Minister of Tourism Soraya Martinez Ferrada, left, is given a tour of the biomedical labs at Ecole Polytechnique de Montreal by professor Gregory de Crescenzo in Montreal, on May 6.Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press
Roseann O’Reilly Runte is president and chief executive officer at the Canada Foundation for Innovation. She is the author of Canadians Who Innovate: The Trailblazers and Ideas that Are Changing the World.
U.S. National Academy of Sciences head Marcia McNutt called last week for a national research strategy “to regain American leadership in science.” She cited China’s extraordinary investments in research and the impressive results. China is surpassing the United States in the number of patents and scientific papers and boasts large, cutting-edge facilities and new pharmaceutical products.
The Canada Foundation for Innovation recently put forward a white paper plan for research in Canada which also takes note of the investments being made to speed the pace of research and innovation, not only in China but in South Korea, Japan, Singapore, India and Thailand. However, where Dr. McNutt calls for increased government spending as the single solution for the U.S., which has greater capacity for R&D spending and can afford to compete resolutely with China, our priorities and possibilities are more nuanced.
Increased spending would of course be more than welcome, but more importantly, Canada needs to be competitive while succeeding, through collaboration with other nations.
Canada is already doing much of this. We have always shared research with the U.S., Britain and Europe. We have assiduously built bridges across the Atlantic and are proud to have joined Horizon Europe as an associated member. But that is not enough, and Canada needs to do more.
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We must recognize that no single nation can resolve the challenges the world faces today and understand that every nation cannot and should not replicate the huge research infrastructure which is being constructed around the world. Through international collaboration we can create shared facilities while focusing investments on research facilities in Canada with special capabilities that are able to attract and serve researchers from around the world.
We must consider how we go about such international collaboration. While papers and patents are important, the goal of research must be to improve life and livelihoods, health and well-being, safety and sustainability, and vibrant communities with access to education for all. We need to look not only at solving problems in our country or similar advanced economies but at sharing resources and solutions with nations in the Global South, for example.
Canada has a lot in common with the Global South, and thus the solutions we find to our problems can have a great impact on both continents. We both have natural resources to develop and face similar sustainability challenges. We both have innovative populations and great expanses of land, but we need to create educational opportunities, health, transportation, sanitation and communications facilities that reach equitably into remote areas.
We must focus on the importance of science diplomacy and the opportunities not just for success in new scientific discoveries but for the understanding that dialogue can bring. We also stress the benefits of scientists working together to explore the secrets of the tiniest quantum bits and the limitless possibilities of outer space. These may be beyond our ken, but through collaboration, perhaps not that far beyond our reach.
There was once a race for space: which nation would be first to step on the surface of the moon? Today, we think of our solar system and others beyond as possible locations to which humankind might one day escape from the damage we continue to wreak on our planet. Alternatively, we imagine ways to restore nature’s ability to support human existence here.
These are problems so great and possibilities so extraordinary that no nation can undertake to solve or achieve them alone. This must be a century of co-operation and collaboration. This is a time when we must all work together. Canada must participate strategically, develop our crucial skills and talents, and lead by bringing other nations together thoughtfully and methodically in the name of science for the good of all.