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Join Alex Usher in the latest episode of the World of Higher Education Podcast as he talks with Rob Annan, President and CEO of Genome Canada. They explore the intertwined relationship of science and economic progress, the role of government in science funding, and the shift toward a more utilitarian approach to research funding. The discussion covers the current state of science, the impact of policy on scientific research, and the broader implications on public policy. They also delve into the Canadian context, discussing the nation's unique research system and its future direction.
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👉 Episode Links:
- Genome Canada
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Creators and Guests
What is The World of Higher Education?
The World of Higher Education is dedicated to exploring developments in higher education from a global perspective. Join host, Alex Usher of Higher Education Strategy Associates, as he speaks with new guests each week from different countries discussing developments in their regions.
Produced by Tiffany MacLennan and Samantha Pufek.
Alex Usher: Hi there, I'm Alex Usher, and this is the World of Higher Education Podcast.
Ever since World War II science — that is, state funded science — and economic progress have been seen to go hand in hand. And for the most part, governments have been happy to let scientists themselves decide where much of the money goes.
But things have been changing lately, and not just in the United States, where the Trump administration has awarded itself the right to involve itself in any science award for any reason. Several countries, notably Australia and the United Kingdom are looking to become a lot more dirigiste with their science money. And one of the thrusts of this dirigisme is that they want their money to have faster outcomes. Heck, even the Swiss National Research Agency is being told to take a 20% cut. Basic research is no longer the bell of the ball.
Joining us to talk about this today is Rob Annan. He's the president and CEO of Genome Canada, a federally funded research agency based in Ottawa.
His agency has undergone some pretty big shifts since it was created 25 years ago, as the practice of sequencing a genome has changed from being something requiring a hundred million dollars, to something requiring not much more than a hundred dollars. And having a seat at the table with all the other science funding agencies means he has some pretty interesting insights into the way government thinks about science.
Our talk therefore ranges over some pretty basic questions on the current state of science. Does Vannevar Bush's vision of research plus development equals growth still hold? Are ideas becoming harder to find? And how does all this affect public policy around science, especially here in Canada?
Trust me, Rob and I could have gone on talking about this a lot longer than we did. He's always full of insight, so let's go listen to him right now.
Rob, let's start at the very beginning. What is science policy and how does it relate to other public policy areas like economic policy?
Rob Annan: Right. Well, so science policy in a sense has two directions and it's important to distinguish between them. So, first we have science for policy. So this is really, the sort of dimension where research results, our understanding that comes from research and science is able to inform policy decisions across a whole bunch of other sectors. So, how does government integrate new understanding and new knowledge being produced by scientists for, let's say, updated climate regulations, or healthcare approaches, or agricultural standards? So this is really about using scientific evidence to make good choices.
The other dimension is policy for science. So this is really the policy kind of governance framework that really shapes the ways in which we organize research, how we fund it. Uh, It includes how we set our priorities, the institutional structures we use, the funding mechanisms. And these days especially, it's more about how do we actually translate these discoveries into societal benefits.
So, in both cases, we don't wanna think of science policy as something that is distinct from other areas of policy, like economic policy. In fact, it's deeply integrated. So we wanna make sure that we have, you know, the most effective approvals, innovations, regulations, and so on across policy areas so that we can be economically competitive.
We don't want our building codes based on 1920s technology. We don't want health policy based on science from the 18 hundreds, although these days it feels increasingly like going in that direction. But also the policy for science side is also really important. We need to be thinking about the ways that we're actually structuring and supporting our research matters so that we can get the most in effect kind of bang for our buck when it comes to addressing big challenges we have around health, environment, economy.
So, um, you know, science creates knowledge of course. So, you know, investing in science for intrinsic knowledge matters. But if we're really looking to address the big challenges that science can sort of, help us address, then we need to be thinking constantly about whether or not we have the right policy for science.
Alex Usher: So the very big uh, simple case I guess for governments subsidizing science, it goes back to the end of World War II and the Navar Bush and, and the endless frontier and all that kind of And, and basically it says we, we pour money into research. R uh, you know, which takes place mostly in universities, at least in Canada, and then some kind of miracle happens and what emerges is development or D, and that creates economic growth and it creates good playing knowledge, economy, jobs, et cetera, et cetera.
I guess my question is really, was that model ever true? Like, is it, was it ever a realistic representation of, of how science turns into economic growth? And if so, is it still true today?
