universities, actually. Those universities cannot exist without students from outside the province, whether they are Canadian students or international students. What is the Nova Scotia government doing?
Mr. Greenshields: They are basically putting their resources through EduNova, which is a consortium of universities and the Nova Scotia college system, together with other institutions, to promote Nova Scotia. As you know, Nova Scotia is called the education province. EduNova has been very successful. If you look at recent reports, the Association of Atlantic Universities and the Nova Scotia association of universities have recorded quite significant growth in international students in Nova Scotia and throughout Atlantic Canada.
Senator Greene: On a per capita basis by province, have you any information on which province might be ahead in attracting international students?
Mr. Tachdjian: The province that received the most international students is Ontario.
Senator Greene: That is perhaps because of the size of the universities.
Mr. Tachdjian: Exactly. However, Ontario is followed closely by British Columbia. Ontario has about 35 per cent of the international students and British Columbia has about 33 per cent. Quebec is third with about 17 per cent or 18 per cent.
Mr. Greenshields: We can get the data per capita for you.
Senator Greene: I am interested in that.
The Chair: You can give that to the committee clerk, and we will distribute it to everyone.
I have a follow-up question to one of Senator Greene's questions. You said Ontario wanted to increase to 50 per cent. That is a big leap. You also said there is cooperation between the federal government and the provinces in the program and, of course, in the branding exercise, Imagine Education in Canada. How would that work? Will they put substantially more money into Imagine Education in Canada, or will they do their own thing, which supposedly still comes under the general brand? It is a bigger increase than you spoke of earlier.
Mr. Greenshields: Provinces typically do not provide funds to us, but we partner with them on a regular basis. For example, depending on the strategy that Ontario may develop, Ontario needs to work with our missions abroad. Our missions are ready to assist the provinces — Ontario in this case — on particular missions to focus on important markets. Ontario recently led a mission to Vietnam with which our Vietnamese missions were closely associated. The provinces basically invest funds first through these kinds of provincial missions and, second, directly to institutions. Alberta does this, for example, to support their marketing efforts.
The challenge and advantage we are developing is to work closely together to ensure a greater impact of individual provinces' efforts. It is clear that they can have more success if they operate under a Canada brand.
Senator Cordy: Do you notice fluctuations when the Canadian dollar fluctuates? For example, five years ago the Canadian dollar was at 60-some cents. It would be a deal for an American to come to Canada. Currently, the dollar is fluctuating between 94 cents and 97 cents. Do you notice any change?
Mr. Tachdjian: Yes and no. We do in certain markets. Korea is an example. The Korean won dropped considerably recently. We see fewer Koreans coming to Canada as a result. When we speak to the embassy and ask what is happening, people basically say it is expensive currently. They look for alternatives or put it off until a later date.
The strengths of Canadian universities and colleges are such that the great majority of people coming to Canada want education at its best. They realize that Canadian education is excellent quality. They are willing to spend the money needed. We are talking about attracting an elite segment of society. Unless students receive a scholarship, it is usually only the elite who have the money to send their children to study abroad.
Senator Cordy: Will the recession affect the number of students that Canada wants to bring? The reality is that you must have financial resources to travel to North America from India, China, and other places.
Mr. Tachdjian: It is difficult to say. In the last two years, which was the heart of the recession, we saw a 15 per cent increase in the numbers of student coming here to study. That suggests the recession had no impact.
As I said, if there is a strong fluctuation in the currency of a particular market compared to Canada, it could have an impact, as it did in Korea.
Senator Cordy: I want to return to the small promotion budget. I am still fixated on that when it brings in $6.5 billion to the Canadian economy. How do you spend $1 million effectively? Do you focus, or is it like peanut butter spread everywhere on the bread? We accept a high percentage of the applicants. How many do not apply because they do not know about it?
Mr. Greenshields: We established priority markets around the world in consultation with the provinces and territories and our stakeholders. The bulk of our resources are directed to our missions. The value added is in putting resources in the field to support institutions' efforts on the ground. We invested a lot up front in developing the brand.
I mentioned in my intervention that we need to do a better job investing through the web. We know this is a post- millennial generation. They get their information through the Internet. This can be done cheaply, but there are many upfront costs to have a state-of-the-art website using Web 2.0 social media. Work needs to be done in this area.
Senator Cordy: I am concerned with the nuts and bolts of how marketing is actually done. How does the 16-year-old or 17-year-old living in Beijing find out there are universities we want them to attend in Canada?
You must look at social media. Once it is established, it is relatively inexpensive. This is how younger people get information, unlike people of my generation. When I go to a movie theatre, I see advertisements from Nova Scotia universities. They advertise where young people go. However, $1 million does not go far.
Mr. Tachdjian: With the money we have, we cannot afford to buy advertising and things like that. We focus on events and organizing activities to attract young people to come to Canada.
For example, we will arrange for a group of Canadian universities and colleges to go to a certain part of the world. The embassy will get the word out by marketing to universities, high schools and colleges to make people aware a group of Canadian universities will be at a certain hotel for two days.
We have had significant successes. There are third-party fairs like the China Education Expo, which is the world's largest education fair. About 200,000 people attend. About 60 Canadian institutions usually participate in the Canada pavilion. Many students are recruited that way.
In places where there are no third-party fairs, Canadian embassies organize fairs. For example, we have a trade mission in October called the Middle East Education Initiative. We tour the Middle East starting in Kuwait and ending in Morocco.
Senator Cordy: Do you meet with students?
Mr. Tachdjian: We meet with students. The embassies reach out to students to have them come to the events where they can meet with the institutions and be recruited. In the end, we can only promote. The institutions do the recruitment.
More and more institutions are also working in the field through agents. There is a network of education agents who recruit students and send them to institutions. The agents either get a commission from the school or get paid by students who ask them to find a school that meets their needs. We are working with some of those agents in certain markets and telling them about Canada to get them involved or interested in sending more of their students to Canada, rather than Australia, New Zealand, the U.S. or the U.K.
Senator Cordy: What budget does the University of Toronto have for promotion? I agree with what you said; you do not do it all, but you would certainly be the guide or the force behind getting all the Canadian universities and colleges together to do that. You would be the impetus. However, I have heard that the University of Toronto has a promotional budget as large as the Canadian government's. Is that fair?
Mr. Tachdjian: It is probably much larger than what we have. The answer to the question is that I do not know what their promotional budget is. The University of Toronto is obviously one of the most well-resourced universities in the sector. To be honest, they do not participate very often in our events. They recruit directly in international baccalaureate high schools around the world.
The Chair: I have one question, and then we have come to the end of this session.
The program — and this may be true in other countries as well — is generally set up for foreign international students who are fairly well off, at least middle class in their country. It raises the question that there could be people of considerable potential and talent in some developing countries, but it is very difficult to get all the funds and meet all the requirements that the immigration people have.
You do offer some scholarships, I believe. What do you do in those cases? There is a person that perhaps a university or a province has recruited and thinks is a good candidate to bring over, but that person cannot meet all of the tests easily because of where he or she comes from. There is the other side, working in the opposite direction, is whether we should be attracting people from these developing countries that will need them back eventually; once we get those students here, they may get onto this new Canadian Experience Class program. How do you deal with that situation?
Mr. Greenshields: We do have scholarships through the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. The federal government offers scholarships through other programs as well.
As mentioned in my remarks, our approach in recent years has been directed towards supporting the international linkages of Canadian institutions. We offer to international students a short-term award, typically for four to six months, for them to come to Canada to pursue an exchange program with a Canadian institution. That gives the students opportunities to take advantage of the libraries, the research laboratories, the mentoring and the networks they can develop with the Canadian institution.
We have seen an expansion of this program. One program in particular is the Emerging Leaders in the Americas Program, where we bring in about 600 students from the Caribbean and Latin America as part of institutional exchanges. This allows Canadian institutions to send more of their students abroad, because it is a true two-way exchange.
We have adopted this approach also because in some situations — for example, in Africa and in other countries — we are conscious to avoid brain drain from these countries. We feel that by taking this approach, we are promoting the institutional and longer-term collaboration between the institutions and, at the same time, focusing on individual students to give them an opportunity to come to Canada and gain from a Canadian education experience.
The Chair: Thank you. We have run out of time, but let me give one final question here to Senator Ogilvie, the deputy chair of this committee, also from Nova Scotia. We are overwhelmed by Nova Scotia today.
Senator Cordy: We should pass a resolution at this meeting to give a pile of money to the universities in Nova Scotia.
Senator Ogilvie: I not only second Senator Cordy's motion, but I want to follow up on the discussion she was having with you.
From listening to the discussion, I think the issue has not much to do with the budget that you have with regard to specific recruiting compared to the University of Toronto. After all, Canadian universities are independent businesses operating under their own individual charters, with most of them having well over a century of experience and most of them having developed clearly identified market areas and the type of student they want to recruit and the regions of the world they want to recruit them from, and they have long-standing contacts and so on.
Therefore, it seems to me that the government or government agencies should not in any way — and I am not suggesting for a moment you were suggesting this, so please do not take it the wrong way — be in competition in terms of advertising. Rather, they should be developing, as you have identified and as I am aware you have over time, programs that facilitate the arrival of students, the opening up of new markets where they exist and dealing with Canada's national strategies with regard to those issues.
It would surprise me greatly if the University of Toronto was not spending a great deal of money on recruiting not only at the undergraduate level but at the graduate level, where it is world renowned. I wanted to take the edge off any issues with regard to the amounts of money in a government pot for student recruitment versus the individual. Even the smaller universities in Atlantic Canada have serious recruitment strategies, particularly with regard to the Caribbean, Southeast Asia and so on. Those are parts of their individual identities and strategies, and then they can tie into government programs where those facilitate moving forward with their own identities and business plans. That is just an observation.
The Chair: That brings us to the end of this segment, and I thank the officials for being here this evening and telling us about what they are doing. Keep going; it is important for Canada.
Mr. Greenshields: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you for your questions and comments. We are always available should honourable senators have further questions or request further information.
The Chair: In our second panel, we will continue to focus on international students. We have with us Karen McBride, President, Canadian Bureau for International Education, CBIE, who will tell us about what they do and speak to this issue of international students. If you can do that in about seven minutes, we will appreciate it.
[Translation]
Karen McBride, President, Canadian Bureau for International Education: The Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) values the opportunity to submit this brief regarding the accessibility of post-secondary education in Canada as it pertains to international students and the mobility of Canadian students enrolled in our PSE institutions.
CBIE is Canada's national, non-governmental organization dedicated to international education. CBIE represents the full spectrum of Canadian education. Its membership is composed of 150 colleges, universities, school boards and provincial associations and organizations such as EduNova.
CBIE's activities comprise advocacy, research, information services for students and professionals, professional management of technical assistance and scholarship programs, professional development for international educators and a host of other services supporting member institutions' effectiveness — all of which keep CBIE at the centre of the issues related to effective international education.
