Final mission before retirementCLS head vows to make a stable operational environment for big science projects a reality

As he nears the end of a long and distinguished career, Dr Bill Thomlinson has one final mission. The executive director of the Canadian Light Source (CLS) and globally renowned expert in synchrotron medical imaging says he will intensify his efforts to convince the federal government to provide a coherent, stable and efficient funding source for the operation of large national research facilities.

Thomlinson pulls no punches when it comes to assessing the current operational funding environment — a situation he describes as “insanity” and “piecemeal”. He contends that the government doesn’t appreciate the huge amount of time and manpower required to deal with multiple funding sources, all with different rules and regulations.

“I’m retiring in October 2007 and I have an aggressive agenda. I want this issue settled by the time I leave,” he asserts. “I hope to use my last few years to help Canada by using an argument based on facts and competitively based on the need for resources.”

Canada is virtually alone among industrialized nations when it comes to the absence of a framework and/or coherent program or mechanism to provide operational funding for its major science facilities. Efforts to establish such a mechanism in the past have never materialized, leading to situations such as TRIUMF in the mid 1990s. Government stalling, the political difficulties of a BC-based minister and confusion over the source of continued operational funding created a crisis in which the facility was in danger of failing to make its payroll. The situation was resolved just days before payday (R$, June 28/95).

FORMIDABLE ALLIES

Thomlinson is not alone in his appraisal of the Canadian system. He has a major ally in Peter MacKinnon, president of the Univ of Saskatchewan and chairman of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. Thomlinson and McKinnon and others travelled to Ottawa last year to advocate for a dramatic change in how the federal government funds national research facilities (R$, May 6/03).

That trip was successful in securing adequate operational funding for the CLS’s first five years of operation. Last April, Finance minister Ralph Goodale announced $19 million over five years, with $16 million coming from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and the balance from Western Economic Diversification.

“When I came here two years ago, the CLS was in a dire situation. I was told about the funding situation before I came and I was told to be careful,” says Thomlinson. “There was an extraordinary 40% shortfall so I worked with Peter MacKinnon and we pulled it off. But in three and a half years we will be back looking for the next five years (of operational funding) and I hope it won’t be the same mechanism.”

Thomlinson says that the funding to operate the CLS’s first seven beamlines is adequate and will cover the facility’s basic needs. The CLS has subsequently won funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) to construct five additional beamlines and this time around, the operational funding situation is somewhat improved. The CFI now provides for additional money to be utilized for operations, equal to 30% of the 40% share it covers for capital projects.

The CFI provided $18 million of the $45 million required for the new beamlines and will provide nearly $6 million more for operations, to be provided once the capital project is completed. Further additional funding is being considered via a targeted NSERC grant that will hopefully make up for the shortfall.

Thomlinson says that while he is gratified for the financial support received to date, it doesn’t negate the urgent need for a better way. And he adds that the funding package for the first seven beamlines is “not yet a done deal” as it still has to be approved by Treasury Board.

“It’s still piecemeal. There is no coherent vision of what it’s costing this country to operate facilities like this. We need a mechanism. We’re the only advanced nation that doesn’t have such a mechanism,” he says. “Once I get past the grand opening ( of the CLS, on October 22) I will be contacting research institutes and universities to get their perspective on this issue ... No more back room deals. Let’s make decisions on where our S&T dollars go in an open and informed environment.”

Also advocating for a national facilities framework and funding mechanism are NSERC president Dr Tom Brzustowski and Dr Arthur Carty, Canada’s new national science advisor and former president of the National Research Council (NRC). As chair of the CLS board of directors Carty was invaluable along with then Industry minister Allan Rock in navigating through the Ottawa bureaucracy to secure operational funding for the initial beamlines. Brzustowski has also been a longstanding champion of a new mechanism.

PROPOSAL IN THE WORKS

NSERC and NRC were instrumental last year in developing a framework document that has since gone through several re-writes and currently resides in Carty’s office for final tweaking. The document will then go back to the granting council presidents as well as the heads of Genome Canada and the CFI before receiving broad circulation throughout the scientific community for final input. The proposed framework will almost certainly be contained in advice from Carty to the prime minister and will likely evolve into a formal proposal for budgetary consideration.

The document is said to contain a set process for the initial evaluation of the operational requirements of existing and proposed facilities, followed by further review and prioritization within the government’s overall S&T objectives. The framework takes into account operational funding requirements over the full life cycle of a national facility, as well as the need for equipment upgrades to ensure that the research remains state-of-the-art. In addition to covering facilities like CLS, TRIUMF, the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory and the Amundsen (Canada’s new research ice breaker), the framework also considers Canada participation in international research facilities and major e-science projects which are distributed across the country and beyond.

“We’re good at funding big science projects from ‘A’ to ‘E’, which is the capital phase, but not from ‘A’ to ‘Z’,” says one government official. “We need to take full life cycle costs into consideration at the very beginning.”

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