PM revives ACST to assist government in implementing innovation strategy

The government’s primary vehicle for national science and technology advice has been raised from the dead. More than a year after its last official meeting, the Advisory Council on Science and Technology (ACST) met with Industry minister Alan Rock the day before the National Innovation Summit in Toronto.

Rock tasked the group with two broad mandates: to create a strategic framework for Canada’s research enterprise to help match new funding initiatives with government priorities, and to simplify and consolidate the research landscape. Although vague, the latter directive is the strongest indication yet that the one-stop shopping approach to federal research funding is being given serious consideration.

In his opening address at the Summit, Rock provided some detail on what the new mandates entail. He stated that the creation of a strategic research framework will provide a valuable context for future investment decisions, “so that when we get additional requests for funding as a government we’ll have some framework within which to decide which investments would be most effective in advancing our strategic goals”.

The request for recommendations on how to simplify the research landscape in Canada is in response to longstanding complaints from researchers who spend “too much time filling out forms rather than developing new ideas”.

“The ACST gave us a lot of advice that led to the innovation strategy paper,” says Dr Andrei Sulzenko, senior assistant DM of Industry Canada’s policy sector who also attended the recent meeting. “Our intention is to get advice to follow-up on the strategy and there are many aspects. We have a few vacancies in membership, so we’ll fill them up and get back into gear.”

Earlier this year, Sulzenko told RE$EARCH MONEY that the ACST was “under active review” (R$, April 17/02). At the time, observers feared the ACST would be sacrificed to make way for the proposed Canadian Academies of Sciences (CAS). The feeling now is that the two bodies would serve different functions and that there is room for both. The CAS remains under active review as could be funded in the next Budget. The ACST was one of two advisory bodies created in 1996 as part of the federal S&T Strategy to provide the prime minister with expert, non-partisan advice on national S&T goals and policies and their application to the Canadian economy.

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