CBIE's vision is to develop new generations of internationalists through access to an internationalized education. Embedded in this vision is the belief that people-to-people exchange across national borders is one of the best ways to engender understanding and world peace.
[English]
I understand you have the fuller documentation brief that we provided, so I would like to speak specifically to the recommendations. Then I look forward to engaging in discussion and dialogue with you.
The first recommendation is that the Government of Canada should officially adopt the goal that was urged in the Competition Policy Review Panel to double Canada's international student enrolment within the decade. The Canadian Bureau for International Education believes that we need a bold vision in this area, so we very strongly support the Competition Policy Review Panel.
I was listening to the earlier testimony, and it is clear that the committee members understand well the value of international students in Canada. You understand not only the direct economic impact on communities across the country, not only the financial benefits to the institutions that welcome them, but also the academic benefits, the cultural benefits of having international students on our campuses. Equally if perhaps not more important is the potential labour market contribution that these students can make.
The Canadian Bureau for International Education undertook a study of international students in 2009 in which we surveyed 6,000 international students in colleges and universities. We learned that 52 per cent of these students at the university level and 71 per cent of students at the college level planned to stay to take advantage of the post-graduation work permit for three years. In fact, 50 per cent of them are considering applying for permanent residency.
Therefore, our first recommendation is that we need to set a bold vision for the country and say we need to double the number of international students within the decade.
The second recommendation is very much linked to the first. It is that in order to improve access for a broad range of international students to Canadian post-secondary education, PSE, institutions, and not only those who can afford to pay on their own to come to Canada, CBIE recommends that the government substantially enhance its investments in scholarships for international students, including significant support to students from developing countries. In our view, these two recommendations must be linked.
We can set bold targets for ourselves as a country, but we also want to continue to be good international citizens. That means investing and building the capacity of other countries by helping them have access to our high-quality education in Canada so they can go back and contribute to building their own societies.
As you heard from your previous witnesses, a number of scholarship programs are already in place, but we need more. We need a bolder, broader tool box of scholarships for international students. These can be structured so that we ensure we are not contributing to the brain drain, because we would like to see a particular emphasis on scholarships for students from developing countries.
The third recommendation relates to your question of the investment that we make as a country in education marketing. Our third recommendation is that the Government of Canada should invest a minimum of $22 million per year over the next five years to promote Canada as a study destination. This figure of $22 million comes from a study that the government produced. It is on par with what our key competitor countries are investing, and it is absolutely needed, and needed now.
I say that because the foundation for bringing more international students to the country is in place. The institutions are investing heavily in this area, and we now have the Edu-Canada brand, which is a helpful step, from our perspective. There are much more progressive measures on the part of Citizenship and Immigration Canada that give Canada a competitive advantage. Many students, when they choose their country for a study destination, look at options for permanent residency. We have a very competitive offer in that regard, not to mention the capacity to work off campus part time.
We have very engaged provincial and territorial governments that believe this is a priority, and we have increasing collaboration in the education sector itself. I would like to pause on that for a moment and inform you about what I think are some important developments with respect to the education sector.
I think there has been a major step forward to have a less fragmented landscape with respect to education marketing nationally. Five national associations, which together represent education institutions that are engaged in education marketing, have come together to form a consortium. Those associations are the Association of Canadian Community Colleges, the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, the Canadian Association of Public Schools- International, the Canadian Bureau for International Education, and Languages Canada. We are going to be formally signing a memorandum of understanding on June 29 establishing this consortium, which we are calling the Canadian Consortium for International Education Marketing. We are doing this because we recognize that the education sector itself needs to do more to contribute to a cohesive, more collective effort to market Canadian education abroad.
We want to work in close partnership with DFAIT, CIC and the provinces and territories, so we have invited them to be part of a steering committee that will guide the activities of the associations working together. We think that this strategy will be complementary to what DFAIT is doing, to what CIC is doing and to what the provinces and territories themselves are doing, and we are committed to trying to add value and bring a more consolidated and cohesive effort to this endeavour.
With all those pieces in place, however, with that foundation set, the time is now for federal government investment. If we do not start investing and actually deploying the Edu-Canada brand in a more assertive, aggressive way, we will lose this investment and will not be able to capitalize on all the good work that has been done. This is an urgent matter, because we will start to see in the near future that our market share will continue to decline because we are not out there proactively marketing ourselves as we should. We need to invest far more in the active promotion of Canada.
I will take a moment to speak about access from a different point of view, and that is access to international education for Canadian students. I think you are probably well convinced of the value that international experience brings to a Canadian student. It is transformational. These students are the generation of young people who have to lead our efforts. We are a trading nation. They will be living in a globalized context. They need the international knowledge and intercultural competencies that a study-abroad experience gives them.
Unfortunately, far fewer of them are getting that experience than should be. In fact, at the university level, on average, 3 per cent of students have a study-abroad experience as part of their program of study, and at the community college level, 1.1 per cent of college students get a direct experience internationally during the course of their studies. This is really unacceptable, and we need to do much more to build on a foundation of some good programs that exist funded by the government and some good programs that exist funded by the provinces, but we are not doing enough to get a critical mass of Canadian students this international experience.
CBIE recommends that this Canadian government adopt a target of having no less than 15 per cent of our PSE student population undertaking a study-abroad semester or a year or participating in a field school for a minimum of four weeks, and we should do that by 2015.
Recently, the Lincoln Commission in the United States developed a plan that would see one million U.S. students annually taking part in a semester or year abroad by 2016. We need to do more to ensure there is a critical mass of young Canadians with first-hand knowledge and skills who will lead this country in this globalized context. We cannot afford to ignore this issue, and I would urge this committee to take up the question of access to international education on the part of Canadian students.
To achieve this target, our fifth and final recommendation is that the government invest in a major study-abroad program. We do not need to fund this fully, but our study shows that financial barriers are far and away the largest obstacle to more Canadian students going abroad and that small top-up grants or support for airfare is often all it takes to have a student realize the opportunity of having an international education experience. Finally, we recommend that there be a major effort to develop a critical mass of Canadian students with international education experience. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Back in 2007, your organization said:
The lack of a strategic, fully articulated policy on international students is damaging Canada's efforts to be competitive with its trading partners for the pool of highly skilled graduates.
How would you update that for the present day with respect to what is going on now and also the ambitious recommendation of adopting the goal of doubling the international student enrolment within a decade, backed up by your recommendation that the Government of Canada invest a minimum of $22 million a year, about tenfold what it is spending now as I understand from the previous presentation by Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada. How would you see that money being allocated to meet that goal?
Ms. McBride: For an update on how far we have come in developing a more coordinated national strategy, I would say that since 2007 the development of Imagine Education in Canada has been helpful. There is much more cooperative dialogue now between the federal, provincial and territorial governments than existed in 2007, which is very positive.
From our perspective, a dialogue between two major stakeholder groups —the governmental stakeholder groups and the institutions — has been missing. We have tried to make a major step forward by coming together, five national associations that represent institutions, in a consortium so that we can have a much more structured dialogue about how to take a national strategy and coordinated approach to the next level. In terms of dialogue and cooperation, there has been improvement. In terms of investment, definitely more is needed on that front.
With respect to doubling of international students — and the figure, by the way, is on par with what other governments are investing — we believe that a lot of the foundation is laid. As I mentioned, the brand now needs to be deployed. In our estimation, a large amount of that $22-million investment needs to be for actual promotion — buying advertising, setting up more fairs, getting out and promoting Canada, putting more human resources into missions that can dedicate themselves 100 per cent to this endeavour. The emphasis needs to be on promotion, not on bricks and mortar but on actually getting the message out and deploying the brand.
This speaks to the need for a coordinated approach. If collectively we agree that we will be targeting certain markets, we want to ensure that the missions abroad and the CIC officers abroad have the resources they need. For example, if we put on an additional push in China, we ensure that there are enough resources so that the visa application process does not become a bottleneck and that we have people in the missions who can support that effort.
The vast majority of the investment is for actual promotion but recognizes that some of the infrastructure needs need to be taken care of now. Social media was mentioned in your earlier panel and using new technology to reach students. There needs to be some big improvements in that area also.
The Chair: On the other side of the coin, you say you want to get more Canadian students abroad experiencing interim studies in other locations. What mechanism would we put in place to have federal involvement? We have a mechanism for getting students here, and that essentially comes from Citizenship and Immigration Canada and Foreign Affairs and International Trade Canada, but it does not seem to be the vehicle that would work for your second suggestion. What kind of mechanism or vehicle would you put in place for that at the federal level?
Ms. McBride: At the federal level there are two examples of mechanisms that could be expanded.
HRSDC has the International Academic Mobility Initiative, which is funded to the tune of $3.4 million. That supports two major initiatives, one with the European community and one with NAFTA partners, with the U.S. and Mexico. Those programs are competitive and bring together a consortium of institutions to develop joint projects and programming. In that context, students flow between those countries.
There is another mechanism. The Government of Canada negotiates bilateral arrangements with partner governments, which allows for a reciprocal flow of students. When the Government of Canada funds some of their students to come to us, they reciprocate and provide funding for Canadian students to go to their countries.
Both of those mechanisms could be expanded upon. In particular, I think ensuring there is actual reciprocity in the bilateral exchange agreements we have with a number of countries would be an important step.
That being said, I think there needs to be a broader tool box of mechanisms. We would recommend that there be a program of small-scale grants that institutions could allocate on the basis of need to their students. Universities and colleges have the infrastructure required to send the students abroad. They have their partnerships with institutions abroad. They have to be on the front line in order to take care of health and safety issues. Therefore, I think it would be quite easy to put in place a mechanism of small grants that could be administered by institutions.
Senator Ogilvie: Thank you for your presentation. I want to make a couple of observations in the two categories you addressed. These are very important topics, but they are also challenging. Take the first issue of recruiting international students. You have emphasized attracting students from low-income families. It is not quite that easy, though, is it?
Universities face two principal realities: the ability of the student to be prepared to enter a Canadian university, and the language issue. As you know, the Canadian universities have spent a great deal of time developing relationships with a number of countries and promoting, for instance, the Ontario high school leaving certificate as a standard for education. Many organizations are set up in many developing countries to help students meet those kinds of requirements. That is just an observation; it is not a simple issue to recruit students.
I want to spend more time on the aspect of students abroad. While these are really great ideas and certainly a number of students have the time and inclination perhaps to spend a year abroad during their undergraduate years, students having a year or two to do that is not just a given in today's competitive world.
My observation is that these programs work well in certain circumstances. The exchange programs many universities have with other universities abroad tend to work reasonably well. With regard to cost, usually the student pays the tuition at the institution they are leaving. That tends to mitigate many of the overall issues.
However, the drivers for even these kinds of exchanges tend to include students wanting to get development in another language, if they are there in a professional program. The students who have the most difficulty taking a year abroad are those in the sciences and professional programs, because there is not necessarily compatibility in those areas. However, my experience with the language development is that Chinese, French, Spanish and Russian tend be the languages in which there is the greatest degree of overall interest.