Rob Annan: Yeah, I don't I don't know that it was ever actually entirely true, although it was, it's always been very compelling. So that paradigm, that idea of how science works has been around for, as you say, about 80 years. And the idea is is basically akin to trickle down economics, right? If you just give smart people money, they're gonna create knowledge and then everyone's gonna benefit.
Unfortunately that model has the same problems that you have with trickle down economics, which is that yeah, that means some benefits do diffuse through the economy, but it's really inefficient. The time horizons are really unpredictable and clearly not everyone is benefiting in the same way.
So there are definitely some challenges with the model itself, but really as your question sort of implies, it's never entirely been true, and it certainly isn't the way that, so I guess maybe sort of transformational advances have happened, the ones that we think of as the sort of scientific and technological sort of markers and milestones of the, the modern age.
This wasn't just curiosity driven research kind of somehow magically turning into benefits. Think about what we were actually doing, things like the Manhattan Project, NASA and their moonshot, you know, DARPA creating the internet and a variety of other technologies, Human Genome Project. So this isn't just like basic research and then kind of waiting for good things to happen. These are very specific challenges that involved a lot of coordination, a lot of specific outcomes, and they create a lot of spillovers along the way. But in addition to these, which were largely government created, we also had a whole kind of middle section of kind of industry research. And this is kind of the, the, the industry research ecosystem of corporate R&D labs and research parks.
This still continues today, right? You know, think about big advances happening and it's, you know, Google or Apple or Nvidia or Moderna. Um, Lots of companies pouring a lot of money into actually making research happen. So in Canada, certainly the university paradigm is the dominant one. There's a lot of reasons for that and we can get into that. But that Vannevar Bush model has never really been the only way of uh, advanced science, certainly.
Alex Usher: I think you said, look, it's a compelling rhetorical case, right? And one of the interesting things about that story is basically, you know, the, I spend money on research and development comes out the other end, makes sense at the global level, right? Like it's a story about science and science is global, but funders are national, right? And so when you try telling that story at a national level, I think it kind of gets, it becomes really specious at a certain level because in Canada something like 95% of the technology we use may be higher, is invented elsewhere. What we spend on basic research has almost no relationship to the kind of technology that gets used in our economy.
And I guess I wonder whether or not governments understand that, and as a result, they underinvest in research because there's such a, an incentive for smaller countries to free ride.
Rob Annan: Yeah, it's a complicated question. I mean, on the one hand, if you actually look at Canada's research output vis-a-vis kind of global uh, sort of rankings, we produce probably somewhere around four to 5% of research output. So it's not surprising that we'd be importing 95% of our technology from elsewhere. And that's what a, you know, that's what a, a globally integrated trading system looks like. So, I can tell you that certainly in the areas I'm involved with, Canada is still seen as an overall positive net contributor to international science and knowledge and so on. So I'm not so concerned about that, but I, I do think certainly that the concept of free riding on massive, especially US research investment is a big problem. Especially at the applied research end of the spectrum. You know, Silicon Valley, that kind of Boston, Cambridge life sciences hubs, those things are just enormous engines and we certainly benefit from the knowledge spillovers coming from those uh, from those American investments.
But the free riding isn't simply kind of like a moral concern. There's also real strategic concerns about this, I mean, 'cause if we're importing technology, especially from the US, we're not actively developing our own capabilities, so we're not developing our own sort of tacit knowledge, or skilled workforce and the industrial ecosystems that come from kind of working at that kind of technology frontier.
You know, we've been sending our best students and our most promising startup companies to the US for generations, 'cause that's where the ecosystem is. So this free riding, you know, the, the brain drain that we've been always concerned about isn't like a bug. This is a feature of the free riding issue.
So, things are changing though. Of course, we're all about to discover what happens when this massive engine of kind of US research funding stops being so reliable. And it's not just Canada that's been free riding, right? Global research has been driven in large parts by these massive investments in the US and free riding kind of assumes that we're gonna continue to have access to not just the technologies, but also the knowledge and the databases and so on that the US has been producing.
So we're entering now an era where the US sees these as sovereign assets. And if we're not in a position to control our own, you know, genomic databases, our own AI infrastructure and so on, we're gonna be very strategically vulnerable.
