In this year’s National Taiwan University (NTU) World University rankings — created through the evaluation of metrics including articles published, average citations, and publications in high-impact journals — U of T has once again been recognized as one of the top-five universities in the world for research impact, and second overall out of public universities. This includes global top-five rankings in clinical medicine, neuroscience and behaviour, social sciences, psychiatry, and psychology. Barring 2022, U of T has maintained a top-five ranking for the last 12 years. 

Certainly, this achievement speaks to U of T’s continued strength as a research institution. Yet despite U of T’s place in these rankings, Canada’s overall national funding for research in the sciences lags behind our peers. 

Canada spends about 1.7 per cent of its gross domestic product (GDP) on research and development, well below the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) average of 2.3 per cent based on 38 countries. Furthermore, research funding in Canada overwhelmingly comes from government sources, with private sector participation lagging behind innovation leaders like the United States and South Korea. 

Although these rankings indicate that U of T is continuing to produce high-quality scientific research, a lack of continued financial support calls into question our ability to maintain that output into the future — and compete with other research institutes around the world.

“There’s so little appreciation for science in Canada,” said R. J. Dwayne Miller, professor of chemistry and physics, in an interview with The Varsity. He argues that the lack of financial support for scientific research in Canada is connected to a general lack of understanding of the role of science by the public, saying most Canadians “just don’t know” about our role in the science world. 

At first glance, it may not seem like Canada truly has a big scientific role from a global perspective. Economies of similar size, like Japan, Germany, the UK, and France, primarily export manufactured technology or chemicals; however, Canada’s exports continue to be dominated by raw materials, including crude petroleum and minerals. 

Canada’s ability to compete economically is primarily derived from our abundance of natural resources, more than from the proceeds of academic research and development. Despite this, Canada is still placing high in the aforementioned ranking for its quality of research, at least for the moment.

Without significant private sector support, most of Canada’s research funding comes from taxpayers. This means that funding depends on how valuable the general public considers science to be. 

So what can the scientific community in Canada do to build the public’s trust that scientific research is indeed worthy of funding? How can we create a cultural shift towards a society that believes that research is not only useful, but an integral part of the Canadian economy and our role on the global stage? These are not easy questions, but they’re also not new ones.

Science accessibility

Attempting to bridge the gap between high-level university research and the general public is not an easy task. Those involved in improving the accessibility of science acknowledge the financial barriers involved in accessing recent research and publication materials. 

There are efforts to open-source a number of academic journals to make research accessible, driven by federal mandates and institutional initiatives. At U of T, these include the Journal Production Services (JPS), which facilitates free and accessible hosting for academic work. But open-sourcing alone is an imperfect response. 

“You throw a copy of Physics Letters down on a desk of somebody, a biologist, […] there’s no way they can understand it… never mind a general person,” Miller argues. Asking the general public to understand scientific jargon risks alienating them from the work itself. In this sense, accessibility is only half the battle — communicating that jargon in an understandable way makes up the other half.

Science communication

Communicating research to the world is also a well-established goal within the scientific community. Programs at U of T, like the Science, Technology, and Society minor in the Faculty of Arts & Science, and the Communication certificate in the Faculty of Applied Science & Engineering, attempt to train students to communicate scientific concepts with the general public. 

Furthermore, student-run initiatives also have a big role in science communication efforts. For example, the Institute of Medical Science (IMS) Magazine works to broadly share medical research and train researchers to be strong communicators. 

But it’s not enough for science communication to be a skill possessed by a small subset of researchers. In order to build a lasting cultural appreciation for scientific research, a shift in the way researchers view their obligations to the general public is required.

Miller says, “If every scientist and researcher across Canada stopped for one day [to participate in science accessibility events], it would be a cultur[al] transformation [in Canada], where science is of value.”

With partners at York University and Toronto Metropolitan University (TMU), Miller founded Science Rendezvous in 2008, which now hosts events all over the country aimed at increasing public awareness of scientific research. 

Its flagship event in May — taking place on May 9 this year — is a massive street science fair at U of T’s St. George campus, where visitors — particularly children and families — are invited to interact with world-class researchers and discover science in new ways from activity booths to experimental demonstrations. Its goals are ambitious, including increasing faculty participation in science communication, reducing barriers to understanding science, and encouraging everyone to see themselves as scientists.

The value of scientific literacy in the general public is immense. It is key to ethical knowledge distribution, which is key for people to view science that is used on a daily basis — like statistics and policy — with a critical eye. 

The scientific establishment in Canada needs to understand the importance of creating a more scientifically literate public. Creating this public literacy and trust for science is also key to the support that scientific funding gets. Researchers need to value accessible science communication, understand the importance of creating public support, and play an active role in these efforts.