The thing we forget about regarding universities encouraging students to study abroad is the responsibility universities take on when one of their students goes abroad. I know all kinds of documents are signed. However, when a volcano erupts and disrupts traffic at a critical time or there is a social uprising or some other issue, the expectation is not only that the Canadian government will be there for assistance but also, for practical matters, that the university will be there to support the student as well. These are practical issues that universities take into consideration when considering the number of students they can encourage to travel abroad on their own right.
Could you comment on the issue of the challenge to universities, the responsibility, the added risks and costs they take on in supporting students going abroad? Also, please comment on the challenge faced by students in competitive programs to take time to go to an institution abroad.
Some cases work out because of specific programs, and students have specific motivations. There may not be as many as you would like occurring, but many of those that do occur do so for substantial reasons. My experience has been that some of those provide exceptional benefit to the individual students, the institutions they are going to and the institutions they leave, which receive an exchange student in return.
Ms. McBride: Right. Thank you for those observations. I agree wholeheartedly with them. The first point is that CBIE recently undertook a study, called the World of Learning, that looks at the state of student exchange in Canada. There is a link to the study in the brief we gave you.
That report observes that there has been a huge amount of innovation in setting up these mobility programs for Canadian students, recognizing exactly the barriers that you pointed to. It also indicates that often students cannot be away for a year because of the particular program they are in. The institutions are responding by developing new types of shorter-term intensive international experiences.
In order to make Canadian programs more attractive and competitive, there is a trend for Canadians institutions to undertake joint programming with their partners overseas. That provides for quite a seamless exchange of students within a jointly defined academic program. We are really pleased to see that institutions are being innovative in creating more pathways for students to do this, and I think it is absolutely as you say. They recognize that it is often a challenge.
The other point I would make is that our institutions report that increasingly students are demanding these opportunities. They are pushing their institutions to give them these opportunities because they understand that the international experience will make them more competitive when they leave the institution and that they will need it.
The other good news story is that Canadian students really want these kinds of opportunities. However, 85 per cent report that financial issues continue to be the major barrier to their undertaking them. We hope that with those infrastructure changes and with some infusion of financial support, they will be able to do more.
With respect to the practical issues of risk and risk management, part of what CBIE does is support the professional development of practitioners within institutions who deal with study abroad issues. While I completely agree it is a huge responsibility on the part of institutions, I can report that they are a very active professional learning community and are sharing good practices and having many seminars. We have hosted webinars and conferences on these issues. A lot of attention is paid to the issue of risk management.
Senator Di Nino: First, I will congratulate you. You have put the issue squarely and forthrightly on the table. We are lagging behind, both inbound and outbound. I think you will have made a useful contribution to this study.
I have one basic question. Until recently, I chaired the Standing Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade in which we were doing a study on Canada's relationship with China, India and Russia. This issue came up frequently. We talked a lot about the kinds of impediments that exist.
Let us talk about the inbound impediments for now. From your experience, what are the major problems or roadblocks that exist in Canada in attracting students from other countries?
Ms. McBride: First, we have not created any "mind share" for Canadian education in the minds of these students. Having them consider Canada is the first obstacle we have inadvertently set up by not promoting sufficiently the high- quality education they can receive in Canada.
Second, we do not have a competitive tool box of scholarships for these students. To its credit, the Government of Canada has launched new scholarships in recent budgets, like the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships. However, compared to the range of scholarships offered by competitor countries, Canada does not offer enough to attract the attention of the best students.
Third, I have to be honest in saying there have been significant improvements in the way study permits are processed. I give credit to Citizenship and Immigration Canada for making this more of a priority in improving policy and practice. I no longer see that as a major impediment. There is always room for more improvement, but that endeavour has improved over recent years.
The impediment with respect to China — language — is not one Canada put in the way, but one that we can better address. When we bring students to our campuses, it is important to have academic support and language training for many of them before they launch into their academic programs. Many institutions have addressed that need.
Senator Di Nino: To clarify, you think the visa problem we heard much about in recent years is not as big an issue as it used to be.
Ms. McBride: There is always the risk of backsliding, depending on broader international developments. However, there seems to be recognition at the policy level in Citizenship and Immigration Canada of the importance of bringing international students to Canada. Efforts have been made to improve procedures. There is always room for continuous improvement. However, the department sees itself as part of the effort to bring international students to Canada because they will contribute. Whether students return home to become Canadian ambassadors for the rest of their lives or whether they stay to add their talent to our labour force, CIC now gets it.
You talked earlier about dual intent. It is still an issue that can sometimes be tricky and thorny for local visa officers. We have a study permit process that says students are coming to Canada to study; they are not supposed to stay. Then, we have the new Canadian Experience Class of immigrant that says we want to facilitate and fast-track those students for permanent residency. There are still a few dysfunctional issues, but the situation is improving generally.
Senator Di Nino: For the outward-bound Canadians to whom we wish to give the experience of studying abroad, you said cost is a likely factor for approximately 85 per cent, if I heard you correctly. Is that the case?
Ms. McBride: Yes, I can verify the numbers. By far, the largest obstacle identified is the financial cost involved.
Senator Di Nino: I have a relationship with the Bolashak students from Kazakhstan who are sent here and paid for by state money. How many programs similar to that does Canada have to give Canadian students an education experience outside of this country?
Ms. McBride: A number of financial supports are increasingly available at the level of institutions. A number of provinces are also recognizing the need to do more and are starting to make investments.
At the federal level, there are specialized programs for graduate students, post-doctoral fellows and things of that nature. There are two major programs. First is the International Academic Mobility Initiative at HRSDC. That program funding is $3.4 million per year. It is the most targeted federal program to support Canadian students studying abroad. It is divided into two components. One program deals with North America partnering with institutions in Mexico and the United States. The second program deals with partners in the European Union. Each program runs a competitive process to select the most compelling projects put forward by consortia of institutions. Students flow from these institutional consortia. This is the Canadian flagship program specifically geared to study abroad by Canadian students.
Second, I mentioned that when the Government of Canada offers funding for foreign students to come to Canada, often they negotiate a reciprocal arrangement for Canadian students to go to those countries. Ensuring that those reciprocal opportunities are created and taken up is a challenge. Therefore, there are very few at the federal level.
Senator Di Nino: Thank you.
Senator Kelvin Kenneth Ogilvie (Deputy Chair) in the chair.
Senator Martin: Ms. McBride, thank you for your presentation and recommendations. I concur that the work you are doing to bring together national organizations to have a unified voice in the international market is necessary. We compete with the rest of the world. As a former educator in B.C., I know that Canada's education system stands up to anyone else's. The international students I taught all had positive experiences. In universities, I hear the same comments that coming to Canada is a positive experience. What you are doing is important in the world.
You said 52 per cent of international students studying in university and, I think, 71 per cent or 72 per cent of students studying in colleges consider staying in Canada after their studies are done.
Ms. McBride: Yes.
Senator Martin: Have you any statistics or percentages for Canadian students that study abroad? Are the percentages that choose to stay in those countries equally high?
Ms. McBride: Are you asking about Canadian students going to other countries?
Senator Martin: Yes.
Ms. McBride: I do not have the most recent data from UNESCO — the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization — but I can get that to you. However, I believe approximately 30,000 Canadian students go abroad. I am not talking about short-term study exchange; I am talking about when they go abroad to take their full degree. The vast majority of those go to the United States, and the vast majority of those are at the graduate level.
I do not know how many are lost to Canada because they choose to stay in the United States. I think that is probably a function also of how permissive the visa regulations are in that country. I can only assume that most of them are probably in the United States. We can try to find that out for you, senator.
Senator Martin: I am curious because I have mixed emotions about our students going abroad. I know that it is competitive out there, and other countries, other universities, are trying to attract Canadians as well.
My father was an international student in the late 1960s. He went to the United States but eventually ended up staying in North America, which is why I am here. I have had students who have gone on to do their degrees in other countries and have found jobs. It may be a temporary living situation, but many do not come back.
As a mother, I think about my daughter and what she will choose to do. I feel not possessive exactly, but regarding the brain drain we talk about, I am thinking about the interesting balance we must have in providing opportunities for our Canadians to experience international education, but also being mindful of the competitive nature of this global education industry.
Ms. McBride: I understand your point very well. The recommendation to get a critical mass of Canadian students having study-abroad experience is in the context of the students being set up within their institutions' programs of study. It is recognizing that they will go for perhaps a year, maybe a semester, but then they will come back to finish their degrees at their institutions in Canada. With short-term student-exchange and study-abroad experiences, the students can get that international experience without the kinds of challenges one might have from a policy or country perspective, because they are short term, for credit, and that credit counts for their Canadian degree or diploma.
Senator Martin: I do understand that those educational experiences are vital. As I said, I feel mixed emotions at times when we talk about this.
I want to ask you about the Canadian Experience Class. I know we have yet to see the effects of it as it continues. Would you comment on what you have seen to date and how you feel about this class that has been a response to addressing the international students who are here?
Ms. McBride: In general, it is a very positive development. It is a very strong marketing dimension for the Canadian education offering. Many students who are looking for a destination to study are also looking at a longer-term perspective. Knowing that they would have the option, should they choose to come to a Canadian institution, to get some work experience and then apply through the Canadian Experience Class I think makes Canada more interesting to international students as an option.
I will tell you that in our work, in talking with international partners, governments have taken note of this. They are concerned that Canada is being very assertive and aggressive in trying to recruit and keep their best students. That is why I say that as we do this, we also have to be mindful of the need to help build capacity in our partner countries and remember that we have a reputation as a good international citizen. As we look to our own labour market needs, we also have to help build capacity in other countries through scholarships.
Senator Martin: Thank you again for the work you are doing. We really appreciate your being here today.
Senator Greene: We heard earlier that universities in total annually commit about $300 million to marketing and advertising. You would recommend an additional $22 million or so by the Canadian government. I agree with that; but I would like to ask, given that the universities are really the main players in the game, to what extent will the universities be involved in designing how to spend the $22 million?
Ms. McBride: That is a good question. If I could come back to your $300 million figure, I was familiar with some of the data presented earlier, and the Canadian Consortium for International Education Marketing, the five associations, will try to get more specific data on the level of institutional investment in this endeavour. However, it is definitely fair to say that many institutions invest more than the Government of Canada is investing.
Part of the reason we wanted to form this consortium of associations is because we did not feel that there was enough of a substantive dialogue about priorities with the governments, collectively, as there needed to be, given the level of institutional investment. I do not mean only financial investment but also reputational investment in this endeavour.
The institutions are the ones who offer the service to the international students; they are the ones who have to deliver high-quality education to the students. They need to be engaged in precisely what you say, senator, which is setting the priorities for new investment.
I can tell you they feel what is really lacking is actual dollars for promoting Canada to create in the minds of prospective international students the concept of Canada as an option, so that instead of thinking about going to the U.S. or the U.K. or Australia, those students would actually consider Canada.
Senator Greene: Will they be involved in helping to design or critiquing draft communication plans or advertising campaigns?
