Rebooting 🇨🇦 Postgraduate Research Training

The Canadian Federal budget of March, 2018 contained a single mention of the word “trainee” (page 82) and precisely zero new directed dollars for support of this essential part of the science and innovation ecosystem. This was despite multiple recommendations of the Fundamental Science Review on the need to support the life cycle of researchers and the clear desire of the Science Minister to support Early Career Researchers. There were significant investments in infrastructure (Canada Foundation for Innovation), the Tricouncils (operating grants) and Canada Research Chairs (scientist salary awards). However, on page 84 was an important note. “Over the next year, the Government will be doing further work to determine how to better support students, the next generation of researchers, through scholarships and fellowships.”

We can now assume that this “further work” was largely accomplished via the Canada Research Coordinating Committee’s Summer consultations that involved a number of in-person meetings across the country and an on-line portal for soliciting comments and responses. The on-line call closes soon (September 10th) and falls into three areas, one of which is “Support for early career researchers” which, itself, is carved into 3 “strategic pillars”:

1. Fair access to research support: focused on increasing funding for ECRs and creating more Tier-2 CRCs, providing better feedback for ECR applicants and greater length of awards to allow ECRs to extablish their labs (this has NADA to do with trainees).
2. Equitable participation: providing students and postdocs with access to additional professional skills, including non-academic careers, promotion of experiential opportunities, increased participation in peer review and [cough] “other measures, such as a review of scholarships and fellowships, …” [/cough].
3. Data for evidence-informed decision-making: defining who is an ECR, systems for tracking career development and annual reports for inform program development (it is shocking this is not already baked in).

So, no mention of possible new resources/money but a review of scholarships and fellowships, nonetheless. Reviews are cheap but, in this case, needed.

The current state of these postgraduate programs is one of imbalance, spotty coverage, and threatens to undermine the quality of the future Canadian scientific sector (really Jim? Yes, really, keep reading).

Federal government support for graduate students and postdocs occurs through research grants (awarded to supervisors/Principal Investigators) as well as awards to individual trainees. Each council runs scholarship and fellowship award programs. There is also the icing on the cake, the prestigious Vanier scholarships and Banting fellowships. These are positioned as elite awards that support the future leaders of Canada. They do stand out — primarily for their value. Vanier studentships are $50,000 for each of three years. Banting fellowships are $70,000 for two years. This is all in the form of support of the trainee. They also differentiate themselves in their goals to recognize future leadership potential. The Bantings can be held in Canada or abroad (as can tricouncil fellowships). To compare the “elite” Vanier and Banting awards to the vanilla Tricouncil awards (well, CIHR in particular), a CIHR studentship stipend is $30,000 (+ a research allowance of $5,000/year) for three years. A CIHR postdoctoral fellowship is $40,000 (for a PhD within 2 years) and $50,000 (after 2 years or with health professional degree with licensure in Canada) for up to 5 years (+ a research allowance of $5,000/year).

That’s the current landscape for Federal funding — there are other sources such as charities and university endowment scholarships and of course MITACS which supports provate sector trainee placements — but how many awards are there? Combined, there were 237 Vaniers and Banting awardees in 2018. Estimating numbers of tricouncil awards is trickier but CIHR supports ~80 fellows and ~140 doctoral awards, annually. Extrapolating to the other two councils, that adds up to ~ 460 new scholarships and ~300 new fellowships per year. This suggests that the clear majority of such trainees are supported from research grants rather than personnel awards (and, of course, once awards end, trainees revert to grants to complete their studies). I have also not included trainee programs such as MITACS, which supports private sector placements.

Based on this, here’s my top 5 list of things the government could do to greatly improve the situation for STEM trainees in Canada.

1. Roll Vanier and Banting into the tricouncil scholarship and fellowship programs. At least these provide reviewer feedback (Vanier and Banting reviewers are not required to write reviews and the applicants only receive their ranking). If the government wants a prestige program, then top up the top applicants with $1000 and give them a name. This would eliminate redundancy in adjudication and avoid the lousy situation of two people working at the same bench/office with the same level of experience with a $20,000 or more stipend differential.
2. Increase the funding for the tricouncil awards to the levels of the Vanier and Banting awards and link them to inflation/cost of living adjustments. $40,000 for a competitive fellowship in 2018 is plainly uncompetitive — especially considering the awardees are in their late 20s/early 30’s and often have families to support. Include ablity to take parental leave without disadvantage. Likewise, scholarships need to be index linked and increased in value given the rising cost of tuition.
3. Address the phenomenon of privileged CV building by rethinking what really counts in assessing research potential. The current system of adjudication gives weight to extra-curricular activities and badges of honour that often disadvantage those from lower socio-economic conditions. People who have to work every Summer simply to raise their tuition don’t have the same opportunity to collect experiences that purportedly show leadership, etc. Emphasis should be on assessments of research potential and less on grade points reflective of memory recall.
4. Cummulative advantage is an under-appreciated issue in academic activities. Early success (through CV badge collection unrelated to research aptitude) is reinforced through added advantage. Success begats success but a high performance undergraduate student is unlikely to exhibit all the qualities associated with successful postdoctoral studies. To reduce this carry-forward advantage, there needs to be less reliance on prior badge collection. “Late bloomers” are often among the most dedicated and skilled scientists but are disadvantaged by lack of prior awards. This also impacts equity and diversity as more recent immigrants, those learning a 2nd/3rd language and women with children are more likely to have delayed their educational progression. With success rates ~10%, aspects that are unrelated to research potential are often determinant. While we’re at it, stop promoting leadership as a required attribution for awards. Leadership is usually learned and exposed by opportunity. It’s great to see but peripheral to a trainees scientific ability. Instead, seek open-mindedness, unconventionality, persistance and exploratory behaviours. We want to empower and train problem-solvers, people who can see the world slightly differently. We don’t need to preselect for leadership. That will emerge among some when appropriate.
5. Given the majority of trainees are supported by research grants (which are themselves highly competitive), consider postdoctoral fellowship independence grants where a fellow after 2–3 years of studies may compete for a 2 year award based on an independent project. This must be distinctive from their prior work but could be used to generate data and output to increase their competitiveness for tenure-track appointments (at a different institution).

Training is all about maximizing the opportunity of people to realise their potential. Science trainees need space and time and resources to build up their experience. Didactic teaching or repetition (as in sports training) is not as important as providing an environment to explore, promote independent thinking and to challenge the status quo. The optimal result is an empowered individual equipped with the confidence and experience to find or build their own solutions. Removing unfair advantage and inequity along the way ensures the best minds are developed. A major revamp of trainee support programs that removes biases and incentives for activities that reflect opportunity rather than inate ability is needed to achieve this.

Oh, and since you asked, all this could be achieved with an increase of $125 million/year + $10 million/year for 50 x two year independence awards (at $100,000 each).