Section II – Analysis of Program Activities by Strategic Outcome

Strategic Outcome - Highly Skilled Science and Engineering Professionals in Canada

By supporting 29,500 students and fellows at Canadian universities and abroad, providing programs to support university faculty, and promoting science and engineering to Canadian youth, NSERC will ensure a reliable supply of highly qualified personnel (HQP) for Canadian industry, government, and academia. The majority of NSERC-funded students have a strong interest in a career in R&D and the performance data collected indicates that this is occurring to a large degree. The training support NSERC provides will help Canada maintain or improve the number of researchers employed in the country. Figure 2.1 presents the total researchers per thousand employed relative to other Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries. Canada currently stands in 11th position, but only slightly (less than 2%) behind Australia in 9th. Canada’s ratio of number of researchers per thousand employed has grown by 26% over the past decade as compared to the OECD average growth rate of 19%.

Number of Researchers Per Thousand Employment, 2007 or Most Recent Year

The following provides details of NSERC’s performance for the three program activities that fall under this strategic outcome. Resulting benefits to Canada include: building a stronger culture of science and innovation in our country and encouraging young people to study science and engineering, increasing the number of people with advanced degrees in science and engineering, and supporting top scientists and engineers to serve as magnets to other high-calibre researchers and students to come to, or to remain in, Canada.

Program Activity: Promote Science and Engineering

The PromoScience program is allowing organizations active in science promotion to expand their offerings and to engage many more young Canadians, especially girls and aboriginal youth. This is critical as young Canadians are less inclined to select science or engineering as a discipline when they enter university (see Figure 2.2) as compared to many other nations. At the end of each PromoScience grant a final report is submitted. For those grants ending in 2009-10, 85% of recipients rated the outcome of the grant as successful. These grants enabled the recipient organizations to reach hundreds of thousands of Canadian youth and promote a science culture.

First University Degree Awarded in the Natural Sciences or Engineering Per Capita, 2006 or Most Recent Year

The CRYSTAL Pilot Program was created in October 2003. The program has increased the scale and changed the nature of research activities in science, mathematics and technology education. The program has increased knowledge translation and outreach activities, with the Centres having undertaken a wide variety of activities focused on reaching teachers. By the end of the third year, Centres had conducted an estimated 677 knowledge translation activities targeting teachers and developed approximately 479 knowledge translation tools for teachers. Although the program had successful results it did not progress past the pilot phase after the Strategic Review of 2008-09 because it was not considered to be central to NSERC’s mandate.

To recognize the important achievements of Canadian research scientists and engineers, and, in the process, to help retain faculty in Canada, NSERC awards significant research prizes to individuals and teams. A profile of the 2009-10 winner of NSERC’s Gerhard Herzberg Canada Gold Medal for Science and Engineering is presented below.

Program Activity: Support Students and Fellows

NSERC provides direct financial support to students from the undergraduate to postdoctoral levels through key programs as described above. In addition, NSERC funds students and fellows through support provided by an NSERC-funded professor from his or her NSERC grant. The training of 18,200 students and fellows is supported in full or in part through this route.

NSERC conducts ongoing surveys of funded students at all levels. Figure 2.3 highlights some important achievements of NSERC-funded students and fellows. All of NSERC’s scholarship and fellowship programs are achieving their objectives and the funded students are going on to well-paying and productive jobs in Canada. Almost all (98%) of the NSERC-funded students complete their degree and they do so in a shorter period than unfunded students (see Figure 2.4).

Since 1978, NSERC has supported the training of nearly 90,000 master’s and doctoral students in the NSE. General macro-level economic outcomes for university graduates in the natural sciences and engineering provide ample evidence of the positive outcomes for NSERC-funded students, both directly and indirectly supported. As Figure 2.5 demonstrates, unemployment levels for persons seeking work in natural science or engineering occupations are considerably below national levels; annual salaries for this group are nearly one-third greater than the national average; and employment opportunities continue to grow as the natural science and engineering labour force surpasses the 1,000,000 mark resulting in the fastest growing occupational group over the past 20 years.

In 2009-10 an evaluation of NSERC’s Postgraduate Scholarships program and the Canada Graduate Scholarships program was concluded, with major findings highlighted below.