Ms. McBride: When the five associations came together to design the consortium's governance structure, we said we needed to have the government partners, both federal and provincial, at the table with us. We want to work in close collaboration with them to ensure that we are acting in a cohesive way going forward.
We have invited them to join the steering committee of this consortium so that we can achieve exactly that objective. We hope they will agree and that it will be a forum where we can have a more structured dialogue between levels of government and institutions.
The Chair: That brings this session to a conclusion. I thank you, Ms. McBride, for coming and for giving us your views on the matter. I wish you well in your continuing operations. Thank you very much for your contribution to this consideration of ours.
Ms. McBride: Thank you very much Mr. Chair and senators. I appreciate the opportunity.
The Chair: For the third segment of our meeting, we have the three big granting councils with us. Of course, they are very important when it comes to the R&D role in Canada's post-secondary education system. Together, they award some $1.5 billion in grants, scholarships and awards for excellence to Canadian academics, engineers and students. They play an important role, one we specifically outlined in the terms of reference as wanting to explore in our study of access to post-secondary education.
Let me welcome Pierre Chartrand, Ph.D., Chief Scientific Officer and Vice-President, Research Portfolio, Canadian Institutes of Health Research; Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, Executive Vice-President, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada; and Gisèle Yasmeen, Vice-President, Partnerships, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Mr. Chartrand, please proceed.
[Translation]
Pierre Chartrand, Ph.D, Chief Scientific Officer and Vice-President, Research Portfolio, Canadian Institutes of Health Research: Thank you for inviting me.
[English]
I appreciate the opportunity to present to the members of this committee how the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, CIHR, contributes to post-secondary education in Canada and how CIHR training awards can yield dividends for Canada's economy and contributes to the health and well-being of Canadians.
I will focus this presentation on two key priority areas for CIHR: first, training, retaining and sustaining a healthy research foundation; and, second, preparing young talent for various labour markets. Before I delve into these two topics, allow me to situate our organization within Canada's health research and research training landscape.
[Translation]
CIHR's mandate, as defined in our founding Act, is to excel, according to internationally accepted standards of scientific excellence, in the creation of new knowledge and its translation into improved health for Canadians, more effective health services and products and a strengthened Canadian health care system.
CIHR is a unique model, with 13 "virtual" Institutes headed by leading Canadian researchers in their respective disciplines, designed to address research challenges across the health spectrum and to provide funding programs to train the next generation of health researchers and professionals.
[English]
With the funding provided to us by the Government of Canada, we provide leadership and support to over 13,000 health researchers and trainees across Canada.
I am happy to point out that Canada's health research excellence rates high when benchmarked internationally. In fact, Canada ranked top third when compared to 13 countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD, in the area of clinical research based on citations per paper, a strong indicator of the value added and quality of Canadian research.
Although Canada has been a strong presence on the world scene by virtue of its excellent research, we need to assert greater international leadership, and we need highly trained personnel to make this happen. We also need to ensure that health professionals are sufficiently exposed to research during their training so that they are involved as practitioners in bringing research evidence into health care. As a result, we need to ensure a system of renewal that prepares new health professionals for research careers and provides expert research mentorship during the early years of their training.
In order to achieve this, CIHR provides awards that support candidates along the continuum of health research training, starting with summer studentships for undergraduate students, master's and doctoral student awards, post- doctoral fellowship awards and professional training awards.
As of the 2008-09 fiscal year, CIHR was supporting over 8,300 trainees representing an investment of over $175 million. Over 2,400 of these trainees are supported directly through CIHR's awards programs, representing an investment of $55 million, and over 3,000 trainees were supported in 2009-10, a significant increase of 600. The rest of the trainees were supported through CIHR grants provided to researchers who employ trainees in their labs and supervise their studies. These training programs represent a healthy and diverse research training base.
Over the years, CIHR has developed new ways of supporting training in health research. An example of these training innovations is CIHR's Strategic Training Initiative in Health Research, an investment of $14 million in the fiscal year of 2009-10. This training initiative develops high-quality graduates through multidisciplinary and team-based research training approaches by engaging research experts from different fields of health research to collaborate in mentoring teams of students. This approach also instills leadership qualities amongst the trainees and builds a future base of leaders that will set new solution-driven directions for research, development and innovation for Canada.
[Translation]
Training people at advanced levels such as the doctoral and post-doctoral levels must also meet the needs of all labour markets and must be innovative enough to help Canada increase its competitiveness in global markets. CIHR has developed multiple streams of funding programs that allow trainees to learn across the academic, public and private sector divides in order to become sufficiently "market" savvy to effectively bridge the gap between a research discovery and its application into new clinical practice, new products, new medicines, new policies, new patents, public understanding, and so on.
[English]
For example, the CIHR/Rx&D Collaborative Research Program is a partnership between Canadian research-based pharmaceutical companies and CIHR. CIHR also has the Science to Business program, which is designed to encourage individuals with PhDs in the health-related field to pursue a Master of Business Administration, MBA.
Our health care system is currently going through a transformation in all of our provinces and territories to meet the needs of all Canadians. Canada needs a stronger linkage between research evidence and clinical practice to improve care by putting in place high-quality personnel that ensure translation of research results from bench to bedside and from bedside to practice.
CIHR is encouraging young professionals to consider research as a career by creating appealing and viable clinical research career paths as part of our patient-oriented research strategy.
[Translation]
Although Canada has been a strong presence on the world scene by virtue of its excellent research, we need to continue asserting a greater international leadership. CIHR also provides funding programs for unique training opportunities within Canada and abroad to continue benchmarking our research excellence against the rest of the world. The most recent addition to our international initiatives is the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships administered by the three granting councils, NSERC, SSHRC, and CIHR, as well as the newly announced post- doctoral awards aimed at attracting and retaining the most promising young researchers.
[English]
In conclusion, translation of health research into health, social and economic benefits in collaboration with academic, public and private sector partners is critical to solving many of the health-related issues that are important to Canadians. In the era of the global knowledge economy, our success will depend on our ability to nurture high-quality health research trainees, ready to generate new knowledge and translate that knowledge into advantages across the full spectrum of the health enterprise. CIHR's role is to directly support the training of young talent and to create, through research initiatives, a rich and vibrant environment in which they can learn. Thank you very much.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Next, we have Ms. McCuaig-Johnston, from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, NSERC.
Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, Executive Vice-President, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada: Thank you for the invitation to meet with you today. NSERC's president, Dr. Suzanne Fortier, regrets that she cannot be here herself, but NSERC's council is meeting in Edmonton today.
I am pleased to have the opportunity to talk you about NSERC and in particular its role in supporting post- secondary education and Canadian students.
[Translation]
The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada invests over $1 billion each year in its award, scholarship and fellowship programs supporting research and advances education in Canadian post-secondary institutions. NSERC has three priorities.
[English]
First, NSERC invests in people and, particularly, each year in 28,000 students. Second, we invest in discovery in investments in more than 12,000 professors who conduct research in our universities. Third, NSERC invests in innovation, in partnership with more than 1,500 companies in Canada.
Because of these three priorities, people, discovery and innovation, which map directly to the three advantages of the federal Science and Technology Strategy, people, knowledge and entrepreneurial, I thought this evening, given the committee's particular interest, I would focus my remarks on our support for students at the undergraduate, graduate and post-graduate levels.
The federal Science and Technology Strategy recognizes that talented, skilled, creative people are the most critical element of a successful national economy over the long term, and talented people are NSERC's most important investment and our most valued output.
We provide direct support to approximately 4,200 undergraduate students, 5,600 master's and PhD students and 500 post-doctoral graduates in the natural science and engineering disciplines. We provide indirect support, for example, through grants awarded to professors who then employ students, to over 5,300 undergraduate students, 10,100 graduate students and 1,500 post-doctoral fellows.
NSERC's suite of scholarship and fellowship programs support post-secondary research experience and training in both academic and industrial settings from the undergraduate to the post-doctoral levels. For example, the most effective way to attract students to graduate studies is to whet their appetites for research. Through NSERC's Undergraduate Student Research Awards, we provide undergrads with the means to conduct a summer research project in either a university or an industrial setting.
The Canada Graduate Scholarships provide financial support to outstanding students pursuing master's or doctoral studies in a Canadian university. This program was a vehicle of Canada's Economic Action Plan, which added 600 scholarships for 2009-10 and 400 scholarships for 2010-11 to the more than 1,600 awards already supported by the program in natural sciences and engineering. At the master's level they provide $17,500, and at the doctoral level, $35,000 per year for three years.
The Collaborative Research and Training Experience Program, or CREATE, allows students to acquire non- technical and professional skills at the same time that they pursue technical research training. This program funds university teams and directs that these funds go to students and post-doctoral fellows to enhance their training.
As an example, Jeff Dhan and Mary Anne White, representing Dalhousie University's chemistry department, were awarded $1.6 million under NSERC's CREATE program to fund a cohort of research trainees in Nova Scotia who will address important aspects of energy production, storage and sustainability. By a novel training approach that involves partnership with industry, this program will facilitate the transition of new researchers from trainees to productive participants in the Canadian economic community.
[Translation]
In 2009, NSERC launched its Strategy for Partnerships and Innovation to foster research partnerships between industry and post-secondary institutions and accelerate innovation in order for Canada to obtain increased returns from its investments in the research and development capacity of its universities and colleges. In its 2010 Budget, the government increased the funding of the strategy by $5 million a year.
[English]
As part of this initiative, in the upcoming year NSERC will increase the number of students and fellows working in industrial settings, for example, by providing more industrial post-graduate scholarships to master's and doctoral students and industrial research and development fellowships to recent doctoral graduates to apply their research and development skills in Canadian companies.
Last year, 544 industrial post-graduate scholarships were supported. These are in addition to the more than 4,700 post-graduate scholarships awarded to students pursuing studies in Canadian universities.
Also, 214 fellowships were awarded through the Industrial R&D Fellowships, IRDF, program last year. In the upcoming year, NSERC will partner with the National Research Council's Industrial Research Assistance Program to create opportunities to place more IRDF candidates with Canadian small and medium-sized companies.
Complementing these programs, the Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships provide major support to 165 of the very best doctoral candidates each year, including foreign students. This program and the new $45-million post- doctoral fellowship program announced in Budget 2010 will complement the investment in the Canada Excellence Research Chairs to attract talent to Canada and will provide an added incentive for students and post-doctoral fellows to come to Canada.
This year's Steacie memorial prize winners provide evidence of the success of NSERC's scholarship programs. Steacie fellowships are awarded each year to six outstanding and highly promising professors who, in their early career, are earning a strong international reputation for original research.
[Translation]
Alexandre Blais, professor at the Université de Sherbrooke's Department of Physics, received NSERC scholarships and fellowships during his studies as well as a doctoral award. His research in the field of Quantum Information Processing aims at creating computers that would be much faster than those offered by current technology.
