Funding for university research up in all sectors except from foreign sources

An unexplained drop in foreign support for higher education research has marred an otherwise upbeat projection of funding for Canada’s universities, technology colleges and other post-secondary institutions. After a decade of steadily increasing support, Statistics Canada estimates that foreign sources of funding declined $7 million or 12.4%, dropping from $56.6 million in 1999 to $49.6 million in 2000.

“It could be a glitch in the data or it could be quite worrying. Many institutions depend on foreign sources for their research, particularly in the health field,” says Ron Freedman, RE$EARCH InfoSource president and co-publisher of RE$EARCH MONEY. “We don’t know why it’s happening since universities don’t report their sources of foreign income.” (RE$EARCH Infosource tracks university R&D and publishes the annual Canada’s Top Research Universities Report).

Foreign source funding was the only soft spot in support for university research, with all other sources reporting hefty increases ranging from the institutions themselves (up 7.1%) to provincial government (up 21.7%).

Universities continue to be the largest single source of higher education research expenditures, providing $2.836 billion or 49.4% of the 2000 total of $5.738 billion (see chart). Governments are the next largest source, with the federal and provincial governments contributing $1.88 billion or 32.7% of the total.

Throughout the late 1990s and into the new millennium, the federal government has focused on higher education as a key component of its innovation policy. With programs such as the Canada Foundation for Innovation and Genome Canada, it has successfully leveraged provincial funding with provisions requiring additional sources of funds.

The policy has helped improve the provincial numbers dramatically, which are up 21.7% in 2000 to $587.2 million. That places provincial funding above the business sector for the second year in a row. In 2000, business funding accounted for $553.4 million, a 20.2% increase from the year before and 9.6% of the total.

ONTARIO HAS GOOD YEAR

Although the national total for 2000 represents a 12.9% increase over 1999, the higher expenditures were not evenly distributed at the provincial level, ranging from a 37.7% increase in Prince Edward Island to a 1.2% drop in New Brunswick. Among the larger provinces, Ontario bumped Quebec as the greatest beneficiary, jumping $407.6 million or 21.7% to 2.316 billion Quebec, which enjoyed a 20.3% increase between 1998 and 1999, moved up only 2.8% in 2000 for a total of $1.576 billion. Together, Ontario and Quebec account for 67.8% of the national total.

Among the disciplines, natural sciences and engineering (NSE) dominate, with $4.493 billion or 78.3% of the total. That includes a major sub-sector — health sciences — which accounts for $2.7 billion or 46% of the NSE total. The social sciences and humanities represent the remainder, with $1.245 billion or 21.8%.

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