Alex Usher: So I've seen in the last few months, there's a number of countries who are making turns towards what I would call a more utilitarian organization of science. And it is pretty clear that events in the US is driving this in part either as a model or a cautionary tale. You know, Australia and the UK are talking more and more about making their, their higher education institutions specialize in research areas because they think bigger is better. New Zealand is retreating wholesale from investing in humanities and social sciences. And, and you know, I guess my question is, is the west at some kind of turning point for research management? Are we changing the model now?
Rob Annan: Yeah, unquestionably I think the answer is yes. I mean, frankly, everything is changing. So it's, it's not surprising that we need to think about our kind of science policy and how our research institutions need to change. You know, the drivers for this are, are complex, right? There's economic changes of course happening on the kind of the global systems.
We've got misinformation, particularly in science kind of contributing to increased mistrust of institutions, you know, anti-elite sentiment and so on. So this isn't simply about how do we become more economically productive, it's about responding to a very different kind of social order and rebuilding the, or sort of re-imagining what that kind of the social contract that exists between those who are actually developing science and research in the societies that we serve.
So, yes, things are changing and things have to change. So the question here is sort of, you know, how are we going to change this, right? What do we do in Canada? Are we just gonna kind of copy what others people are doing? Are we gonna cherry pick like kinda the best ideas? Or do we sort of do the harder work of sitting down and maybe working kind of from, from first principles about what does Canada need, what makes sense for us? What are strategy imperatives that should drive our policy development? And we need to change. And it's, it's gonna be hard. I mean, change is hard. You know, and universities have been around for a thousand years and not you know, not because they respond to every change in the weather, right? They're designed for stability. They will survive this, but all of our institutions are gonna need to think differently. They're gonna look different and function differently, maybe act at a different scale. And we need to be rethinking in a sense, kind of what the research policy landscape looks like in terms of delivery.
Maybe it's not primarily through universities anymore. Maybe we need to be thinking about colleges and polytechnics in a different way. We need to be thinking about not-for-profit organizations that can work in, in different ways, other levels of government, industry, so on. So we need to be thinking about a lot of other vehicles.
Alex Usher: It seems to me there's one other thing that might be recent shaping science and, and I'm thinking of the, the 2020 article in the American Economic Review by Nicholas Bloom, a, a Stanford economist, and he argued that ideas are getting harder to come by. You know, and to simplify enormously what he was saying is it, it takes a lot more time and a lot more researchers to, to make a certain quantum of scientific progress. It just takes more than it did 20 years ago, 40 years ago, 60 years ago. Do you think this is true? And if so, what's the implication for science policy? Do we just have to live with the idea that we'll pay ever increasing amounts for the same amount of discovery?
Rob Annan: I mean. I know the paper and it's probably true, but I think the picture is more complex than that. I mean, in well-established fields where we have picked the low hanging fruit, then sure, marginal progress requires more researchers, more resources, and more time. But that's kind of a circular argument, right? Mature fields are mature. I mean, but other domains we are seeing like explosive, almost breathtaking progress. Like where I live, I get to see the future kind of invented every day as it crosses my desk, right? You know, cell and gene therapies, mRNA platforms sort of immunotherapies that are turning cancer from death sentence to kind of a treatable conditions. These are astonishing developments. And even if they're not making headlines for like, you know, on kind of our, I dunno, our Twitter, Blue Sky kind of, obsessed world. The, the, the progress is really astonishing. And of course, I, you know, I look beyond that into areas as, as we understand like quantum computing, AI, you know, synthetic biology.
A field that, that barely existed a decade ago now, redesigning organisms from first principles of material science. So there's lots of areas where I think actually we're seeing unbelievable progress that was unimaginable say a decade ago. So, it's true in some fields, but it's less true in other fields. And I think that that's kind of an argument for why we need a more strategic focus, and not just kind of diffuse investment kind of across every discipline.
Alex Usher: We're gonna take a short break. We'll be right back.
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Alex Usher: And we're back. Okay, so let's, shift the talk to Canada specifically. I've always thought that Canada was a bit of an outlier internationally in science, in that we do a very high proportion of our research in universities rather than other types of research facilities, either public or private. And we run a very high proportion of our funding through grants to individual PIs rather than two institutions. Is that a fair assessment and does that give us an advantage or a disadvantage in terms of producing science?
