In a University of Ottawa lab, Sarah Laframboise hopes to advance cancer research by studying a gene that causes the disease in humans. Her research works with a “model organism”: tiny fungi that have surprising similarities to us. “Yeast and humans share about 20 to 30 percent of the same genes,” he said. “The goal is really to find underlying mechanisms that cause different disease states.” The 27-year-old always dreamed of becoming a scientist. After a decade at the university, she is almost done with her doctorate and has accumulated about $100,000 in student debt. “I’ve often held multiple jobs at the same time to make ends meet,” he said. “When I started my master’s degree, I had to take out additional loans because then you’re not allowed to work outside the lab.” Funding for research students in Canada comes primarily through grants and fellowships from the three federal granting agencies: the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. But prizes haven’t increased in years. Laframboise earned $21,000 a year until last year, when she got a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council grant for $35,000. She’s not alone – funding has become a central issue for the campus group she leads, called the Ottawa Science Policy Network. The group says many scholarships are below minimum wage. They also say graduate students haven’t seen an increase since 2003, and postdoctoral fellows have grown only 12.5 percent in those 19 years. That’s the reason for an online petition calling on the federal government for raises. It has more than 1,000 signatures and will be presented to Parliament in the fall. At a rally on Parliament Hill on Thursday, dozens of researchers carried an open letter signed by thousands of their colleagues, printed on sheets of paper joined to make a 60-metre-long train, to symbolically present to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Science and Minister Innovation Francois-Philippe Champagne. They are calling for funding amounts to increase by 48 percent to match inflation since 2003 and be adjusted for inflation to keep pace. They also want the government to create 50 percent more postgraduate and postdoctoral fellowships. Jeanette Whitton, an associate professor of botany at the University of British Columbia and president-elect of the Canadian Society of Ecology and Evolution, said she benefited from financial support as an early-career scientist, but in today’s economic reality “I don’t think I could make it.” “I’m concerned because never before have graduate students and postdoctoral researchers been so financially constrained that their future careers are at risk. And that means the future of science in Canada is at risk.” Champagne was not available for an interview. In an emailed statement, a spokesman for his office said the value of the postdoctoral fellowships has increased to $45,000 annually. Asked to respond to requests to increase the group, Laurie Bouchard said the government “will continue to work with (the research community) to explore ways we can continue to support our next generation of researchers.” “We’re going to lose highly trained people to other locations that will pay them,” Laframboise said. “I have no ambitions to stay in academia, but if I did, it wouldn’t be in Canada.” A report by the House of Commons science and research committee published in June recommends creating more scholarships and bursaries, giving researchers a 25 percent increase and adjusting the award to match the consumer price index. It also called on the government to review and increase its funding for the three grant councils and find ways to improve the continuity of funding they provide to researchers. The commission said it heard from Universities Canada that doubling the number of awards available and increasing their value by a quarter would cost about $770 million over five years. “A lot of people my age are thinking about starting a family, getting married, buying a house,” Laframboise said. “My younger brother, he’s doing his trade apprenticeship. He’s 20 and has a lot more savings than I can imagine. So I think that just gives a really good example of inequality.” This report by The Canadian Press was first published on August 11, 2022.