Figure 2.3 - Results Related to NSERC Scholarships and Fellowships

Average Time To Completion at the Master's Level by Field of Study

Labour Force OUtcomes for Natural Scientists and Engineers (NSE)

Canada’s Economic Action Plan

Through Canada's Economic Action Plan (CEAP), the federal government temporarily expanded the Canada Graduate Scholarships program which supports Canada’s top graduate students. This included $35 million over three years to the Canada Graduate Scholarships Program (CGS) in order for the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to provide an additional 200 doctoral scholarships for three years beginning in 2009-10 and 400 master’s scholarships in both 2009-10 and 2010-11. 

Through CEAP, the federal government also provided an additional $3.5 million over two years to offer an additional 600 graduate internships in science and business, through the Industrial Research and Development Internship (IRDI) program launched in Budget 2007. The IRDI Program creates additional opportunities for skilled graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, by linking them with businesses that foster and utilize their talents. As a result, the program increases the science and technology (S&T) orientation of businesses and creates new opportunities for highly qualified personnel.  

Accelerate Canada was awarded $2.5 million of the CEAP stimulus funding for the IRDI program as supplement to their current grant to provide an additional 350 internships in 2009-10, for a total of 1000 internships. In addition, following a strong performance review, their award is being extended by one year using the remaining $1 million from Budget 2009 and the original $5.8 million from Budget 2007, to deliver 1000 internships in 2010-11.

Although it is too early tohave collected performance information for the CEAP spending, it is highly likely that the results will be very similar to the excellent results highlighted for postgraduate students and postdoctoral fellows in Figure 2.3.

Program Activity: Attract and Retain Faculty

Figure 2.6 presents the number of new applicants to NSERC’s largest program, the Discovery Grants program, who received both their bachelor’s and Ph.D. degrees outside the country (this number is a good proxy for an overall evaluation of the “attraction” activity since the vast majority of new professors in the natural sciences and engineering apply to the program). As the figure indicates, Canadian universities continue to attract hundreds of foreign educated personnel every year to become professors. More than 30% of the large number of first-time NSERC applicants are foreign educated. Recent investment by the government in university research has created an attractive environment to conduct research and highly trained people from other countries are coming to Canada to pursue their career.

The Canada Research Chairs program has helped to create a research environment that is conducive to the long-term retention and attraction of top researchers. A significant number of Chair holders have been attracted from outside Canada and many top Canadian scientists have stayed in the country as a result of Chair support. Figure 2.7 presents the percentage of external recruits awarded a Canada Research Chair in the natural sciences and engineering since the program’s inception. (Note: fluctuations in Figure 2.7 are due to small cohorts in some years.)

Number of Foreign Educated New Applicants to NSERC's Discovery Grants Program

Canada Research Chair (NSERC) Recruitment from Abroad by Year (% of Chairs)

NSERC also tracks the reasons grantees provide when they terminate their awards before the end date. As shown in Figure 2.8, only a small number of professors receiving NSERC support listed “leaving the country” as the reason for terminating their award over the past decade. The number of NSERC-funded professors leaving the country is  an extremely small percentage of the nearly 12,000 professors receiving NSERC support each year and is much smaller than the number of new professors attracted to Canada each year (see Figures 2.6 and 2.7).

Number of NSERC-Funded Professors Leaving the Country

One of the 21 new Industrial Research Chairs in 2009-10 was awarded to Eldad Haber of the University of British Columbia for his work related to geosciences. A profile of Dr. Haber’s Chair is presented below:

Strategic Outcome - High Quality Canadian-Based Competitive Research in the NSE

NSERC promotes and enables global excellence in discovery research. Basic research provides the foundation for all scientific and technological advances, and also to train the people who can generate new knowledge in Canada and understand new knowledge generated around the world. Having a solid capacity for basic research across a broad range of traditional fields in natural sciences and engineering, to newly established fields like genomics, nanotechnology and quantum computing, ensures that Canada remains at the leading-edge of knowledge creation.  It also ensures that Canada can access and exploit S&T developments from other countries.

One of the first tangible outcomes of an investment in university R&D is a publication in a scientific or engineering journal. Since the vast majority (nearly 90%) of Canada’s scientific and engineering publications are produced by university researchers, publications are a good indicator of the immediate outcome from NSERC research funding and can be used to benchmark our performance against the rest of the world.

Similar to common rating systems, in which a higher score indicates more viewers, listeners or readers, citations are a measure of the potential use of a researcher’s work by fellow researchers. If a researcher’s work is being referenced or cited more often by his/her peers, then there may be more intrinsic value to the work. Based on the number of citations received by papers over the three years following the publication year, a standardized measure called the Average Relative Citation Factor (ARC) is then calculated for each country and field and normalized to 1.0 to indicate the world average. Figure 2.9 presents the ARC values for the G20 in the NSE in 2008. Canada’s ARC in the NSE ranks 5th and is only slightly behind the top four countries.

