Seizing the Capstone Opportunity

The proposed Capstone agency will allow Canada to coordinate its research funding and support the spectrum of curiosity-driven to mission-driven research at a degree of orchestration and purpose not yet seen. For the Capstone agency to succeed in transforming the national research funding ecosystem, it must make bold efforts to find efficiencies in the current funding system and create meaningful bundles of programs that generate the greatest opportunity for scientists to deliver on major scientific advances. To do this, it will need to seriously engage with the research community – universities, government, major research facilities and the Canada Foundation of Innovation – to ensure the full Canadian scientific labour force and infrastructure resources are brought to bear on our best fundamental research and our work together to solve major problems facing modern society. Both the Naylor and Bouchard Reports have called for this orchestration. As we contemplate Capstone, we need to be sure this organization charts a new course for Canada. It must have the authority and the governance structure to reimagine the research funding ecosystem and enable the long-expected returns of discovery research up to innovation while growing the talent ecosystem towards economic prosperity.

Canada has a fragmented research funding landscape that manages access to research dollars through different funding programs housed within independent funding agencies, led by separate presidents, who report to various ministers. The funding profile typical for a researcher is that they hold multiple grants (that they have applied for independently of one another) that cobble together the foundational elements of producing research output, including supporting multiple trainees and building upon or creating new platforms and partnerships. The programs available to them are either very targeted and well-supported or non-specific, underfunded and over-solicited. The Naylor and Bouchard reports articulate this challenge and propose helpful solutions, including the concept of creating a Capstone Agency that consolidates the administration of research funding currently delegated to the three main federal granting agencies (CIHR, NSERC, SSHRC) and should include the research infrastructure funding body (CFI). Under this model, the Capstone agency would oversee the majority of the research dollars invested in academic research nationally.

Recent consultations with the U15 (universities attracting the most research dollars in Canada) identified many initial concerns, including governance and management changes, research disruptions, and transparency. The optimism about the generational opportunity that the Bouchard report captured in proposing this new funding oversight and the step it takes towards true orchestration of Canadian funding for impact is missing from these discussions.

In creating such an agency, we cannot gloss over the hurdles of consolidating special interest agencies that have been operating independently for decades. To be effective, the Capstone must overcome funding gaps, the fluid nature of government priority areas, and how to effectively do large science initiatives. But the real opportunity is the chance for Canada to take a deeper dive into why it’s not presently working and use this mandate to try and fix it. Fortunately, countless program evaluations already exist (mandated for every program by the Treasury Board), as well as international research funding models and the actions proposed in the Bouchard report.

As the Capstone agency charts a course forward, it should establish a vision around three unique opportunities in its mandate:

Opportunity 1: A deeper dive into what the current research funding opportunities do and don’t do for Canadian science. The Capstone Agency will have the advantage of perspective by overseeing the hundreds of programs delivered through the granting agencies and CFI. These programs serve various needs at varying dollar values and success. The first task of the Capstone should be to initialize a deeper assessment of the current suite of programs that exist within the granting agencies, understand how researchers are utilizing these programs, and where these programs are meeting the needs of Canada’s research stakeholders, including Canadian society, private sector interests, research communities, academic institutions, etc.

Opportunity 2: Create a program that combines access to essential funding, eliminating the need for researchers to stitch together a quilt of research opportunities. Researchers are most valuable to their field and Canada when they are doing their research and not navigating which research program will serve what part of their funding needs. Through this in-depth analysis, the Capstone can explore amalgamation programming through a single access point and achieve meaningful efficiencies such as common application forms. This can happen on a smaller scale or be implemented in larger opportunities (like a combination of the Canada First Excellence Research Fund, CFI Infrastructure Fund, Canada Research Chairs, CFI John Evans Leadership Fund, NSERC Create and NSERC Alliance).

Opportunity 3: Finding the right relationship between government-led, mission-driven work and curiosity-driven funding. While it serves the government in power to support research closest to knowledge mobilization or commercialization outputs, it does not serve the scientific community. No funding agency put out a call to see if mRNA might make a great vaccine. Curious scientists were working on this idea without direction for a while before a pandemic hit, but this fundamental research became essential to the rapid deployment of life-saving vaccines. Knowledge grows over many years and is generally founded on fundamental research that primarily advances our understanding. Thus, the notion of investing heavily in short-term priority areas deprives the nation of the opportunity for research to grow new knowledge. It is thus essential to move the country away from funding research incrementally across new and existing programs and entrusting the scientific community to enable longer investment trajectories that align with their priorities.

Aligning funding models with regular investment in Canadian research that grows predictably on an annual basis will enable better planning by academic institutions, researchers and external stakeholders. The Chief Science Advisor can play a key role in liaising between the Capstone Agency and Ministers or other key decision-makers within the government on these long-term projections of Canadian scientific strength and the necessary investments to enable their success.

Transformational change is needed, and the Capstone opportunity puts it within reach. The Canadian research talent pool is deep, and the community is ready to answer the call and, in turn, raise Canada on the global stage.

Let us be bold and take the necessary steps to move forward on this journey.