Research Funding
Granting Councils
The three granting councils provide funding for graduate students in Canada, both directly through scholarships and training programmes and indirectly through funds to students' supervisors. The Caucus maintains regular communications with representatives of the three councils.
Graduate students have limited scholarship and grant options and must seek employment to generate most of their funding. Many have high levels of debt from their undergraduate studies and often students incur further debt during their graduate work. Graduate students are currently excluded from the new Canada Student Grants Program and have limited, or no access to need-based grants. Upon graduation they face an insecure job market, increasingly characterised by part-time or contract employment. According to research conducted by Statistics Canada Ph.D. graduates can only expect to make an average of $4,000 more per year, over those who hold a master’s degree, even though they typically study for at least four additional years.
Since the late 1990s, a number of initiatives have been undertaken to transform public university infrastructure to meet the government’s commercialisation objectives, such as requiring publicly funded research to seek direct, private-sector investment. The incentives to commercialise public university research has implications, not only for decision-making structures within universities, but also for the direction and accuracy of reporting of research results. Use of tax resources to subsidise the commercialisation of university research is having a negative effect on investment in research and development in the private sector. Government investment in commercialisation removes the incentive for the private sector to invest in research and development. In addition, using graduate students as a cheap labour pool has likely undermined employment opportunities for graduate students.
Graduate studies in Canada have expanded over the last ten years, with enrolment increasing by 46% between 1998 and 2008 (See graph). Despite increased graduate enrolment, there have been only modest funding increases to the granting councils and scholarships that make graduate education both affordable and worthwhile. The lack of commitment shown in the federal government’s research and post-secondary education strategy reduces both the quality of graduate education and the return on Canadians’ investment in university research. Investing in graduate studies will improve the income potential of individuals, foster long-term innovation, and make Canada more competitive internationally.
Submission to the Standing Committee on Finance
The Caucus prepared a submission to the Standing Committee on Finance about policy on funding graduate research in Canada in 2010. The brief outlines policy analysis and proposals dealing with: rising graduate tuition fees and associated accessibility issues; the Federation's concerns over the continued push towards the commercialisation of research and the lack of whistleblower protection; the under-funding of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and the new threats that the Council faces under the "innovation and commercialization" agenda; the need to increase the number of scholarships for graduate students and ensure that those scholarships are equitably distributed; and the need for the elimination of differential fees for international students.
Recommendation #1
Return the $148 million cut from the granting councils in the 2009 budget and increase, in both proportion and amount, basic research funding for graduate students through the granting councils, with greater funds asymmetrically allocated through SSHRC, to support innovation in graduate student research.
Recommendation #2
Increase direct funding for graduate students by:
· Increasing the number of Canada Graduate Scholarships by 500 – consistent with average growth in the program since 2003 – with an investment of an additional $25 million, to be distributed proportionally among the research councils according to enrolment figures, and
· Allowing graduate students to qualify for grants under the Canada Student Grants Program.
Recommendation #3
The federal government should, in cooperation with the provinces, implement a federal Post-Secondary Education Act modelled after the principles of the Canada Health Act, accompanied by a dedicated cash transfer payment that restores federal funding for post-secondary education to 1992 levels.