[ad_1]
SNOLAB employees will install dark matter detectors in the underground facility in the summer of 2023. SNOLAB receives the majority of its funding from the federal government. Most recently, he has a $102 million allocation for his six years announced in 2022.Patrick Dell/Globe and Mail
From the ocean floor to the high Arctic, Canada boasts some of the most specialized and valuable scientific infrastructure in the world. A large-scale facility will help keep Canadian research globally relevant while providing opportunities and unique hardware for the country’s top scientists.
Now, with a federal budget looming, those who run Canada’s large science facilities are calling on Ottawa to come up with a better way to fund and keep these facilities open. Research advocates say unless the government takes action, it will be difficult for Canada to make the most of the billions of dollars it has invested in research resources and plan for the future.
“We want more direct government accountability,” said Canadian Nobel laureate Art MacDonald, who conducted the award-winning neutrino experiment in an Ontario mine 25 years ago. he said.
Like other major research facilities across the country, SNOLAB receives the majority of its funding from the federal government. Most recently, he had a $102 million allocation for his six years announced in 2022.
However, due to its unusual location, more than two kilometers underground, SNOLAB is one of the most important facilities of its kind in the world, with a planning horizon extending well over a decade into the future and a A dollar-scale international experiment is planned. space there.
Given its scientific importance and the specialized personnel and systems that support it, Dr. McDonald said SNOLAB would be more prudently treated as a national asset with a budget process and a commensurate strategic framework. Such an approach is more in line with how many other countries with comparable investments operate.
Currently, the lab is operated and overseen by a coalition of universities, which must sue for continued support every few years while also seeking additional funding from the state and other sources. Must be.
In total, 19 facilities or Large-scale scientific initiatives face similar situations. .
In many cases, the impact has been transformative, said Janet Halliwell, a British Columbia-based science and technology governance expert and chair of the Canadian Center for Science Policy.
As an example, Halliwell cited Ocean Networks Canada, which has linked a series of remote undersea observatories that relay measurements via underwater cables.
“The ability to capture large streams of data without going to sea has changed the way many people conduct ocean research,” she said.
Last November, at the center’s annual general meeting in Ottawa, Ms. Halliwell, Dr. Macdonald and others unveiled how these facilities will be supported throughout their lifetime through a new dedicated federal agency. We had a discussion. They also recommended the government conduct a “roadmap exercise” to make informed decisions about what new types of facilities Canada will need to optimize its research efforts. .
At the conference, participants called for a new framework to support large scientific facilities, echoing the same message from the leaders of all 19 facilities to the federal ministers of finance, health industry, science and innovation. Concurred another letter containing. Panelists said April 16’s federal budget is an opportunity for Ottawa to signal a shift away from its patchwork approach to funding facilities.
“There’s no money in sight, this is not the year of money. But we need a framework,” Ms Halliwell said.
$515 million invested in batteries, genomes, climate satellites and Canadian research labs
Solar eclipse Q&A: Ask science reporter Ivan Semenuk your question
In response to questions from the Globe and Mail, Isabel Echeverri, Canada’s spokesperson for Innovation, Science and Economic Development, said the federal government: “We are currently evaluating how best to support these world-class facilities, which play an important role in Canada’s scientific research ecosystem.”
Department officials have been consulting with stakeholders for at least the past three years to explore a new paradigm for operating major research facilities. But the effort has so far failed to gain support in the upper echelons of the federal bureaucracy.
In 2022, an advisory committee led by Université de Montréal dean Frédéric Bouchard reviewed ISED’s progress as part of a review of the federal government’s research support system. The commission’s recommendations, published in March 2023, include a full lifecycle approach to key facilities and roadmaps, all of which are to be treated as a national portfolio of complementary capabilities. There is.
Panel member Baljit Singh, vice-chancellor for research at the University of Saskatchewan, said there are different ways to assign responsibility for a portfolio. This could be part of the Canadian Innovation Foundation’s expanded mandate. It currently provides part-funding for many Canadian science projects and initiatives, but typically not on the scale or duration required by major national laboratories. Or it could become one of the mandates of a proposed new body, named in the Bouchard report as the Canadian Knowledge Science Foundation.
Dr. Singh said he prefers the second option because it provides a natural connection point for other countries looking to collaborate with Canada on large-scale scientific projects. Another report released in February by the Council of Canadian Academies found that Canada lacks a comprehensive strategy for assessing which partnerships to pursue.
Regardless of how this issue is approached, Dr. Singh said a paradigm shift is needed to put Canada on track to participate in and benefit from future scientific advances, or else in the years ahead. “We would be in the same place we are now,” he said. It’s today. ”
Meanwhile, Canadian scientists also announced a budget to provide emergency support on a variety of fronts, including a commitment to fund the Polar Continental Shelf Program, which provides logistical support to researchers in the field across the Canadian Arctic. I’m paying attention.
And many graduate students and postdoctoral researchers face a particularly dire situation because the government scholarships they rely on have not been increased in more than 20 years.
Deep underground in Sudbury, Ontario, there is a scientific facility searching for the most elusive particles in the universe. His research at SNOLAB has already earned him one Nobel Prize. Scientists are currently preparing new experiments to search for dark matter.
gloves and mail
[ad_2]
Source link
