Major Scientific Facilities in Canada: Challenges and Solutions

T.I. Meyer, Head, Strategic Planning and Communications, TRIUMF, S.M. Taylor, President and CEO of Ocean Networks Canada

Canada’s portfolio of large-scale facilities for science and technology (S&T) plays a central role in advancing the country’s ability to participate and compete in the international league in critical S&T areas spanning the natural, life and health sciences. These major scientific facilities are research infrastructure platforms for both ‘big science’ and ‘small science’: They are the base for long-term research programs in ‘big science’ areas, including high energy and particle physics (e.g. TRIUMF, Sudbury Neutrino Observatory), astronomy (e.g. Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope), environmental sciences (e.g. NEPTUNE Canada, CCGS Amundsen), and genomics and proteomics (e.g. Structural Genomics Consortium). They are also resources for individual researchers across Canada and the globe, enabling thousands of ‘small science’ experiments in many areas. For example, researchers use the Canadian Light Source and the Canadian Neutron Beam Centre to probe materials of all kinds, including biomaterials for improved pharmaceuticals and medical diagnostics.

Major scientific facilities support Canada’s innovation system, including biotech companies through research collaborations and other partnerships. A major example is MDS Nordion, a global leader in radiopharmaceuticals, which has had long-standing relationships with TRIUMF and Chalk River Laboratories in order to develop and market products which affect about 20 million medical procedures per year.

In this article, we explore challenges to Canada’s major scientific facilities and propose approaches based on global best-practices.

Canada has about $2.5 billion in capital investments in a portfolio of major scientific facilities, and that amount is growing. In the last 15 years, capital investments in major scientific facilities accelerated through the creation of the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) and Genome Canada as funding agencies through which university and hospital-based research teams can compete to secure the substantial capital dollars required to build large-scale facilities.

A recent Nature editorial describes Canada’s policies for major scientific facilities as ad hoc and fragmented.

Today, there is no single federal agency charged with an orderly management of this portfolio. Nor is there a comprehensive plan within which the stakeholders can operate, although recent developments such as the 2007 federal S&T strategy, and the subsequent creation of the Science and Technology Innovation Council, may provide a context within which to implement a national plan to support the operation of major scientific facilities and to optimize their productivity for the advancement of science and the realization of the associated socio-economic, environmental and health benefits for Canada.

The funds for major scientific facilities flow through a wide range of organizations. To build a new facility or perform major upgrades to existing facilities, capital funds often have to be patched together from multiple additional sources including the CFI, National Research Council (NRC), international partners, provincial governments, the private sector, and even not-for-profit foundations. For example, proponents of the Canadian Light Source (CLS) obtained contributions from 18 different sources to build it.

However, decisions to allocate capital funds are often disconnected from commitments for the necessary operating funds. Thus, the funds for operating and maintaining them must be found separately.

For example, the Tri-Council federal funding agencies (NSERC, CIHR, SSHRC) generally do not fund major capital costs, but do provide operational funds in some cases for small to medium-size centres.

For example, the CLS has six funding sources for its operations and yet does not have sufficient funds to maximize the use of its infrastructure. A significant exception to this practice is TRIUMF, which operates under a Contribution Agreement with the Government of Canada through NRC Funding for operating and minor capital expenses are awarded on a five year cycle based on a mid-term international peer review of performance and the strength of the subsequent five year plan. This model has been advocated as a preferred approach by other major facility operators.

A predictable result of new facilities being built without commitments to operate them is a chronic lack of stable operating funds, which is manifested in various ways, such as short-term government grants to meet emergencies. For example, CFI recently granted the NEPTUNE Canada and VENUS ocean observatories a lifeline, an award of $24 million to operate for the next two years, during which significant effort will be expended to secure renewed funding. Such short-term funding commitments create financial instability that hinders proper planning, thereby compromising the pursuit of knowledge and technologies and reducing the return on Canada’s investment in these facilities.