Rob Annan: Yeah, I think that's probably fair. You know, Canada does funnel a probably a disproportionate share of our research funding through universities and individual PI grants. We don't have the same kind of say government lab infrastructure that we see in in the US. You know, we don't have kind of intramural NIH programs and, big national labs in the same way. We have the NRC obviously, but it's not doing work at the same level as you see in the US and some other countries. And we also have a lot less kind of direct industry R&D support than you see in other countries like say Germany or, or South Korea. So I think we are probably more university centric and PI centric. And there's lots of reasons for that. However, like before kind of pointing to that as maybe the, the problem I think we have to acknowledge there's a lot of big advantages to that model. You know, it really does produce, like, you know, the, the high quality education for a broad base of students.
The fact is that we've got tens of thousands of students at our best universities who are all still learning from actual research professors. That's amazing. Right? So it's not just some narrow elite that gets access to that. I think that's important. You're, you're certainly helping produce a large skilled workforce that way. Definitely matters, right? I also think there's some benefits around kind of an anti capture benefit here where, you know, institutional incumbency isn't such a big deal. Professors, yeah, sure. You get some big names perhaps become somewhat established, but there's a lot more flexibility, a lot more kind of nimbleness that can be built into following new opportunities and so on.
So there are definitely some advantages, but there are also some disadvantages. And I think that, particularly as you look at the kind of PI centered model as a whole, if we think about kind of channeling, say, a disproportionate amount of research through the universities, you're in a sense, you know, governed by the institutional logic of universities.
And there's nothing wrong with that. That's how they operate. But they optimize for publications, for academic prestige, tenure track, and so on. And that's not necessarily aligned with what Canada needs economically or in other policy areas. So how do we create spinoffs, commercially kinda useful IP, how do we address environmental concerns and so on.
The other thing is the PI model kind of fragments our, our efforts. So you do get a lot of brilliant individual projects, but they don't necessarily add up to more than the sum of their parts. And some of the big challenges that we face need people pulling in the same direction.
So, I think there's a different balance that we probably need to explore here, particularly when it comes to industry. But that opens a whole other slew of policy challenges 'cause there's only so much government can really do about that.
Alex Usher: It seems to me that one of the one global trend in research funding over the last decade or so has been the emergence of funding for grand challenges. You know, money aimed at tackling one or more big problems or wicked problems, whatever kind of words you want to use, rather than doling out money on a kind of a purely disciplinary basis.
I get the impression Canada's pretty reluctant to go down this road and, and by Canada, I mean the scientific community. Like this, this was an idea that Frédéric Bouchard, presented in his 2023 report on, on tri-agency funding, and he said Canada should have a capstone agency above the Tri-Councils, which focused on these grand challenges. But you know, I kind of get the impression that that words like capstone and challenges are, taboo in the research community, like you, you're not allowed to say that you like this idea. Why hasn't Canada embraced this type of funding?
Rob Annan: Yeah, I mean, I guess I understand the skepticism. I mean, no one really wants another layer of bureaucracy, and we can see how that could create inefficiencies. Nonetheless, I think that this kind of coordinated and strategic leadership is essential. I mean, it's really essential. I generally agree with Frédéric and the recommendations of, of his panel.
You know, the skepticism is not only about bureaucracy, it's also I suspect a, a fear or concern that that important investments in basic research will be cannibalized by this shift and the degree to which that happens could be a real concern, of course, universities are in tough times right now.
And, and also just inertia, you know, means change is hard. It's not easy. We've got pretty powerful institutions and we've got silos and so, I think coordination can be seen as a threat rather than an opportunity. And I also think Capstone in particular kind of becomes a bit of a dirty word because it kind of implies that someone's gonna swoop in and start bossing everyone around and making decisions about what's gotta happen. And then some people are gonna get more resources and other people are gonna less. And that means a loss of control and a loss of uh, influence. And, that's totally understandable. And I think we need to guard against a situation where, you know, we are too subject to the political whims of the day.
We really do need deep strategic thinking and we need engagement across the community for how to identify those areas. And that community includes university researchers alongside community leaders and industry leaders and policy leaders and so on. So I'm overall actually pretty bullish on the need for change, and maybe capstone is it, I mean the devil's in the details, but if this is the, if this is the horse we've got in the race, then let's I don't know. Let's get on and start riding.