[English]
Diane Srivastava, Associate Professor in the Department of Zoology at the University of British Columbia, also received NSERC scholarship and fellowship support throughout her studies. Her research explores the relationship between species and their ecosystem. The information she gathers will inform policy regarding animal conservation and ecosystem management.
NSERC, together with the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, SSHRC, and CIHR, share a common vision to develop a more agile, dynamic and responsive approach to funding research to exploit Canada's strengths to their full potential, to raise the bar of excellence and to insure the international competitiveness of Canadian research, creativity and innovation. The suite of scholarship and fellowship funding offered by the federal government through the granting councils is one of the key mechanisms by which Canada can accomplish this vision. We look forward to the committee's report on the important subject of accessibility of post-secondary education in Canada. Thank you.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Now we turn to Ms. Yasmeen.
Gisèle Yasmeen, Vice-President, Partnerships, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada: Honourable senators, on behalf of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, or SSHRC, I would like to thank members of the committee for the invitation to speak with you today. SSHRC is the federal agency that promotes and supports post-secondary research and training in the humanities and social sciences. We enable the highest levels of research excellence in Canada and facilitate knowledge sharing and collaboration across research disciplines, universities and all sectors of society.
Canada is internationally recognized as a successful society. We at SSHRC believe our success is based on a distinctive Canadian conviction that the building of a successful society depends on public investments in the advancement of knowledge and understanding and the development of talent as a public good.
[Translation]
Like our sister agencies, NSERC and CIHR, SSHRC is an important player in the landscape of post-secondary education, providing scholarships to the top 7 per cent of Canadian graduate students in the Social Sciences and Humanities and supporting approximately one third of the country's top researchers in these fields, including those who work in partnership and co-create knowledge with collaborators across the public, private and not-for-profit sectors, including First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities.
Developing talent and building knowledge and understanding in the social sciences and humanities is a crucial feature of that investment.
As the distinguished professor of Law and Ethics, Martha Nussbaum, of the University of Chicago has further noted, a liberal arts education is essential to creating the kinds of well-rounded global citizens we need to succeed as societies in the 21st century.
A unique asset that SSHRC brings to the discussion this evening is that research on education, education policy and access to post-secondary training is an SSH field we are very proud to support. SSHRC funded researchers realize that access to post-secondary education in an era of dwindling resources is an urgent public policy issue.
Several of the scholars we fund have potential solutions to suggest. For example, e-learning and the creative use of information and communication technologies in post-secondary education is, not only a way to foster positive learning outcomes, according to Therese Laferriere and Michael Power of Laval University's faculty of education, it is also a way to maximize the use of scarce resources by enabling outreach to students in remote rural and Aboriginal communities as well as other countries.
This could also dovetail nicely with the emerging Digital Economy Strategy and is sure to come up in the current consultations.
[English]
SSHRC is at the forefront of funding innovative research into new ways to provide access to education, at both the primary and the post-secondary levels. For example, Thierry Karsenti, a professor in the Faculty of Education Science at the Université de Montréal and Canada Research Chair on information and communication technologies in education, specializes in integrating information and communications technology, ICT, into education. He is participating in a far- reaching initiative with the aim of achieving a better understanding of the way that integrating new technologies into schools helps improve the quality of teaching and learning. Since 2008, with funding from SSHRC, Professor Karsenti has been conducting research on the use of ICT in distance training of school teachers, including teacher trainees in francophone Canadian communities outside Quebec.
There is a real need for research to find ways of integrating ICT into teaching and post-secondary education. The training provided to teachers has long focused on teaching computer science or technology itself. Despite heavy investments over the past 25 years, ICT still has very little presence in the classroom. The final breakthrough may occur with the emerging generation when future teachers are already experienced in using the Internet and ICT.
These strategies are designed for success in the knowledge economy and society and in the new culture of innovation that is becoming characteristic of the 21st century. Canada's understanding of innovation is changing. In recent decades, the dominant concept of innovation has evolved from a linear transfer "push" model to a more iterative "chain link" model and more recently to a complex model connecting researchers to consumers and users through multiple non-linear channels. This new integrated model of innovation places people at its core and recognizes the key role that research and research training in the social sciences and humanities play in Canadian innovation from fields such as entrepreneurship, design, technology, public policy, and city, urban and community redevelopment. To understand innovation today is to understand human thought and behaviour — why we do the things we do and why we strive to change or stay the same.
In Canada, universities occupy a central place in this model, supporting the researchers behind new ideas that foster economic growth in ways that embrace the social and cultural dimensions of successful societies. Together with colleagues across campus and partners in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors, many of these researchers are leading global knowledge networks, fuelling Canadian innovation and expertise on social, economic, cultural and political issues, as well as on the human dimension of technology and the natural sciences.
Through the highest levels of excellence, SSHRC-funded research and training programs foster the development of the talented and creative people that Canada needs to thrive in the global knowledge economy. In a labour market where creative, critical and informed thinking has become so important, programs in the social sciences and humanities now attract close to 70 per cent of Canadian students on campus. Overall, social sciences and humanities-based industries account for over 75 per cent of total employment in Canada.
[Translation]
As Ernest Boyer so elegantly stipulated, the worlds of research, teaching and the reaching out of scholars and students across the broader society for the greater public good are intimately interconnected.
Given the previous discussions of this committee, members may wish to take note of the work of the National Knowledge Commission of India, a high-level advisory body to the Prime Minister, with the objective of transforming India into a knowledge society.
In addition, as this committee is surely well aware, the current work of the EU known as the Bologna Process is streamlining and integrating higher education policy and practice including degree standards across multiple jurisdictions.
SSHRC would be pleased at any time to suggest experts from the social sciences and humanities who could address these topics in a detailed, in-depth way to support the work of this committee.
I look forward to your questions.
[English]
The Chair: Thank you very much. Our audience will have noted that while there are full titles for each of these organizations, there are also acronyms: CIHR, NSERC and SSHRC, which we will probably hear more about in the course of our dialogue.
I will throw three questions at all of you that you can try to answer in a short period of time.
This committee did a review a couple of years ago of the government's new science and technology policy. A couple of things were particularly noteworthy. First, there is very weak support from the private sector into research funding. We rank pretty high in research funding because of the public sector. How can we stimulate the private sector to invest in research, particularly university research?
Another issue that came up was the indirect costs. There is an indirect cost program, but we were told it was insufficient to sustain many of the costs of these different programs to which you grant funds. Perhaps you could update us on where that is now and whether you think it is better.
Finally, many people talk about OECD measurements, and we rank pretty high overall in post-secondary education, but in certain subcategories we do not do as well; in doctoral students, for example, we are much further down the list. When it comes to doctoral graduates in the sciences and engineering, we rank twentieth, according to the OECD. Does this statement trouble you? What do you think needs to be done?
Mr. Chartrand: With regard to the private sector investment in research, and particularly for CIHR in the area of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, we certainly have made some progress in engaging the private sector in supporting research. I mentioned the program we have with the research-intensive pharmaceutical companies of Canada, which is called Rx&D. They support not only grants projects but also the training of graduate students, post- doctoral scholars and new investigators. They also support chairs jointly with us.
It is a small step in the right direction. Much more needs to done there. We feel it is important that we have a dialogue that makes the private sector realize to what extent it is essential for them to invest in the research to get the highly qualified personnel they need. We also have a program called Science to Business, in which we support students who have already done a PhD to get further training in an MBA in a business school and, again, to be seen as meeting the needs of the private sector. Yes, there is still a lot to be done there, but we believe that through a partnership and dialogue with the private sector we will achieve some progress.
In terms of the indirect costs, a gap in the support has been identified. Fortunately, through the Canada Foundation for Innovation, CFI, there was a lot of investment in infrastructure in Canada, and that was very beneficial for research in general and certainly for health research in particular. However, much of the investment was in equipment, and highly qualified personnel are needed to maintain and operate this equipment, but there is no specific program to support that. This is very expensive, because this complex equipment needs highly trained personnel to operate and maintain it.
In terms of the doctoral students, potentially qualitatively we need to do better. Certainly quantitatively I see that we are very competitive in quite a number of areas in health research. We are part of an international program called Human Frontier Science Program. In terms of the students who are being trained, the return on our investment is two and a half times what we are investing. That example shows that in some areas we are actually doing pretty well. Having said that, yes, obviously we need also to develop some other areas where we are not doing so well.
Ms. McCuaig-Johnston: I would like to address first the issue of weak support from industry for science and technology for research and development. This is, I believe, the thrust of the federal research and development review that was announced in the last federal budget, so we are looking forward to seeing how that develops over the coming months. That will certainly be one thing that will address it.
As for what NSERC is doing, we launched a new program recognizing that we thought that small and medium-sized enterprises, SMEs, particularly needed to partner more effectively with universities. We launched a new program last December, under our Strategy for Partnerships and Innovation; it has a number of features for which we are finding huge take-up from companies. It is getting them into the research and development business for the first time.
The Engage Grants Program grants $25,000 to a company for its first relationship with a particular researcher. It is small, but NSERC funds 100 per cent of the cost. Therefore, we are calling it "the first date is on us." After the relationship starts to work, and the companies see the value of working with a researcher, we believe they will go on to have other forms of research and make use of some of the other research and development initiatives available in the government that incent industry R&D.
The take-up of this has been astonishing, frankly. In the last four months we have had 148 applications, and 118 of these are viable and strong and are being funded. A number of others are still under review. We believe this is starting to really impact SMEs in particular. Most of the applications are from small companies; about two dozen are from medium-sized companies; and about a dozen are from large companies. Of these, 101 companies have never dealt with NSERC before. This is opening up to them new horizons for working with researchers, helping them to develop a capacity internally, and we believe that from there they can move to industrial R&D internship programs so they can get some of our students into the company for a period of time as researchers, and then industrial research and development fellowships as another potential initiative of which they can take advantage.
Innovation is not a technology on a shelf that has to be moved over to a company. It is in people's heads. Companies need to develop this capacity internally, and they are doing that now through some of these new initiatives.
In indirect costs, this program is administered through SSHRC and is fairly new in the suite of federal programs. In one of my former positions back in the 1980s, I was in the Ministry of State for Science and Technology, and indirect costs were seen to be only provincial jurisdiction. Now the federal government has moved in to recognize that indirect costs of research are something the federal government can assist with, and just in the last budget the federal government made an additional contribution of $8 million to that program.
Regarding the OECD and our ranking, it is absolutely true that we do not do as well on post-graduate standings as other countries. At the same time, to the extent that we can help, NSERC is advancing strong support by assisting 43 per cent of eligible post-graduate students, up from 33 per cent a decade ago. That indicates there is movement and progress in Canada, but clearly we need to do better on that one international measure.
Ms. Yasmeen: Thank you for the questions. SSHRC researchers have quite a bit of experience collaborating with others in the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. On your specific question regarding collaboration with the private sector, we were pleased in Budget 2007 to receive additional funds for work in the areas of management, business and finance. As a result, we issued a call for proposals that stimulated even greater collaboration between the social sciences and humanities community and the private sector. I will give you a few examples.
