Funding given by the federal government to universities and students across Canada to pursue research in social sciences rose $548 million since 1998, adjusted for inflation.
According to an analysis of data published by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the amount of funding SSHRC gave to universities in 1998 was $93 million (or $121 million, adjusted for inflation). By 2012, that number rose by five and a half times, to $669 million.
Some of the 2012 money went to projects like MaRS Innovation, which received $4.3 million. MaRS’ work involves commercializing research results into products to sell. Its partners include the University of Toronto and Mount Sinai Hospital. Another project that was given $1.7 million in 2012 was ArcticNet, a network of researchers hosted at Université Laval studying the effects of climate change in the Canadian High Arctic and Hudson Bay. Much smaller grants are also given out, such as $250 to the University of Western Ontario for “Sacrifice and indifference in early modern philosophy.”
Over the 16 years much of the growth in total funding stems from the addition of frequent large grants, evidenced by the rise in the average grant value quickly outpacing the median grant value. This means that large grants are pulling the average higher, while the median, or middle value, grows much more steadily. In 1998, there were only three grants over $1 million. In 2012, there were 53. In fact, the top 10 grants in 1998 accounted for just over nine percent of total funding, and by the late 2000s it was nearly a third of all funding.
Funding as risen particularly significantly since 2003, when the Liberal government under Paul Martin unveiled its “Indirect Costs Program,” which started giving large-scale grants to universities to cover “hidden” costs associated with high-level research, such as administrative costs. This program was touted by the Martin government as “part of the federal government’s strategy to make Canada one of the world’s top countries in research and development.” Indirect Costs Program (ICP) grants account for all of the top 25 grants in 2012, and all but six grants in the top 50 are ICP grants. In 2012, ICP grants – meant for administrative costs, secondary to the actual cost of funding the research – made up around 50% of the total federal funding.
“A funding formula determines the value of each institution’s grant,” says Ann Campbell, Director of the Office of the Vice-President Research and International at UBC. Basically, the federal government gives one year grants based on a formula that allots money to cover percentages of the costs that the universities declare, Campbell says. UBC, for example, received the second largest ICP grant in 2012, at $27.2 million. Campbell points to the UBC webpage that details how the grants are spent. This includes hiring secretaries, building costs such as heating and cooling, university services like Human Resources, and even travel for researchers.
Curiously, the formula above points out that if Parliament raises the budget for the Indirect Costs Program, then the program will raise the level of funding it can grant the universities. Ostensibly, this means even if the universities’ costs stay the same, the program could cover more of them. At print time, SSHRC had not respond interview requests.
The federal government has maintained that the ICP helps make Canadian universities among the best in the world in research. In 2012, the University of Toronto received the largest grant of any school, at more than $38 million. It also was ranked first in Canada, and 24th in the world, by Shanghai Jiao Tong University’s 2014 rankings. Perhaps it owes the Canadian taxpayer some thanks.