Average Relative Citation Factor (ARC) in the NSE, 2008, G20 Countries

The following provides details of NSERC’s performance for the two program activities that fall under this strategic outcome. Resulting benefits to Canada include: global excellence in discovery research, new knowledge, the ability to access and exploit knowledge developed outside Canada, and attracting the best minds to Canada and keeping them here by furnishing state-of-the-art equipment and facilities to carry out research at world-class levels.

Program Activity: Fund Basic Research

Canada is among an elite group of countries publishing a significant number of articles in science and engineering journals. Since the beginning of the century, Canadian researchers (all sectors) in the NSE have increased their annual production of publications from roughly 20,000 per year to current averages of approximately 25,000 publications per year, as shown in Figure 2.10. Overall, Canada’s world share of NSE papers stood at 4.3% in 2008, ranking seventh in the world (see Figure 2.11). Indicators of productivity as they relate to scientific publication production can also be useful. One indicator is a measure of a country’s output of NSE publications per capita population. Figure 2.12 presents the 2008 per capita output per one million inhabitants for the G8. Using this criterion, Canada has the highest per capita output.

Number of Canadian Publications in the NSE and World Share

Top 20 Countries in Scientific Article Production in the NSE, 2008

Per Capita Output of Publications in the NSE, 2008, G8 Countries

The training of highly qualified personnel (HQP) is of critical importance in the Discovery Grants program. Each year, nearly 50% of program expenditures are used by professors to support students at the undergraduate, master’s and doctoral levels, and postdoctoral fellows (see Figure 2.13). In 2009-10, 10,700 students and fellows were supported by Discovery Grants funding.

Percentage of Discovery Grants Funds Used to Support Students and Fellows

In 2008, member countries of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) spent $191 billion on university research. Canadian university professors and students performed 5.3% of this total, up from 4.8% in 1999. When measured as a percentage of GDP, Canada spends more on university research than all of its G8 competitors (see Figure 2.14) and ranks 5th in the world.

Higher Education R & D (HERD) as a Percentage of GDP, 2008 or Most Recent Year

Program Activity: Support for Research Equipment and Major Resources

NSERC’s Research Tools and Instruments (RTI) funding generally leads to more, faster and more in-depth research as well as better trained HQP. These impacts are felt across the spectrum of disciplines, in all regions and in large and small institutions. It is difficult for researchers to find funding for small equipment and NSERC is a major source. NSERC’s RTI grants are capped at $150,000 and with most of the awards less than $80,000, there is currently no or little overlap between NSERC’s RTI program and Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) grants. Figure 2.15 highlights the number of researchers benefiting from an NSERC RTI grant.

Number of Researchers Benefiting from an NSERC Research Tools and Instruments Grant

The Major Resources Support (MRS) program leads to a better use of the funded facilities, increased collaboration among researchers and improved international competitiveness of Canadian researchers. The program also complements CFI funding for several facilities (e.g., Canadian Light Source) by providing the necessary operating and maintenance support to fully utilize the facilities. Figure 2.16 presents the average number of researchers benefiting from an MRS award. The average value has been fairly steady over the past five years.

Average Number of Researchers per Grant Benefiting from an NSERC Major Resources Support Grant

Strategic Outcome - Productive Use of New Knowledge in the NSE

Wealth is created when Canadians add value in producing goods and services that are sold in world markets, and knowledge is the modern basis for adding value. NSERC aims to maximize the value of public investments in research for the benefit of all Canadians by promoting research-based innovation, academic-industry partnerships, knowledge and technology transfer activities and the training of people with the required scientific and business skill sets to create wealth from new discoveries in the NSE.

NSERC gives companies operating from a Canadian base access to the special knowledge, expertise and educational resources at Canadian postsecondary institutions and offers opportunities for mutually beneficial collaborations that result in industrial or economic benefits to Canada. The industrial partners contribute financially to university research projects, scholarships and fellowships.  In 2009-10, more than 1,500 firms in Canada partnered with NSERC, up from the 700 partners in 2000-01 (see Figure 2.17). Over this ten-year period the average annual growth rate in the number of partners has been 9.3%. Sixty-two of the top 100 R&D firms in Canada are currently partners with NSERC (Note, many of the top 100 not partnering with NSERC are in the health/biotechnology sector).