Tima Bansal at the University of Western Ontario has a network for business sustainability that has involved several large banks, Suncor Energy and others. TD Bank has actually adopted a sustainability policy based on the research done by her group. It was incredibly successful.
There are similar examples from Calgary in the energy sector. Frances Bowen from the business school there is an example. Other examples include arts and humanities and theatre scholars working in Kitchener-Waterloo with IT companies, making that whole environment work more successfully as a result of some collaborative investments.
The challenge of tracking and reporting on this collaboration is the interesting part, because some of it happens off the SSHRC balance sheet. There is an issue of being able to effectively capture how much of that collaboration and investment is actually going on.
Right now, we are redesigning our programs to make opportunities for this kind of collaboration even more accessible and flexible, so we are reviewing our files. A tremendous amount of financial and in-kind support is being leveraged through our grants by the public, private and not-for-profit sectors.
Regarding the indirect costs, I echo the remarks of my colleagues. However, I remarked earlier that many of the researchers we are funding in this area recognize that public investments in education and health are some the largest public investments we have in Canada. Do we need to look at a different business model? This is what the researchers are asking. That is not a SSHRC position; I am just quoting some the work we are funding.
We can do better in this country in terms of doctoral students. Currently, we fund 7 per cent of the top graduate students in Canada, and SSHRC is the main funding body for social sciences and humanities. We know that former SSHRC doctoral fellowship holders are successful throughout the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. I will give a few examples. Jayson Myers of the Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters is a former SSHRC doctoral fellowship holder. Tiff Macklem, number two at the Bank of Canada, is a former SSHRC fellowship holder.
We can do better, and we would be very pleased to have the opportunity to do much better.
The Chair: Thank you very much. Research and innovation is very exciting stuff, and you gave great examples.
Senator Ogilvie: Thank you for being here this evening. You certainly represent three very important organizations in Canadian research, Canadian higher education and Canadian society.
I want to ask one specific question, and I think I will direct it to Ms. McCuaig-Johnston at NSERC. I will preface it with an observation. Generally speaking, we refer to our Canadian universities as being roughly divided into three categories: the small, primarily undergraduate universities; the medium-sized universities; and large universities. I will focus on the small, primarily undergraduate universities.
In this committee we are dealing with access to post-secondary education. Very clearly at the graduate and professional program level, access is an issue, as well. Usually, students come from an undergraduate program in order to get there. They need to be motivated and developed to a point where they can actually enter such a program. However, one, they want to be motivated towards it, and two, they have the skills, background and preparation to be accepted into our very successful graduate and professional programs.
A number of years ago, Eugene Garfield created Current Contents, which is a journal that abstracts the world's major refereed scientific journals. As a result, he had access to an enormous database of all aspects of science. He wrote two articles that analyzed where successful scientists came from in the United States. He found that disproportionately — that is, higher numbers based on the numbers that actually go through the institutions — the high-quality primarily undergraduate universities in the United States were disproportionately successful in motivating young people to go on to successful scientific careers as ultimately measured by their publications, citations, positions, and so on once they became scientists.
In the most recent granting awards for this year, we have once again heard professors in small universities arguing that they were not very successful in their NSERC applications; in certain institutions, a lower percentage were successful. Ms. McCuaig-Johnston, I realize that all grants need to be based on excellence as excellence is defined, but we would assume that one part of excellence is the motivation of young people at the undergraduate level to ultimately go on to scientific and other kinds of professional careers.
Does NSERC recognize the unique environments at the primarily undergraduate institutions with regard to their unique strengths and so provide a different competitive basis for awarding grants to some level than it does for those in the other, much more powerful research-oriented institutions?
Ms. McCuaig-Johnston: If your question is whether we have a different set of criteria or a different standard for small university professors and researchers than for medium or large ones, the answer would be no. We are looking for excellence wherever it lies, and very often you will find it in a small university where there has been a particular focus on a particular niche area.
For example, I think of the University of Prince Edward Island. It is very strong in bio-energy, veterinary areas of research and other aspects of agriculture. Even small universities can have strong areas of research. Indeed, that university recently attracted one of the Canada Excellence Research Chairs, which attracted millions of dollars to that chair and the suite of students who will be working in projects around that individual on areas of ocean and fish research.
Therefore, no, there is not a different standard of excellence. There is a bar of excellence, which admittedly we are setting very high, but we believe our researchers are up to it.
When you talk about undergraduate students, though, we do agree it is extremely important for them to get the practical experience of what it is like to be a researcher and what it is like to work with one. That is the reason for our undergraduate students research program, which funded $18.6 million just this past year in support of 4,150 students across the country. It provides funding for students to work in a university lab or a company. They would be getting $4,500 under this research award program, plus a minimum 25 per cent top-up from the university or company. This would be for a four-month work term. That is the kind of experience that will turn students on to science and engineering. If they can get some practical experience at the undergraduate level, that entices them to go on to the master's level and potentially to the doctoral level after that.
Senator Ogilvie: I will follow up on that. I appreciate your answer, and I know that SSHRC has been trying hard to get professors to collaborate on more significant kinds of programs. The one at the University of Prince Edward Island involves that kind of organization. I also recognize the summer and other support scholarships to the students that you have mentioned, but in order to use them, the students have to go to someone who has the funds to be carrying out an active research program.
I come back to the idea of excellence. I ask this question because academics working primarily in undergraduate institution do not generally have access to doctoral programs or to post-doctoral fellows of research-intensive character. It is not necessarily that their research is not of a high quality; it is that the measures of that, through frequency of publications and other such recognition, cannot compete in a flat basis with those in much larger institutions with much larger research programs.
I urge that we look at that aspect of the undergraduate situation, because we have concerns about the declining numbers of Canadian students going on to doctoral and other programs in certain key areas. I would submit that we really do need to take a slightly different look at how we fund research programs at the undergraduate level. I would not for a moment suggest that we not be looking at quality, but more the way in which we measure quality in terms of frequency of publication over time and the time to conclusion itself, and there are a number of factors. We must not overlook the importance of motivating young Canadians at the undergraduate level in these institutions to be able to go on to further scientific and other professional careers.
Ms. McCuaig-Johnston: You open up a very important issue when you look at the measurement of performance in research. It is absolutely right that patents and papers are the olden-days way of measuring. They still exist, and they are still highly valued in the research community, but when you are talking about innovation, you have to be much more expansive and creative about what you are looking for in the behaviour of professors in their partnerships, in the way they collaborate and their contributions in the networks of centres of excellence and similar contexts. All universities are looking at this now.
I know the other councils have looked at this too, and at NSERC, in our peer review process, we have been changing how we look at what is valued and how we assess interdisciplinary work, because sometimes it is a matter of taking researchers from one discipline and matching them up with quite a different discipline. There must be flexibility in the membership of peer review committees and what exactly they are measuring.
Mr. Chartrand: It is absolutely imperative that we tackle this, because innovation is important. There has certainly been recognition, and the National Institutes of Health, NIH, has had a number of papers on this, of the fact that when we are supporting big research, we have a tendency to support conservative research as opposed to innovative research. There is a lot of innovation in these smaller universities, if for no other reason than they have to be innovative; they do not have a choice. To capture this, there are new ways to look at the evaluation, and some of them are very ingenious. One has been promoted by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and we are looking into it. It is basically an anonymous grant proposal where the evaluators do not know the researcher's name or track record or location, and they have to judge the innovation of his or her ideas. It is a form of a catalyst grant. Once that part gets going, maybe it is worth investing more into it in a second step.
Ms. Yasmeen: To echo my colleagues' comments, part of our program architecture renewal is exactly to look at how best to evaluate multiple forms of scholarly contribution and broaden out the training of our committees as well as who sits on those committees, and that is absolutely central. Looking at the alternative forms of peer review is worth doing for all three councils. The other example I would suggest is the work in the U.S. of Imagining America, which is a whole consortium looking at the impact of arts and humanities in public life and finding a way to value that within the peer or expert review process.
Senator Cordy: Today's discussion about research is very interesting. Our committee is studying access to post- secondary education, so if we look at research from that perspective, we look at how a university creates the right balance between teaching and research. Research can certainly bring dollars into a university, but you have to create that balance. The program to fund undergraduate students is excellent. Has it been in place long enough to do any research on whether this actually whets the appetite of the undergraduate students so that those who are involved with undergraduate research are more likely to go on to master's degrees, doctorates or post-doctoral studies after they get an initiation at first or second year university? Maybe it is because I am from a small province, but I have also heard that sometimes the smaller universities feel they are at a disadvantage, when it comes to getting some of the really large grants, compared to the larger universities that have more facilities on site.
Ms. McCuaig-Johnston: I could respond to your point on the undergraduate research awards. Indeed, we have just completed an evaluation of that program, and I can provide a copy to the committee. It found that 90 per cent of the respondents, the students, found their experience under the program to be good to outstanding. A majority felt that they had acquired substantive research and development skills. Interest in R&D was higher for 80 per cent of the respondents. They found that the industrial partners provided a stimulating work environment, as well as good supervision and instruction, and 76 per cent said that on the basis of this experience they planned to go on to do a post- graduate degree, and 28 per cent said they would be staying in school longer because of their experience with the Undergraduate Student Research Awards Program. That is from a survey of the students about what they felt they got from that program.
Mr. Chartrand: Even earlier than that, a couple of years ago CIHR launched a program called Synapse where we enrolled quite a number of researchers as mentors for high school students. Upwards of 3,000 mentors have signed up to train high school students. Judging from the reaction of students, it is influential in their outlook on undergraduate and graduate studies.
Ms. Yasmeen: SSHRC allows for the support of undergraduate students as research assistants within our grants. Unfortunately, we do not have a similar initiative as that of our sister councils in undergraduate awards. We do not have the resources for that, although we want to move if that direction if possible. It is worth doing, and our council has reiterated that to us several times.
Our president, Chad Gaffield, sees the worlds of teaching and research as interrelated: Good research nourishes the teaching environment and vice versa. The undergraduate degree is increasingly becoming a research-oriented degree, with problem-based learning and that sort of approach. We are a long way away from the old-fashioned rote learning — open your head, pour in facts and learn everything you need to know by reading a particular book. Mr. Gaffield likes to say, "You do not learn to play tennis by reading books about tennis. You learn to play tennis by playing tennis."
Increasingly, we understand that one learns these fields of social sciences and humanities, health or natural sciences and engineering by doing it and engaging directly in the research. That needs to happen as early as possible in the process. Teaching is evolving, and that is, indeed, becoming the case. That is to be encouraged.
Senator Cordy: Regarding the idea of involvement of the private sector in university-level research, we read about other countries where the private sector seems more ready to offer money for research at the university level. Should we provide incentives, through tax incentives or whatever, so that private industry is not as reluctant to become involved at the university? Are private sector companies more likely to become involved in health or science and engineering than in the humanities and social sciences? Ms. Yasmeen gave an indication earlier of banks and private sector organizations that are coming to the forefront to help in the social sciences and humanities. Are they more likely to become involved in something where they can see a financial benefit to their industry if they support research in engineering or health?
