Research Co-Funding, a Canadian View. (July 10, 2005)

    On June 24 Science published a letter signed by forty Canadian researchers titled "Problems with co-funding in Canada". The letter highlights certain concerns which the writers believe can and do lead to some undesirable distortions in the fabric of support for research in Canada. The same matters should be of concern to Australian researchers, particularly in the current climate of restricted government funding for research and the interest in designing a research quality framework (RQF) to guide the federal government in its allocation of research funds in future.

The Canadians letter opens:

The Canadian Federal Government has prudently invested substantial new resources in research operations and infrastructure, thereby bringing the level of research support in Canada on par with that of most other G8 countries and enabling a world-class research enterprise. Much of this renewed commitment to research, however, is in the form of "co-funded" programs. In Canada, co-funding schemes typically require an equal or greater match of funds from an independent partner, either local, provincial, or foreign governments; private foundations; or industry. In principle, co-funding should leverage funds from other sources and hasten the transition of fundamental research to commercial application. In practice, co-funding can exact a debilitating toll on the research community.

 

...co-funding is often biased against fundamental research that is far from commercialization and so at odds with the short-term goals of industrial partners. The vicissitudes of most co-funding sources also severely compromise the sustainability of long-term research platforms. ...Moreover, the mega-scale mandate of many co-funding initiatives virtually eliminates the individual researcher or small teams in favor of larger, sometimes artificial, consortiums. Perhaps most troubling from a scientific perspective, the criteria for eligible co-funding are inherently subjective.

The letter concludes with the plea:

By eschewing scientific excellence as the primary consideration, co-funded programs imperil scientific credibility and fail to engage the breadth and depth of national scientific expertise. We encourage governments, scientific administrators, and scientists in Canada and other countries not to succumb to the superficial allure of co-funding but rather to evaluate and fully fund research on its own merits. The manifold benefits to society will inevitably follow, as was long the case before the advent of co-funding programs.

The requirement for the matching of government research funding (co-funding) is prevalent in Australia as it is in many other nations. So far as we know no systematic analysis has been carried out to determine the degree of distortion it causes, if any, to the quality of Australian research. But it is a legitimate concern and ought to be considered by the Expert Advisory Group chosen to advise the Minister for Education, Science and Training with regard to the form of the RQF.

True, co-funding per se does not appear to be under consideration by the EAG but it is considering what it terms "third-stream funding" which is described as providing "incentives for all universities to build close links with business and the community, and have appropriate arrangements for exploiting the results of their work."