Current research funding in Canada

The government currently funds three federal granting agencies (‘the Tri-Council’) that support research, research training, and innovation in postsecondary institutions: the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC). The Tri-Council agencies are not supported equally. For 2012–2013 fiscal year, NSERC received C$1.1 billion (56%) (NSERC 2012), CIHR received C$956.7 million (40%) (CIHR 2013), and SSHRC received C$337 million (14%) (SSHRC 2013). Though the Tri-Council agencies focus on different fields, research in northern studies can be funded through all of them. Within NSERC, northern research concerning permafrost engineering in the Yukon might be funded, while within CIHR research concerning health and food security in Nunatsiavut could receive funding, and research concerning education attainment in the Northwest Territories might be supported by SSHRC. Given that research in the north can be funded by each member of the Tri-Council, the difference in funding available from each agency makes it considerably less likely that major investments in northern research will be made through SSHRC.

Differences in funding levels can also be seen within research funding available through non-government sources. The Canadian Northern Studies Trust (CNST) annually awards C$850,000 in scholarships from numerous sources to Canadian students, postdoctoral fellows, and established scholars (Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies 2014). Importantly, however, students in the social sciences, humanities, and (surprisingly) health sciences are only able to apply for approximately 11% of available funding opportunities, and those in the natural sciences are eligible to apply for that funding, too. As such, almost 90% of CNST scholarships are used exclusively to support research in the natural sciences, although the almost entire amount could feasibly go to students in these areas. The allocation of funding within CNST has to do with donors’ desires. For instance, the W. Garfield Weston Foundation has mandated that the funding it provides be used exclusively for researchers within the natural sciences, while the Arctic Co-operatives Award requires the student's work to have relevance to the operation of all or one of the Arctic Co-operatives in Nunavut, the Northwest Territories, and/or northern Manitoba. Given that the W. Garfield Weston Foundation generously gives C$780,000 of funding to CNST a year, the decision to fund only those in the natural sciences has a considerable impact on CNST's overall allocation of funding, as well as a large impact on the funding for student research at the graduate level.

Why the disparity?

I argue that the disparity in funding between the social sciences and humanities on the one hand and the natural and health sciences on the other are a result of two faulty assumptions that are exacerbated within the northern context: i) research in the social sciences and humanities is not as ‘valuable’ to the Canadian public as research in the natural and health sciences; and ii) research in the social sciences and humanities does not require substantial amounts of funding.

Lack of value?

Value can be understood as a binary. In this perception, for one thing to be considered valuable, something else has to be considered less valuable. For too long, the natural and health sciences have been produced as being the ‘hard’ sciences. To engage in something difficult is to do something of value. By contrast, the apparently ‘soft’ sciences – the social sciences, and the humanities – are viewed as being considerably easier. In fact, one Canada Research Chair in biology told me, ‘historians don't need much time to do research,’ which he used to justify his view that those in the Arts should have to teach a higher number of courses than those in the sciences. Of course, the long association of the ‘hard’ sciences with men and the ‘soft’ sciences with women ghettoizes those in the social sciences and humanities (Gherardi and Turner, Reference Gherardi, Turner, Huberman and Miles2002). These perceived differences have material impacts. At my university, for example, research grants and research chairs can result in a reduction of the number of courses one is required to teach. Given that there is more funding and more research chairs available in the natural and health sciences, those who are privileged by greater amounts of funding are further enabled to focus on their research and likely accrue even more funding by teaching fewer courses. To paraphrase Prime Minster Stephen Harper, it seems that the very act of ‘committing sociology’ is to engage in an act that one should not expect to be valued or deemed legitimate.

Of course, social sciences and humanities research as it pertains to the north is of tremendous value. Concerns about thawing permafrost, endangered species, atmospheric change, and pollutants, for example, are tightly tied to concerns about human well-being, potential changes to all Canadians’ ways of life (though especially indigenous northerners’), and also Canadians’ understandings of themselves as residents of an Arctic nation. An oft-made claim about the lack of value of social sciences and humanities research pertains to the idea that it is ‘irrelevant’ or ‘incomprehensible’. In their study of the utilisation of social science research knowledge in Canada, Landry and others (Reference Landry, Amara and Lamari2001) found that social science knowledge utilisation by stakeholders depends much more on factors that are related to the behaviour of the researchers and users rather than on the specific characteristics of research products. It thus seems that this is not an overall problem for all social scientists, but rather for a particular sub-section of them. In terms of ‘incomprehensible,’ Hammersley (Reference Hammersley2003) noted that social sciences research cannot always be summarised in a way that makes it accessible to large, non-academic audiences. Interesting, those who study the cryosphere are not often criticised on the grounds that their research is inaccessible. There seems to be an acceptance that ‘hard science’ is hard to understand. Somewhat paradoxically, even when social scientists attempt to share their research findings, Cherney and McGee (2010) noted that these activities are not often valued by academia.

