The MUNFA Executive Committee encourages our members to support a new campaign by the Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), calling on the Canadian government to implement the full recommendations of the April 2017 Report of the Advisory Panel on Federal Support for Fundamental Science.
Chaired by Dr. David Naylor, this report provides a comprehensive analysis of the state of Canadian research funding and offers clear direction for the way forward.
Among its central conclusions: federal spending in support of research has fallen behind that of peer nations since the early 2000s; and federal research funding has increasingly favoured targeted priority-driven research at the expense of investigator-led projects. These patterns have particularly disadvantaged women and minoritized scholars, early career researchers, and social scientists and humanists.
The report’s key recommendation is that the Canadian government increase funding for investigator-led research by $1.3 billion over 4 years.
MUNFA will be actively supporting this campaign over the coming months, including through meetings with Members of Parliament from Newfoundland Labrador. In the meantime, we ask MUNFA members to:
- Sign and share CAUT’s online petition; and
- Contact your MP urging them to advocate for basic research in this country by supporting the implementation of the Naylor Report recommendations.