Ms. McCuaig-Johnston: NSERC's Strategy for Partnerships and Innovation, which we launched in December, is directed to that exact challenge. We are starting to see companies become more enthused about partnering with universities. In the past, we have had the Collaborative Research and Development Grants program, which supports substantive partnerships to the tune of several million dollars per partnership.
A smaller program is aimed at small and medium-sized companies. It is already receiving significant support. The Networks of Centres of Excellence, NCE, has been in place since 1989 and has to a large extent had company involvement through the years.
Business-led Networks of Centres of Excellence is much newer. That is an innovation to get companies to set the agenda for research done in the companies and in the universities for true network collaboration. These are business- led networks, which like the classic NCE, connect all the researchers in a particular discipline across Canada, not only physically in one centre. The business-led networks are powerful. We are starting to see strong company participation and take-up of those initiatives.
Mr. Chartrand: In the case of health research, there are three main sectors — pharmaceutical, biotechnology and medical devices companies. The sector most likely to invest in research is the pharmaceutical companies.
It has been a struggle for them in recent years because branches in Canada may have their headquarters elsewhere. It may also be more cost competitive to conduct research elsewhere. Particularly in the case of clinical trials, it is less costly and easier to recruit patients in countries like China and India than it is in Canada. It is a question of population and cost.
Encouraging business involvement has been difficult. We need to reposition ourselves with regards to what we have to offer to the pharmaceutical industry in research. The high quality of our research they cannot easily find elsewhere. Canada has a strong pre-clinical trial research community. That is part of the dialogue we have had with the pharmaceutical industry, in which they are quite interested.
Ms. Yasmeen: Over the last few years, we were invited to participate in dialogues organized by Philanthropic Foundations Canada in collaboration with universities and several private sector partners interested in looking at some of the tax laws. There were discussions about providing incentives for philanthropic foundations in the private sector to invest in the research agenda. I am not an expert on that, but I understand that has been an issue over the years and is worth looking at.
Investment by the private sector into the world of research is an exchange of value. We see a huge appetite for involvement, whether you talk about financial or in-kind contributions. We should not discount the importance of in- kind contributions — collaborators providing time, space or executives to be involved in a project.
Our community sometimes thinks of itself as not as well endowed compared to health or natural sciences and engineering when it comes to private-sector collaboration. However, we have seen much interest emerging in our grants in recent years, including small- and medium-sized enterprises. Fifth Town Artisan Cheese Company in Prince Edward County is working with Yolande Chan at Queen's University. They see that connection as worth their time to be involved in a regional economic development project.
It is an exchange of value that should be expressed. We should look at the largest possible expression of an exchange of value between the research world and the private sector.
Senator Dyck: Since our committee is interested in access to education, I could not help but think back to the days when I started out at university. I was living on welfare and I had scholarships. I was fortunate in my second year to get a job working for a professor in the department of chemistry. He likely had an NSERC award. The next year I got a summer job with a professor in the department of biochemistry who also had a Medical Research Council award, as it was in those days.
The financial barrier is a big one for many students. Before I was summoned to the Senate, I was the Associate Dean of Graduate Studies at the University of Saskatchewan. I had the pleasure and honour to work with many graduate students across campus. The vast majority often came with problems regarding time to completion and money. Because they were running out of money, they often had to work part-time, which made it more difficult to complete their studies.
My questions are related to access to financing and the scholarships provided to students by your organizations. What is the success rate of applications? Ms. Yasmeen said it was 7 per cent. Do the graduate scholarships last long enough? For example, is a graduate scholarship to complete a master's degree for one year or two years? It is unfortunate that many master's degree students take too long to complete their studies — close to three years, which is about twice as long as it should take. I want to know about the adequacy of funding and the success rates.
Ms. Yasmeen: We fund about 7 per cent of graduate students in the social sciences and humanities. Regarding the length of awards, the Canada Graduate Scholarships Master's Awards are for one year, if I am not mistaken, which is the same for all three councils; the Canada Graduate Scholarships Doctoral Awards are three or four years; and the SSHRC doctoral awards are four years. The Vanier Canada Graduate Scholarships are three years, if I am not mistaken; but I will have to ask my colleagues.
We had an evaluation, but I am not sure whether a correlation was drawn between length of funding and completion. My understanding is that the finding of a direct relationship between the length of award and completion was inconclusive. I will defer to my colleagues to go into greater detail. Certainly, access to funding is extremely important.
Ms. McCuaig-Johnston: The post-graduate scholarships at the master's level are $17,300 per year; the doctoral scholarships are $21,000 per year; and the industrial scholarship is $15,000 per year plus a minimum top-up of $6,000 per year. As I mentioned, NSERC funds 43 per cent of eligible post-doctoral students.
Mr. Chartrand: We have to consider that we are funding students through two streams. One is directly; the students apply to us, and we support them directly through awards. More students are supported through grants awarded to researchers. To determine the precise success rate of the students, we would have to factor in that a number of them are supported by grants.
It is a very good way to support students because you develop an association between a good training lab and students in need of training. In Canada, graduate students are an absolute necessity for researchers to conduct their research, more so than post-doctoral fellows, which would be more the case in the United States.
There are multiple ways to support students. We have instituted new programs, recognizing that we had to not only create new environments of research but also give the opportunity to students who did not necessarily fit the mould to receive support from other programs. I referred to the student training initiative, in which we create an environment by asking a number of researchers to come together to provide a training environment for graduate students. They select the student to be supported. This can be done by using various approaches.
Senator Dyck: Although you have presented separately the number of students who receive scholarships and the number who are supported by awards to their respective professors, you will probably find that the two are linked. The department likely will select students who have a scholarship, make them an offer to top up their scholarship, and at the end of their scholarship, if they have not completed, they can fund it through an award made to that professor or that department. They are not two completely different categories.
The research unit where I worked for many years was supported by the provincial ministry of health. For a number of years, until 1987, we were able to provide funds and hire students. We did not call them students on the form. They were hired as Level 1 half-time technical staff, I believe.
Is a similar program available within the federal health department? I know Heath Canada and other departments have quite large numbers of scientific people. Some years back, I sat on the Science Advisory Board of Health Canada. The First Nations and Inuit Health Branch of Health Canada had a large cadre of scientists doing amazing things. Is a program available so they can partner with university professors to apply for grants or to train students?
Mr. Chartrand: Absolutely. My wife works at Health Canada, so I know about joint programs between universities and Health Canada and research to train students. A number of students are in various labs.
Senator Dyck: With regard to access and diversity, some programs were geared to increasing the enrolment of Aboriginals in science programs. Could someone elaborate on the kinds of programs available to increase the representation of Aboriginal students?
Ms. Yasmeen: SSHRC's approach to Aboriginal research has been to support work by and with First Nations, Metis and Inuit communities. Within our Aboriginal research pilot program, the world's first program designed along those lines, we were pleased to be able to support many undergraduate and graduate students within those grants. I would say that has been a huge step forward.
Currently, we are looking at developing a broader Aboriginal strategy in our new programs as we reinvent them to encompass the principles of such an approach throughout our funding streams.
Mr. Chartrand: Under CIHR, we have the Institute of Aboriginal Peoples' Health, which has created a program called Network Environments for Aboriginal Health Research. One objective of NEAHR is to provide an appropriate environment and resources to encourage Aboriginal students to pursue careers in health research. There are nine such centres across Canada. They have been remarkably successful in recruiting and supporting students.
Ms. McCuaig-Johnston: Similarly, NSERC has the Aboriginal Ambassadors in the Natural Sciences and Engineering Supplement Program, which encourages Aboriginal students and fellows to apply at both the undergraduate and the master's levels.
Senator Greene: I have been mulling over Senator Ogilvie's point about students at small universities being disadvantaged with respect to receiving NSERC awards because they attend undergraduate universities. I have a lot of sympathy for that point, but let me try a different angle on the same question.
Over the past couple of hours, we have had many submissions on the need to bring over more international students, to increase that component. It is good for the students and good for Canada.
Perhaps one of the reasons we are having trouble doing that is that our universities, as good as many of them are, do not have the same international reputation that many universities in Europe and the United States have. Especially in the United States, universities have access to incredible amounts of private funding for research, scholarships, et cetera.
I would suggest one of our goals ought to be to make our large, successful universities even larger and more successful. Therefore, you should not change your criteria with regard to NSERC awards at all.
Ms. McCuaig-Johnston: Indeed, we are recognizing that Canada needs to come up to an international bar of excellence. We do 2 per cent of the world's research in Canada, so obviously we do not have a corner on most of the research capacity. We have a lot of international competition, not just for our research but also for our students going abroad. They will go elsewhere if we do not have capacity in Canada at a high level of excellence to keep them in Canada and, ideally, to attract others from around the world.
That is very much behind the Canada Excellence Research Chairs that were announced recently. It is also behind the recent changes to the Discovery Grants process. In addition to providing more funding for those who demonstrate that they are at an advanced level of excellence, we have accelerators for researchers who are just at the point of a breakthrough — they are about to do something significant; they have a team with them; but they need an added boost to get through that and to rise up to that standard of excellence.
We are very much attuned to these international standards and are trying to shape our programs so that they will help Canada progress to that high level of international standards. At the same time, we recognize that there is research that has to be done at all levels in Canada, in all universities.
It might surprise you to learn of the contribution of smaller, teaching universities, one might call them, to major areas of research in Canada that are a priority. Oil sands research is a good example. It is very topical to make the oil sands much more environmentally sound, to reduce the environmental footprint and to reduce dramatically the amount of water used in the oil sands. Which are among the top universities contributing to oil sands research? Obviously, the University of Alberta and the University of Calgary, but also Trent University is contributing. It is a smaller university, but it has expertise in water and is a major contributor to oil sands environmental research.
You can see from that example that medium-sized and smaller universities do have capacities, even when they are teaching-focused on significant research agendas in Canada.
Mr. Chartrand: I would like to raise a point with regard to attracting foreign students in Canada. Certainly in health research, first and foremost, it will be the lab — the researcher and his team, wherever he happens to be.
I was a professor and researcher at the Université de Sherbrooke for seven years and at the Université de Montréal for 20 years. In Sherbrooke, which is not necessarily well-known in Europe, I could attract students from France, Italy and Spain, as well as from Great Britain and the United States; it was the same at the Université de Montréal.
The problem, though, was that the tuition for these foreign students was prohibitive in most cases. Even though I could pay them through my grants, as a regular student, they could not afford the tuition.
The Chair: I thought your question was interesting. I am not sure you captured the same thing Senator Ogilvie was trying to get at. Do you want to clarify that?
Senator Ogilvie: Thank you. I would not want to be interpreted as attacking the funding of our larger institutions. Indeed, I would argue that we do need to have powerful, multi-faceted, research-intensive institutions in this country, and I will be the first to support that level of activity.