The position in the humanities is even more precarious. Coleman and Kamboureli (Reference Coleman and Kamboureli2011) have argued that in the current academic climate in Canada, which they label as proliferating ‘research capitalism,’ research in the humanities is often ‘configured as a frivolous, self-indulgent pursuit at best, or redundant at worst’ (p. xx). Fundamental questions, which have the tendency to be quite subversive in nature, about how knowledge is produced and who owns it, how certain things become valued, and the ethical ramifications of research are currently at the heart of a great deal of debate within northern studies, yet often without those in the humanities, the very people who study these questions, being at the table. It is curious that as northerners are becoming increasingly vocal in asking these very sorts of questions that the humanities are deemed increasingly ‘frivolous’ and a waste of taxpayers’ money. By failing to fund those in the humanities, distinct systems of privilege are maintained and reinforced.

Inexpensive?

The lack of funding for northern social sciences and humanities research is also related to the idea that such research is relatively inexpensive. Such an understanding of research is rooted in approaches to research that have been discredited as dated and unethical. While, certainly, those in the social sciences and humanities do not have to buy large pieces of equipment, we do not simply get dropped off in the field for a few days with a notepad/canvas/book and pen, talk to a few people, and then leave. The days of ‘helicopter research’ in which research was conducted ‘on’ northerners have been replaced with research ‘with and by’ northerners. Some short-term field research may still occur, but I would argue that it is the exception rather than the rule. Those conducting such research may have a pre-existing research relationship with a community and thus be able to spend less time in the field - much as someone who has already set-up a field camp might be able to have shorter subsequent field seasons. Today, those who are the focus of social sciences and humanities research quite rightly have the expectation of being involved in every stage of the research, from planning to publication (Giles and Castleden Reference Giles and Castleden2008). In fact, for many funding agencies this is not merely an expectation, but a condition of funding. Unfortunately, these same funding bodies do not, as a general rule, give funding to those seeking to establish meaningful research relationships prior to the start of the research. As a result, community consultations are often paid for out of graduate students’ pockets or professors’ professional development funds/pockets. While those in the natural sciences may have similar responsibilities to community members, they are rarely as in-depth or continuing.

Northern research on any topic is costly. Though there is a substantial cost to having an aircraft drop natural researchers off at their research sites outside northern communities, the cost of living in a northern community for months on end is also very high. Just as those who conduct research on the land and water are often required to hire northerners to act as polar bear patrollers or research assistants and those who study health often have to hire medical staff, those in the social sciences and humanities are also required to hire and train local peoples to help to conduct research or to learn from them, but typically for much longer periods of time (for example being a member of a research advisory committee for several years, assisting in data collection, interpretation, translation, multiple interviews and focus groups over long periods of time). Training local community members and southern-based researchers to carry out research in a way that is considered valid in both local and western ways of knowing is time intensive. Conducting interviews, focus groups, photo elicitation, archival research etc., is not simply the act of handing someone a set of instructions. University-based and local researchers have developed skills over many years. Training is thus an expensive and time-consuming process, especially when the expectation is that after such training community members will be able to conduct subsequent research without or with limited input from university-based researchers.

Finally, the analysis of a great deal of research in the social sciences and humanities is conducted in the communities in which the data were collected (as per community-based research protocol), which requires additional time in the field. Return trips to northern communities for multiple rounds of analysis is costly, as is paying for resident experts’ time spent on the analysis. In the past, community members were often expected to volunteer their time for such activities, if they were part of them at all. Today, social scientists and those in the humanities recognise the expertise of community members and pay their collaborators/co-researchers/assistants accordingly. Returning one's research findings to a community poses particular challenges for those in the social sciences and humanities. The government of Canada's Northern Scientific Training Program provides seed money for students to travel to the north to conduct fieldwork. Funds must be off-set by larger grants. Those in the social sciences and humanities are disadvantaged by this approach in two ways: i) Expectations that research findings must be returned result in additional costs; ii) larger grants to a student or student's supervisor are, as I showed above, in short supply. As such, there can be large out of pocket expenditures. Thus, due to the requirements to conduct ethical, community-based research that involves the full participation of community members as well as appropriate training, the costs for social sciences and humanities research in the north are often much closer to a great deal of northern research in the natural and health sciences than some might think.