Major Investments in Science & Technology

So my first post didn't get a response... What if we change the question a bit to illustrate the situation?

Supposing that you wanted to build a major new research facility that will have many benefits for Canadian science and industry. Its a national-scale project that will be a resource for scientists all across Canada as well as contribute to the international community. In fact, it would make up an important gap in Canada's science portfolio and it seems to you to be aligned perfectly with the S&T strategy.

You do some ballpark estimates about it scale and cost: it would be too big for a university to easily handle, and it doesn't fit in any of the CFI or TRI-council funding competitions. That means it will require a special allocation of funds - approval from the federal cabinet, and line-item in the federal budget, and eventually an Act of Parliament.

So you talk to your local MP, who tells you that politicians will certainly want to know more precisely the expected benefits and how how much money this will cost before your proposal can seriously considered. Useful advice. But then you realize that to do a much more rigorous analysis of the design and costs, someone is going to have to put up substantial cash for a proper study. In other words, you need money to get money.

You talk to your fellow scientists who support it, but they can't use their grant money for this. You talk to your professional organization, who is supportive, but they can't afford do much more than organize a letter campaign.

Your talk to your university, but when it realizes that your proposal is national in scale, they tell you the government should handle the issue and it quickly gets lost among its other priorities. They'd rather have the government fund it as a scientific resource and the univerisities can pay an access fees that account only for university usage.

Industries tells you they support the idea, but putting out cash for a study on such a big project before it has wide support is risky. Besides, they can't afford to operate such a facility as part of their own R&D department. They'd rather have the government fund it as a resource for industry and each company can pay an access fee that accounts only for the costs of its own usage.

You realize there are several government science-based agencies and departments whose mandates overlap with the research areas of your proposed facility and approach them as well. You quickly realize that the involvement of multiple agencies is actually a difficulty, because it isn't clear which one of them should take a leading role. Further, they can't publicly support such a big idea without it seeming like lobbying. Their budgets are tight and to find the money they'd have to squeeze funds out of their own programs or request extra funds, which then might conflict with their own funding requests. They politely tell you they support the idea, but it isn't clear what they can do to help.

So then what do you do?

In this scenario, there's a need for various parties to look at the big picture and cooperate. This conference should be a time for big picture thinking. I'm looking forward to speaking with many of you.