Concentrated Research Funding Should Be Focused On A Few Universities: UBC Presi

“Rather than spreading research funding around in an unstructured and misguided effort to be fair — to provide a bland level of sameness in all regions of the province and the country — we must spend strategically on institutions that are legitimately able to compete on the international stage,” Toope told the Vancouver Board of Trade earlier this week. In an address to the business community, Professor Toope made the case for focusing research funding (both public and private) on a limited number of research-intensive universities. He argued that in order to compete globally with the likes of Berkeley, the University of Tokyo, and Cambridge, Canada needs to focus its resources, rather than distributing research dollars among a large number of institutions. Toope’s proposal likely doesn’t sit well with the presidents of smaller research-focused universities. And his speech addressed that by referring to a comment made by the University of Victoria president Dave Turpin to the Globe and Mail: “Excellence should be rewarded. It shouldn’t be preordained.” Toope agreed that “the government shouldn’t compromise UVic’s shot at excellence by showing unearned favouritism to UBC” but went on to say that we need to recognize the different roles of universities. “Some are local institutions preparing students primarily for local engagement. Some are national leaders in education and maintain strong, but limited, research programmes. A very few — likely only two or three in Canada — are poised to be major, globally relevant centres of social, cultural, economic, scientific, and medical innovation,” he said. In an interview with Maclean’s, President Turpin elaborated on his view. “The way to build a truly internationally-renowned group of excellent universities is to allow them to compete for research resources,” he said. “Those resources should be allocated on the basis of international excellence and peer review.” Turpin doesn’t think that the federal granting councils award research funding on the basis of geography. “They do it on the basis of excellence,” he said. “There is huge diversity in this country. You see exceptional people clustered at all sorts of different institutions.” ... http://www.macleans.ca/education/postsecondary/article.jsp?content=20071102_212451_9036

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