Campaigning for SCIENCE

ARTHUR CARTY, PHD DISCUSSES HIS NEW ROLE AS NATIONAL SCIENCE ADVISOR

By Amber Lepage-Monette

In December 2003, the federal government created a new position it felt would demonstrate its commitment to and interest in science and technology. In April 2004, Arthur Carty, PhD became Canada’s first National Science Advisor (NSA) to the Prime Minister — acting as the voice of the nation’s scientific community.
Though the role itself is new, Carty himself is far from being new to science. He received his PhD in chemistry from Nottingham University (Nottingham, U.K.), and served as president of the National Research Council of Canada (NRC) (Ottawa, ON) from July 1994 until March 2004, when he took on his new role as Paul Martin’s scientific right-hand man.
Establishing an NSA for Canada was something the government had received a lot of advice about, Carty says, and its establishment signals the seriousness with which the government views science in the country.
“Other advanced countries like the United States and the U.K., of course, have national science advisors, and it was felt that this was something that Canada, as an advanced nation and as a significant investor in science and technology, should have,” he says.
In his five-year appointment, Carty has a high-level mandate to provide non-partisan, independent advice on science issues to the prime minister. He will also advise on the priorities of and directions for Canadian science.
At a more hands-on level, Carty and his office are designing a long-term plan for science and technology. His desire, he says, is not only for Canada to have a strong research base, but also for science and technology to benefit society and the economy.

The Three Keys
In explaining the long-term plan, Carty describes Canadian innovation as a three-legged stool, with the knowledge base as the first leg, government research as the second and industrial innovation as the third. To date, the first leg has received a substantial level of funding, though the latter two have not always received the same level of support.
“I think it was necessary for us to, first of all, strengthen our research base, particularly after the cutbacks of program review, and certainly the government has recognized that,” Carty says of why the knowledge base has been the focus to date.
“Investing in knowledge is always a good investment. So if you want to start somewhere, I would probably have argued that that’s the place to start,” he says.
“It’s important to have a strong knowledge base, because the knowledge base trains the people who ultimately are responsible for innovation and driving things forward. It also creates ideas and discoveries.”
Government research, however, should also be seen as an important factor in the country’s development, as this area serves the overall public good, Carty says.
“What I mean by public good is that we do have a need for policy, for regulation, for environment, for health,” he says. “We also have specific needs to help economic growth where the activity can’t be carried out by the universities, or is unlikely to be done by industry.”
Carty adds that, “Without strong government research, we will certainly not succeed as a nation.”
And while the public good should be served, reaping the benefits from Canada’s scientific efforts comes part and parcel with that. This is where the third leg, industrial innovation, comes into play.
“Industrial innovation is the prime way that we generate wealth. And it’s done of course by being innovative and in generating new products that are competitive on the global marketplace,” Carty says.
“We haven’t got many large companies in Canada that invest heavily in research and development. We have a large number of small companies, small/medium-sized enterprises, and one of the keys that we have to be concerned about is how we not only create new companies from developments in labs and otherwise, but how we sustain them and how we grow them into large corporate giants which produce the economic growth for the country, which we need,” he says.
Though Carty says the latter two legs, government research and industrial innovation, do need more funding and concentrated support, it should not come at the expense of Canada’s knowledge base.
“It’s very important that we don’t let that lapse and slide down the other side of the slope; having climbed the mountain, you don’t want to slide down the other side and become a laughing stock,” Carty says. “We’ve achieved some international renown, and other countries are looking at us for what we’ve done in improving the infrastructure and the overall environment for research in this country — but we don’t want to fall back. So it’s important to keep that up.”

Bringing it Together
Another area that Carty has been working on is cohesion. He has brought together several representatives within each of two groups, in an effort to co-ordinate work efforts and better access resources.
One of the two groups comprises the granting agencies: the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (Ottawa, ON), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (Ottawa, ON), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (Ottawa, ON), the Canada Foundation for Innovation (Ottawa, ON), Genome Canada (Ottawa, ON) and the National Research Council of Canada (Ottawa, ON).
Though there are no plans to amalgamate the granting agencies, Carty says they have been brought together “to work to common ends with a common purpose.”
What is needed in the area of funding is to present a united front to industry, which approaches some of these agencies for grants.
“If you have many different sources of help for companies, they’re not sure where to go,” Carty says. “At the moment, there are several different funds and mechanisms for industry to apply for funding for sustainable development technologies and this doesn’t make too much sense.
“It’s duplicating administrative functions for one thing, and for another, it doesn’t present a united face to industry, which they’d like to see.”
The other group is comprised of deputy ministers from science-based government departments and agencies with a goal of improving horizontal collaboration within government agencies, and also between government, the private sector and universities, Carty says.
“There’s a view, I think, that this is not optimal at the present time, that we could certainly improve the capacity of government science and the way that science is carried out by having stronger partnerships to the outside world and internally within government,” he says.
Dealing with the public sector within Canada is one such partnership Carty touches on. Another, is an overall goal Carty’s office has made to meet the challenges of the developing world through science and technology, which stems from Paul Martin’s challenge to the research community to contribute five per cent of federal R&D to this area.
Carty’s office is currently looking at opportunities on how to move ahead with international R&D, focusing on countries such as China, Brazil, India and certain countries within Africa.
This strategy not only benefits the developing countries in question, but also provides Canada with the opportunity to build bridges with the outside research community, Carty says.
“This would be bringing Canadian technology to the developing world to meet the marketplace and to open opportunities for Canadian companies, and also . . . to access the knowledge and the ideas which are coming out of other countries,” he says.
Though his mandate as national science advisor is broad, Carty is quite focused when it comes to what his position will mean for Canadian researchers.
“I think one of the roles of the national science advisor is to be an advocate for science,” he says.
“I think it’s quite crucial that we have a science advisor who can make the case for science both philosophically and perhaps at the budget table. But also, be an advisor in the strategic sense of where the country should be going, which areas it should be investing in and where the opportunities are for the nation. That’s how I can help.”