Volume 25, No. 1 Editor: Bob Rupert July, 1994.

FEDERAL GOVERNMENT CONSULTATION ON SCIENCE POLICY

On June 28 the federal government announced that the Ministry of Industry

Canada will be holding a series of consultative meetings on science

policy. The Ottawa consultation is scheduled for Monday, August 29 at

Carleton University and will be hosted by John ApSimon. Decisions taken

by the government will affect future research funding. Your participation

in this process is important.

CAUT is stressing the importance of ensuring that the role and usefulness

of the federal granting councils, the federal role in support of

university research, and the importance of basic and independent research

are defended and that support be articulated for increased funding for the

councils to maximize the potential for research and development.

There are current media reports that the federal Liberals may end the

federal transfers to the provinces for postsecondary education (now over

$2 billion in cash transfers). Given this possibility, an argument in

favour of redirecting some of that money towards the payment of some of

the indirect costs of research might be appropriate. Ottawa has always

refused to pay the indirect costs of research because the transfer

payments were supposed to cover such costs.

As well as attending the consultation, the Ministry welcomes letters,

opinions, comments, suggestions or full briefs via the S&T Review

Secretariat EMail: S&[email protected]. If you have access to Internet,

you may participate in a usenet discussion group on science and technology

via the address: can.ai. For the Federal Government's Science and

Technology Review, the discussion paper FAQ and related documents are

available electronically via ftp, gopher and WWW. The ftp site is

debra.dgbt.doc.ca and the documents are in the directory

/pub/isc/science.and.technology.review. The bookmark for gopher is: Type

= 1+; Port = 70; Path = 1/isc/science.and.technology.review; Host =

debra.dgbt.doc.ca. The URL for the World Wide Web (WWW) is

http://debra.dgbt.doc.ca/isc/isc.html.

Following the local consultations will be five regional conferences and a

national wrap-up conference. The regional conferences are intended to:

exchange ideas related to the development of the federal science and

technology strategy; focus on regional strengths in science and

technology; and identify areas of regional consensus for both public and

private action. The national conference is intended to: exchange ideas

related to the development of the federal science and technology strategy;

focus on national strengths in science and technology; synthesize local

and regional debates and their implications for federal policies and

programs; and provide Ministers, their departments and agencies with a

consolidation of stakeholders' views on the essential elements of a

federal science and technology strategy.

REPORTS ON CONCORDIA