Let me tell you a little bit about, just briefly, you know, we faced the same challenge here at Genome Canada, right? You know, we, we were created 25 years ago. The science was a very different space. You know, 25 years ago, we, collectively globally spent $3 billion in 15 years to sequence a single human genome. Well, today, obviously that's totally changed. You know, you do that overnight for a couple hundred bucks. So what does that mean for an organization like ours? You know, 25 years ago we were funding capacity building, we were funding effectively what was basic research, and we were funding phenomenal excellent science. So, over time, you know, I've been in my role now about six years, when I came in, you know, questions were being asked of Genome Canada, like, is this what we need anymore? Funding individual projects, is this the right use? And we did make a fundamental shift to a mission-driven approach um, organized, you know, we know now what problems genomics can solve. So, rather than just funding kind of individually the best scientific projects, we ensured that all the projects continue to have great scientific merit, but they have to start contributing to an actual, something that's greater than the whole, the sum of the parts, right? Something with persistent value for the country. Something that's gonna move the needle in areas like health, or agriFood, or natural resources and so on. So we definitely have adopted this more strategic mindset where now we still fund a lot of research, but we also spend a lot of money doing engagement to identify where the challenges lie, to funding coordination across different projects, to building sovereign data assets, to really thinking about how do these science investments create more than the specific research outcome of a given project and turn instead into kind of national assets.
Alex Usher: So let's think about Canadian science 20 years from now. How different do you think it will look? I mean, will we still have the same institutions? Will the Tri-Councils still exist? Will our position in world science be stronger or maybe weaker? I, I don't know. Like how, how do you see things evolving right now?
Rob Annan: Yeah, this is, I don't know, man. This is like a pretty crucial moment. I am hopeful, and I guess maybe I would say I'm cautiously optimistic. I think I was definitely encouraged by the recent federal budget. Apart from the, the big investment in talent attraction, there were signals in there that suggest the gov—, well, first of all, just the fact that research and innovation is seen as one of the pillars around national productivity really matters. But the second thing was, you know, the, the language about continuing towards capstone coordination and in a sense reevaluating the funding models for retention and research suggests to me and I, and I know from other conversations that the government continues to think about the system as a whole, and that I think is encouraging.
So I don't think this is a one and done from the federal government, which is good. And also, you know, of course in Canada we have to think about the provinces and a lot of our provinces are doing genuinely interesting things. Ontario has really shifted its focus towards life sciences, and I think with, with real positive potential. Alberta, even though there's maybe some kind of political rhetoric that gets attention actually is making smart decisions with regards to a lot of its research investment. And even somewhere like PEI, I mean, PEI is quietly built like a world-class biosciences cluster that could rival pretty much anywhere in the country, and people don't see it. So there's, there's innovation happening on the ground in Canada that doesn't always kind of make the headlines. In terms of like, what's it gonna look like in 20 years, will we still have the Tri-Councils? I, I think so and not only because of Canadian conservatism and inertia, but I think it's also because they do serve a really important function and, you know, funding basic research with links to training and education for students is absolutely crucial, and it's one of the, for my, my money, it's one of the best parts of our university system. So I really do think we need to maintain that kind of thing. But I do hope that our institutions do start to look different.
This is a wake up moment for Canada. We can't be complacent and comfortable anymore. The question is, are we really ready to rise to the moment? Can we be sharper and more strategic? Can we really address the big challenges that we have? Can our science community evolve from kind of what has been, you know, sure like an uncertain funding environment, but reasonably comfortable, to one where we see ourselves as true partners and contributors to the national challenges that we have. And those are economic, those are climate, those are health, those are social. So I think I have hope in our ability to evolve. I've, what I see from Canadians in this moment is positive. The fact that Canadians still trust science by and large is an important point these days.
The question is, you know, can we leverage all of these great advantages we have in terms of talent and infrastructure, resources and so on to actually make the changes necessary to ensure that research contributes effectively to these challenges? I'm committed to doing that. I see a lot of people around me who are, and that's what gives me the, the cautious optimism.
Alex Usher: Rob, thanks so much for being with us today.
Rob Annan: Yeah, thank you, Alex. This was great.
Alex Usher: And it just remains for me to thank our producers, Tiffany MacLennan, Sam Pufek, and you, our listeners and readers for joining us. If you have any questions or comments about today's podcast, please don't hesitate to get in touch with us at podcast@higheredstrategy.com.
Next week, our guest will be: me. Next week is the release of the World of Higher Education Year in review, our new annual global scan of developments in the field. I'm very excited to tell you all about it, which I will do next week with Tiffany asking the questions. Hope to see then. Bye for now.