New CCA report points the way for a made-in-Canada approach to federal research infrastructure renewal

An expert panel of the Council of Canadian Academies (CCA) has issued a comprehensive report providing a set of guiding principles to assist the government in carrying out the most ambitious federal S&T research infrastructure renewal in recent history.

The CCA expert panel, chaired by Dr. Wendy Watson-Wright, was requested by Public Services and Procurement Canada (PWPC) as part of its preparations for Laboratories Canada, a 25-year master plan for revitalizing and reconfiguring federal research laboratories. The first phase of that initiative has been launched (although not officially announced) to address deteriorating federal S&T infrastructure. Subsequent phases are expected to focus on constructing state-of-the-art, IT-enabled facilities that incentivize collaboration with academia and industry at a level of coordination and inclusion never attempted before.

Titled Building Excellence: The Expert Panel on Leading Practices for Transforming Canadian Science Through Infrastructure, the 52-page report includes four guiding principles for proposed S&T infrastructure investments: 1) cultivating scientific excellence, 2) supporting collaboration, 3) ensuring feasibility and 4) delivering broader impact.

[rs_quote credit="Dr. Wendy Watson-Wright" source="Chair, Expert Panel on Leading Practices for Transforming Canadian Science Through Infrastructure"]You need infrastructure to be able to accomplish what you’re mandated to do. I think it has been a long time coming and I’m very happy to see it.[/rs_quote]

If accepted, the principles could be used during the lengthier second phase of Laboratories Canada. The $2.8 billion announced in Budget 2018 for the initial five-year phase to build multi-purpose collaborative facilities has already been allocated.

The federal government operates nearly 200 laboratories nationwide and spent an estimated $6 billion on R&D in 2018.

“[The guiding principles] were so important for us to come up with and the deputies [of the federal science-based  departments and agencies] seem to agree that these were good guiding principles and the process should support them,” says Watson-Wright, CEO of the Dalhousie University-based Ocean Frontier Institute and former ADM Science at the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. “You need infrastructure to be able to accomplish what you’re mandated to do. I think it has been a long time coming and I’m very happy to see it.”

The report covers all aspects of the selection, focus, scope and construction of new federal S&T infrastructure to bring together the best and brightest regardless of sector to collaborate in state-of-the art facilities. These new facilities will be designed to accommodate researchers from multiple sectors who can be comprised of multi- and trans-disciplinary scientists, starting with identification of the problem to be addressed, the design of the project and its execution.

An expanding model of collaboration

When conceiving the envisaged cross-sectoral collaboration, the report pointed to the triple helix model, "in which innovation, economic growth, and social development are fostered by increased collaboration, greater overlap, and reduced boundaries among government, academia, and industry." The panel went even further, suggesting either a quadruple helix model that incorporates civil society, or a quintuple model that adds the environment to the mix.

“The quadruple helix model emphasizes the importance of culture and values, as well as the role of the media, in national innovation systems and stresses the need to consider these factors in innovation policy,” states the report. “The quintuple helix model is described as 'a framework for interdisciplinary analysis and transdisciplinary problem-solving in relation to sustainable development' and emphasizes that knowledge production and innovation must be contextualized within a society’s natural environment.”

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The panel examined other countries and concluded that the proposed Canadian approach is unique globally, noting that it is congruent to the government’s current policy blueprint – Canada’s Science Vision – and conforms to the 2018 Budget where the decision to renew federal laboratories was first announced. The new concept includes greater participation of the social sciences from the outset of each project, a recognition Watson-Wright says reflects the fact that “all the problems we’re trying to solve involve people … to identify the problem and work on it together throughout.”

“In Canada, the recognition is there that we need all the sectors and disciplines working together,” says Watson-Wright. “Related scientific activity is extremely important — the surveillance, the monitoring and regulatory science. Phase 2 is looking at the long-term, which is why we were given the charge that we were, to find out what is known about leading practices for evaluating proposals for S&T infrastructure and looking at processes, advisory structures, guiding principles and criteria that can help.”

A Made-in-Canada Approach

A key contribution to the report is the panel’s suggestion of considering a “middle-out” approach to proposal development. Watson-Wright notes that the majority of countries the panel examined utilized a top-down approach which the panel states is “developed solely by funders (and) might limit collaborative opportunities.” Australia is the lone nation that utilizes a bottom-up approach.

“This could be a truly made-in-Canada approach… A middle-out approach helps relationship building and allows the S&T community to co-create these promising proposals that will meet government needs,” she says. “A strictly government-controlled top-down approach would not properly engage the academics and the private sector. This would be different. [Middle-out] hasn’t been tried elsewhere that we know of, but we recommend bringing together the best aspects of top-down and bottom-up.”

The expert panel met on July 6 with deputies of the science-based departments and agencies to present the report and gather feedback. Watson-Wright says there was enthusiastic discussion and a lot of follow-up questions which the panel will endeavour to answer as the deputies decide on how to respond to and/or implement elements of the report.

Watson-Wright notes that a previous CCA report which she contributed to – 2013’s Ocean Science in Canada: Meeting the Challenge, Seizing the Opportunity – resulted in changes that continue to this day and she’s hoping the current report will have a similar impact.

“Certainly in Canada the recognition is there that we need all of the sectors and disciplines to be working together … A good portion of federal S&T research infrastructure is not in a good state,” says Watson-Wright. “The panel as well as the experts we brought in for a workshop really felt that if federal S&T infrastructure is not up to snuff it will negatively impact the ability to fulfill [departmental] mandates. But while the infrastructure is critically important, it really is the people that support the ecosystem. You need the people and there’s a clear opportunity here and now for Canada to be a global leader on public science infrastructure.”

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