Big news was announced yesterday in Canada’s research community. The Government of Canada’s Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) program is being retired on the cusp of its 30th anniversary and absorbed by the New Frontiers in Research Fund.
CCRM is one of 36 networks and centres currently funded by the NCE to “mobilize Canada’s best research, development and entrepreneurial talent, and focus it on specific issues and strategic areas.” CCRM, a Centre of Excellence for Commercialization and Research (CECR), is not affected by this news, nor are the other CECRs and Business-Led Networks. (To see a list of current and previously funded NCEs, dating back to 1989, click here.) The Stem Cell Network, a “traditional” knowledge translation network, unfortunately is.
The NCE program has always had its fans and detractors. Many in favour of the program saw the NCE funding as a way of putting granting opportunities in the hands of the people most qualified to assess the research and the researchers applying for funding. If your community was lucky enough to have a funded network, there were tangible outcomes from the years of dedicated funding and knowledge translation opportunities. The success and strength of the Canadian stem cell community is a testament to the efforts of the Stem Cell Network.
Those less enthusiastic about the program saw already limited research dollars being syphoned away from the federal granting agencies and handed to administrators with narrower agendas.
Another long-time complaint of the NCE was that the funding was finite. If you were unable to replace it when your term was over, your organization would disappear.
The Stem Cell Network faced this fate once already and it rallied. It was able to obtain different funding, of $18 million, in the 2016 and 2017 federal budgets ($12 million and $6 million respectively). It is hoping to be successful in a new NCE competition for “established NCEs” to re-apply for an additional five years of funding. Now its fate looks uncertain, but it hasn’t given up the fight.
If you’d like to voice your support for the Stem Cell Network, you can download a letter in English or French to tell Bill Morneau, Minister of Finance, and Kirsty Duncan, Minister of Science and Sport, how much we value the work of the Stem Cell Network.
As for the fate of the NCE program? Perhaps some best practices will live on. According to the Honourable Kirsty Duncan, the New Frontiers in Research Fund (NFRF) “will accelerate the pace of discovery” by committing $275 million, for the next five years, into fundamental research, and $65 million yearly after that. As well, the NFRF “will draw on the rich experience of the Networks of Centres of Excellence program over the last 30 years. The NCE program will gradually transition to this new fund over the next few years.”
The NFRF features three streams:
- Transformation – Interdisciplinary and transformative research
- International – enhance research opportunities with global partners
- Exploration – provides extra support to early career researchers
The funding for early career researchers starts now.
If you’d like to watch the Minister’s announcement, she begins speaking at around 18:00 minutes and the big announcement starts at 21:00 minutes.
Stacey Johnson
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