I think Mr. Chartrand put it correctly when he pointed out that graduate students are essential to research programs. Undergraduate universities do not have graduate students generally, but they motivate young people to go on to be graduate students. I was simply pointing out that our research complex requires the motivation of young people to become graduate students, and the small, primarily undergraduate universities are good at that aspect. That is a key component to the research enterprise as a whole, and we need a slightly different way of funding them — not to take money away from the bigger operations.
Senator Seidman: There is no doubt in my mind about the important role that research councils like yours play in the creation of new knowledge and innovation, as well as supporting students throughout their highly specialized training. The federal government spending for R&D in universities and colleges has increased from less than $1 billion about 12 years ago to almost $3 billion today.
My first question concerns the CIHR fact sheet, which says CIHR is allocating 94 cents of every dollar directly to fund health researchers. Could you explain that a little more and tell us where the money goes — the 94 cents and the rest of it? Also, if NSERC and SSHRC have that kind of information, how much of every dollar is allocated directly to fund your researchers?
Second, do you have any numbers on completion rates for the master's and doctoral students that you fund?
Mr. Chartrand: I will try to explain the missing 6 cents. They are the cost of administration. Out of a budget of about $1 billion, $950 million dollars goes to direct grants and awards — to researchers and trainees. The other $50 million goes to administration, the cost of running the agency.
Senator Seidman: Could you be a little more specific about the administration? What does that include, so I understand better?
Mr. Chartrand: It is the staff that is needed to run the competitions. We run upwards of 250 competitions a year. We need to recruit 2,200 peers to do the reviews, and we process upwards of 10,000 applications. We need the staff in order to be able to process the material and prepare it for the peers. These are the costs I am referring to. They are the salaries of the staff and the cost to operate.
Senator Seidman: It does not include building costs or overhead of other sorts? You are saying it is staffing costs to oversee the competitions and the reviews?
Mr. Chartrand: Yes, as well as the cost of peer review itself. Even though the peers are not paid to do the peer reviews, their out-of-pocket expenses are reimbursed. That is there just to have these 2,200 peers do the reviews. They come to Ottawa. The cost is around $3 million.
Ms. McCuaig-Johnston: NSERC'S budget is about the same size as CIHR's. Our administration costs are 4.7 per cent, at $49 million last fiscal year. The largest part of that is the travel cost for the peer review.
This is particularly important for all three councils as we try to add more international members to our peer review committees. This is important to ensure that we are bringing Canadian research up to the highest international bar of excellence, not just a Canadian bar of excellence.
Having said that, our travel costs are capped at the 2008-09 level, because although this is operation of committees, travel costs are part of the travel cap that our organizations have to stay within, as do other departments and agencies.
For the balance of our budget, the remainder of the 95.3 per cent, the largest part goes to our Discovery Grants Program, which is $402 million or 38.2 per cent of our budget. Innovation, which is our programs that partner with companies, is $300 million, at 28.5 per cent of our budget. The people element, the scholarships and fellowships, is $302 million, at 28.7 per cent of our budget.
I would add that the Innovation $300 million levers annually over $100 million in company R&D and company contributions. That is not insignificant. We spoke earlier this evening about the importance of companies doing more research and development and what can incent them to do more. We find that our programs are quite effective at that.
Ms. Yasmeen: SSHRC's budget is about $345 million per annum. That does not include the indirect costs program that we manage on behalf of the three councils, which is separate. Administrative costs are about $27 million of that, similar to our sister agencies, about 7 cents on the dollar. Those are costs relate to peer review but also to corporate- type functions, such as preparing reports to Parliament and all of the statutory requirements that go along with being an independent agency.
With NSERC, we share common administrative services. We share a back-office function, which also makes us efficient in terms of human resources, finance, IT, administration, management of the facilities, et cetera. We have also internationalized our committees, and we have looked at the creative use of information and communication technologies for our processes. Those are the general figures.
Senator Seidman: Would you have with you completion rates of master's and doctoral students whom you fund?
Ms. McCuaig-Johnston: We do not. Mr. Chartrand and I were just conferring as to whether such data even exists. I have not seen these rates since my arrival at NSERC. We will ask at the office, and our colleagues will be able to tell us quickly whether they do. However, I would be surprised if the rate were not very high.
Mr. Chartrand: I know for a fact that we do not have completion rates at CIHR. Since I arrived, we started to collect the data, but there will be a delay between the time we get the data and when we are in a position to determine the completion rate. It is a bit complicated, especially for master's degrees, because quite a number of students go from the master's to the doctoral level without ever submitting a master's thesis.
Ms. Yasmeen: We could send the recent evaluation of the Canada Graduate Scholarships Program, which may have compiled figures in terms of sampling.
Senator Martin: Thank you for your presentations this evening.
I have a question regarding the balance of funding that is required for research in the universities as well as the mission for teaching various courses. I recall that certain professors seemed more preoccupied or their focus tended to be more in research, and a majority of students do not necessarily benefit from these funds per se because they are in other studies where the research may not be part of their educational experience.
I am mindful of the vast majority of Canadians who are thinking about the $2.8 billion-plus funding that goes towards research, yet we need more, which is why we need to vitalize, utilize and tap into the private sector as well.
Would you talk about how, in spite of the research money that is benefiting students specifically in these fields, for a university campus that is research-based, the provision of these kinds of experiences would benefit the other students as well as benefit Canada? It is a lot of money, and we wonder about the funding needed for the teaching aspect, which many students would benefit from. That is an important balance.
Mr. Chartrand: As Ms. Yasmeen so eloquently expressed, research and education and training are intricately linked. The quality of the teaching that is given in the classroom is also very much associated with the teachers having a research background and being informed and involved in research. First and foremost, as Ms. Yasmeen said, research is a way of thinking about issues and developing a critical view of what is presented to you, not taking it just at face value, and being interested in pursuing documented evidence. These are critical elements that need to be given to students at all levels.
It is certainly clear that we have moved from a concept of saying, "You sit, you learn, and then you know the truth," to one of "We will present to you the state of our knowledge, and you will have to be aware that that is the current state of our knowledge and take a critical look at the information and the way the evidence will evolve." Such knowledge is important because it is not fixed in stone any more. You need to be able to perceive it as an ongoing process. Researchers not only provide research opportunities and mentoring for graduate students in their labs, but they also provide a lot of teaching for undergraduate and graduate classes. This is important, as I said, to convey this concept of learning.
Ms. McCuaig-Johnston: I would add that ideally you would have a strong researcher who is also a dynamic teacher, who could spend at least 10 per cent to 20 per cent of his time in the classroom giving that sense of motivation to young people to go into research. Sometimes researchers choose not to do that and instead focus on their research. There is no requirement against that unless a university has imposed one. One would not want a researcher who was also a deadly boring professor out there demonstrating to students his lack of teaching capacity. Some researchers might be better off in a lab context, in any event, but that is certainly not many of them, and it is not the ideal.
Last week, I attended the inaugural conference of the Canadian Engineering Education Association. This is a group led by a number of Canada Research Chairs in engineering design and industrial design, who see the value of improving the quality of education of engineering and exposing young people to more lab and hands-on experience than just teaching at them. I was impressed with what they have done themselves in organizing this new initiative and what they plan to do in the future to improve the quality of engineering education to attract young people who want to be more involved in research and learning how to apply things in a vibrant lab setting.
Ms. Yasmeen: There are a lot of pressures on the campus now, especially for faculty in the social sciences and the humanities. Enrolments are rising, and teaching loads are increasing. Heather Menzies at Carleton University did a study a number of years ago that showed many faculty members feel they do not have time to think anymore. That is a problem. It has to be looked at.
In my remarks I pointed to some of the work being done by the researchers we fund looking at what it happening in Europe and the Bologna Process. They are looking at two-year degrees and such things.
In a resource-scarce environment, there are ways of looking at how we ensure that the fruits of public investment are adequately and effectively combined with resources from other sectors to produce the best kind of research and training environments that we require.
I pointed to the National Knowledge Commission of India because I was invited to hear Sam Pitroda, the chair of that commission, speak at the International Development Research Centre, IDRC. He made an interesting remark. He said 400 years ago someone decided it took four years to get a bachelor's degree, and here we are. As a society, maybe we have to think through what is being achieved and how these environments become structured in the 21st century to suit the various purposes.
Senator Martin: Thank you for that. I absolutely support the funding dollars that are committed to research. I understand the interconnectedness as well. As we heard from the previous panel about the importance of marketing our education abroad and having international students on our campuses, it is mutually beneficial to the Canadian students as well as to the international students receiving the Canadian education. I do believe that what our researchers and the students who are participating are doing does enrich the campus; it is all interrelated. I wanted to draw that information from you in today's session.
I have another question regarding high school students. We have been discussing post-secondary education but also looking at the whole continuum, high school and elementary school and what we need to do before university.
In my second year of university, I was a research assistant to a professor in the education department. I realized when I began that role that I did not know how to do my job very well, and I think he assumed I would know. I apologized to the professor. I did my best, but had I had some foundational skills going into that job, I would have been a much more effective researcher.
Are there partnerships? What is happening right now around identifying some of the Grade 12 students who will eventually become very innovative and effective researchers for the universities in their post-doctorate studies? Could you comment on the importance of investment there?
Mr. Chartrand: We believe it is critical. As I mentioned, our Synapse program mentors high school students in research. It is critical, because they do make the decision at that point. It motivates them to go to university to complete their undergraduate studies, and they already have in mind that they want to complete graduate studies. It is a time when they are extremely curious; they have a lot of energy and ask a lot of questions. Having had some of them as students, I can tell you that they keep you on your toes because they ask very good questions.
We believe it is critical that we have that process all throughout, that we provide kind of a pipeline. If you want to feed the research system, you need to ensure from the start that you will have the people motivated to contemplate the possibility of doing that research.
I also mentioned that we researchers, to do our research, are totally dependent on having grad students and very good ones. We have all the interest in the world — self-interest, actually — to maintain and sustain that pipeline, because we will need these people to be engaged in the research process.
Ms. McCuaig-Johnston: NSERC has a program, called PromoScience, that provides funding for organizations — not federal museums or science centres — but Canadian registered not-for-profit organizations or post-secondary educational institutions that are involved in promoting natural sciences and engineering to young Canadians. We provide up to $2.75 million each year for up to three years at a time. This is one way we can get a number of students looking at increasing their studies and careers in science and engineering. I would also mention the Aboriginal Ambassadors program again because it is tied into this PromoScience program.
Finally, I would mention the quite remarkable Shad Valley Program, which some of you are familiar with. This provides high school kids an opportunity to get together with colleagues from across the country and take on projects that have perhaps an engineering dimension but also a business dimension. They are designing something that they will then figure out how to market. These remarkable programs are important in encouraging young people to enter into the science and engineering fields.
The Chair: That completes my list. Are there any further questions, honourable senators?
With that, I will say thank you very much to our representatives from the three granting councils for being here and for the input you have given to us on these issues of post-secondary education and research and innovation.
(The committee adjourned.)