National Science Advisor seeks broader mandate to move science agenda forward

By Debbie Lawes

After just nine months in the job, Canada’s National Science Advisor (NSA) says he will be asking Prime Minister Paul Martin for greater authority in bringing S&T issues to Cabinet for consideration. Dr. Arthur Carty says his counterparts in the United States and the UK have larger budgets, more staff and clearer mandates when it comes to developing policy. The NSA has a budget of about $1 million, six staff and no mechanism for putting proposals before Cabinet.

“I will be asking (the Prime Minister) for a strengthening of my mandate and some clarification of what the role is,” says Carty. “There are a lot of expectations being put on this office, but without any mechanism for inputting policy advice to the highest levels, I’m not going to be very effective.”

It’s not clear what a more powerful NSA would mean for Industry Canada, which is responsible for much – but not all – science policy. The Canadian Institutes of Health Research, for example, falls under the auspices of Health Canada. The Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) reports directly to Parliament, while science-based government departments are responsible to their respective ministers. The NSA advises the prime minister, but has no clear authority to move forward on national issues.

One such issue is the development of a National Nanotechnology Strategy, one that would involve academia, industry, the provinces and federal laboratories.

The NSA is working with the heads of granting councils and research foundations to assemble a task force of Canadian and international experts to develop a national nanotechnology strategy by the end of 2005.

“There’s every reason for having an integrated national effort that mobilizes all the resources we have,” says Carty. “We have pockets of expertise across the country but it’s fragmented and not coordinated. We’re losing out.”

To put such a policy in place, however, Carty needs Industry Minister David Emerson to support the idea and champion it among his Cabinet colleagues.

“The national nanotechnology strategy in the US was signed off by Jack Marburger whose office was responsible for coordinating and approving it and he’s my equivalent there. Same thing for the UK in David King’s office,” says Carty. “But my position is new and nobody’s really thought of these things yet. I’m realizing now that this should have been in the mandate in the beginning. It wasn’t, so I’m looking for a new mandate.

“These are tricky issues,” he adds. “Industry Canada probably rightly thinks that it owns the S&T policy mandate for government ... I think there would be a good consensus that there should be some independent central body responsible for S&T policy rather than a line department.”

RENEWING FEDERAL LABS

Another expectation of the NSA is that it will champion the renewal of federal laboratories. Carty acknowledges that rust-out within government labs is a growing concern. Convincing politicians to invest in government infrastructure, however, is always a difficult sell.

Less so for universities. Since 1997, Ottawa has invested $3.65 billion of year-end money in the CFI, which has significantly boosted university research capacity. The Financial Administration Act prohibits using budget surpluses for government departments.

“One of the sore points for government science is that the CFI exists, but of course none of that funding has been accessible to federal labs,” says Carty. “It would be a tremendously powerful incentive for federal research to have a similar system. You could have the CFI run the competition and go through all the same evaluation and peer review.” Granting council awards are also off limits to government scientists, unless they hold adjunct professorships at a university. At the National Research Council, for example, about 300 researchers are also adjunct professors.

“People are finding innovative ways to get around (the Financial Administration Act),” says Carty. “Wouldn’t it be better to admit that ‘yes it happens’, but that it would be far easier to open it up and allow people to compete on the basis of the quality of their application? It happens in other countries – in Finland, Spain and France.”

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