Without clear rules and mechanisms to apply and compete for funds that can be renewed based on performance at reasonable intervals, scientists must lobby politicians directly for support. For example, in 2009, the federal government earmarked funding of $44 million over four years for the CLS to flow through NSERC, outside NSERC’s normal competitive processes that award funds based on scientific merit and societal impact.

Another symptom of the absence of central planning for Canada’s scientific facilities is evident in today’s medical isotope shortage. The global shortage has resulted from a maintenance shutdown of the 52-year old National Research Universal (NRU) reactor in Chalk River.

The need to replace this aging facility has been known for many years, and yet no decision has been made, partly because its missions in science and technology overlap with multiple agencies and no one agency can absorb the billion dollar investment required for a new facility within its normal mandate.

Canada is not alone in dealing with these issues. Every industrialized country has developed so-called “megascience” facilities, scientific platforms, or large-facility research projects ranging from telescopes to massive parallel-processing molecular biology laboratories to supercomputers and beam facilities.

Several nations however, notably the U.K., Australia, Germany, and several U.S. programs, have broken new ground in the public-policy environment to develop procedures for dealing with major science initiatives. What distinguishes these programs is their holistic view of these facilities, recognizing the entire life cycle as well as the distinct stages (e.g., conceptualization, development, initiation, operations, and eventually termination and decommissioning). In fact, the most successful programs even develop road-mapping frameworks that compare, develop, compete, and set priorities for investments using carefully formulated and publicly available criteria.

For instance, in the United Kingdom, the Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology maintains a Large Facilities Strategic Roadmap in cooperation with all seven of its scientific research councils.

As the science progresses, technologies evolve, mission needs are fulfilled, national priorities move, and the Large Facilities Roadmap is updated roughly every two years. This list then forms the basis of the shortlist of projects that become eligible for what is called Large Facility Capital Funding. Operations and management oversight of projects is provided by the Science and Technology Facilities Council (SFTC). Similarly in the U.S., the Department of Energy now prepares a Twenty-Year Facilities Outlook that examines potential new facilities for developing, construction, and operation.

The National Science Foundation has an explicit budgetary account called Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction inside of which all major projects over a certain capital threshold are managed. Again, the key to these programs is their ability to formulate a national plan, which engages the scientific community, for selecting which facilities to move forward and a robust mechanism for budgeting and overseeing their operations. Treatment within a common portfolio grants decision-makers the levers necessary to encourage accountability and competitiveness among projects while maintaining predictability for future budgeting.

These approaches could be used to solve many of the problems facing Canada’s portfolio of major scientific facilities.

For example, priority-setting in Canada is often determined as scientific communities of interest gather around specific projects and lobby politicians directly for funding, rather than going through an orderly competitive process that is open and transparent. Thus, to propose a new facility, scientists have a “chicken and egg” problem. Politicians need to know exactly how much the facility is going to cost and what the approximate return on investment is going to be. One can do ballpark estimates easily, but obtaining accurate figures will require a rigorous engineering design and cost analysis, which may require a major investment to perform. A national road-mapping process can provide a mechanism to evaluate potential new facilities in the context of a national framework to determine whether the proposed facility is feasible and whether it is the best use of funds against other possible facilities.

Furthermore, central funds for capital and operating costs of facilities guided by the planning process would allow Canada to properly support the entire lifecycle of a facility. Thus, before building any new facilities, Canada can ensure that these facilities will be able to compete for sufficient operational funds.

Canada can learn from these practices to increase the effectiveness of its major scientific facilities to mobilize S&T to Canada’s advantage: implementing a transparent scientific road-mapping process through consultation with all stakeholders and creating an orderly competitive process for obtaining capital and operating funds in the context of national planning for the entire lifecycle of Canada’s portfolio of major scientific facilities. These are not new issues and in fact have been the focus of attention of past reports and recommendations on the management of major science in Canada.

Most recently, a committee of the Science, Technology and Innovation Council completed a review of the issues and has submitted a report to the Industry Minister. It is to be hoped that this will quickly lead to the creation of a coherent policy and program to ensure that existing facilities can compete for the operating funding required to achieve their full potential for Canada, and that proposals for new facilities can be considered within the framework of a national plan.