Number of Industrial Partners Participating in NSERC Programs

The following provides details of NSERC’s performance for the three program activities that fall under this strategic outcome. Resulting benefits to Canada include: building capacity in areas critical to the Canadian economy, in carefully selected strategic priorities for the country and connecting researchers with end users in order to transfer and exploit knowledge and to increase Canadian prosperity.

Program Activity: Fund Research in Strategic Areas

The Strategic Partnerships Programs are designed to focus on priorities (NSERC Strategic Target Areas) and thus provide an excellent framework to implement the S&T Strategy. An analysis of the 2009-10 Strategic Partnerships Program grants indicated that more than 90% of program funding was devoted to government priority areas.

In 2009-10, a total of $27.5M was leveraged from partners in Strategic Partnership grants in addition to NSERC’s funding of $92.9M. Given the pre-competitive nature of Strategic Partnership grants, the resulting leverage ratio of 30% indicates excellent partner participation. The number of industrial partners in these programs continues to grow and in 2009-10 stood at 550, for a 64% increase over the past five years (see Figure 2.18).

Number of Industrial Partners - Strategic Partnerships

Creating new partnerships between professors and industrial/government partners to facilitate the knowledge and technology transfer process in priority areas is an important component of the Strategic Projects program. Figure 2.19 presents the number of researchers who have applied for a Strategic Project grant for the first time. Overall, roughly 30% of applicants to the program are new each year.

Number of New Applicants to NSERC's Strategic Projects Grants Program

Program Activity: Fund University-Industry-Government Partnerships

Industrial contributions related to Collaborative Research and Development (CRD) Grants is an important indicator of the value NSERC’s partners place on university research. A comparison of the NSERC funding and industry contributions to the CRD program is presented in Figure 2.20. NSERC’s industrial partners contribute more to the CRD projects than NSERC and over the past 10 years the average annual growth rate in contributions has been an impressive 5%, increasing from $39 million in 2000-01 to $59 million in 2009-10.

Contributions to NSERC's Collaborative R & D Grants (CRD) Program

NSERC tracks the outcomes of its Collaborative Research and Development (CRD) program by following-up with researchers and partners. Results from the latest follow-ups are described below:

• Reports on CRD grants submitted by grantees required an overall ranking to assess the extent to which the overall objectives of the program were achieved. The answers were rated on a scale of 1 to 7 where 1 meant “not at all”, the midpoint indicated “somewhat” and 7 indicated “to a great extent.” 74% of reports responded with a rating of 6 or 7 indicating that objectives and milestones were achieved to a large extent. There were no responses that indicated that objectives were “not met at all”.
• Out of 276 reports, 49% of the projects reported contribution to new products or processes and 67% of projects reported contribution to improved products or processes.
• There were 18 new licenses generated and 103 patents had been filed. Twenty-four of those had been reviewed at the time reports were received. Start-up companies were created for 13 projects.

An evaluation of the CRD program was conducted in 2009-10 which covered the 1997-2008 period. A summary of the major findings is presented below.

In 2006, the Networks of Centres of Excellence (NCE) program, with the collaboration of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), launched the International Partnership Initiative (IPI) as a pilot initiative. A total competition budget of approximately $7 million over two years was allocated to this initiative. Some of the findings from a 2009-10 evaluation of this element of the Networks of Centres of Excellence program are described below:

In addition, an evaluation of the Network of Centres of Excellence -New Initiatives (NCE–NI) element was conducted in 2009-10. This pilot has been created to: facilitate the creation of networks on a national and an international level; support networking activities among well-established researchers or research teams to encourage them to develop new partnerships with receptor communities (e.g., industry, government, not-for-profit organizations, etc.); and respond to the needs of both researchers and receptor communities for interaction, partnership, and networking.

Program Activity: Support Commercialization

Statistics Canada currently conducts a survey of intellectual property (IP) commercialization in the university sector every year. The key results from the first seven surveys are highlighted in Figure 2.21. It is highly likely that the majority of the commercialization indicators in Figure 2.21 can be attributed to NSERC funding (all NSERC funding and not just the programs under this program activity). The sizeable increases seen over the eight-year period for most of the commercialization activities presented is a positive result.

Source: Statistics Canada

The first awards under the Centres of Excellence for Commercialization and Research were made in late 2007-08. A formative evaluation of the program was conducted in 2009-10. Some of the highlights of the final report are presented below.

Program Activity: Internal Services