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Federal Funds and University Research
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 November 2009
Abstract
The federal government withdrew from the field of direct financial support of universities in 1967 under provisions of the new Act. Along with the full responsibility for university finance, the federal government transferred to each province certain tax revenues and a post-secondary education adjustment payment to bring the total financial transfer to at least 50 per cent of the allowable operating cost of post-secondary education. Costs allowable under the Act exclude capital costs, federal grants, student aid, and income for assisted, sponsored, and contract research. The federal councils and agencies continue to be the primary contributors to university research funds. The purpose of this note is to determine the current financial contribution of the government of Canada to university research. Much of the problem is its definition. To establish the framework for this definition, three sets of ideas are explored. These are: direct and indirect costs of university research, university research as an embedded activity, and the problem of relating university activity costs to incomes received from specific sources. These notions lead to formulae which yield divergent alternatives of the federal contribution depending upon the set of assumptions deemed appropriate. Much of the data needed for these calculations were gathered from primary sources and illustrate the application of the formulae for the four-year period 1966–70.
- Type
- Notes
- Information
- Canadian Journal of Political Science/Revue canadienne de science politique , Volume 6 , Issue 1 , March 1973 , pp. 121 - 130
- Copyright
- Copyright © Canadian Political Science Association (l'Association canadienne de science politique) and/et la Société québécoise de science politique 1973
References
1 Canadian Statutes, 14, 15, 16 Elizabeth II, Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arangements Act, 1967.
2 For a full discussion of the Act, see Cameron, John R., Financial Assistance to Canadian Universities: A Study of Provisions for Financing Higher Education under the Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, 1967 (Halifax: Dalhousie University, 1969Google Scholar). The Act is currently under review and its expiration date of 31 March 1972, has been extended two years. The constitutionality of federal equalization grants has been challenged. See “BC Challenges Ottawa on Equalization Grants,” Toronto Globe and Mail, (15 February 1972).
3 Orlans, Harold, Science Policy and the University (Washington, 1968Google Scholar); The Effects of Federal Programs on Higher Education (Washington, 1962); Rivlin, Alice, The Role of the Federal Government in Financing Higher Education (Washington, 1961Google Scholar).
4 Bladen, V.W.et al., Financing Higher Education in Canada: Report of a Commission to the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (Toronto, 1965Google Scholar); Macdonald, John B.et al., The Role of the Federal Government in Support of Research in Canadian Universities, Special Study no 7 prepared for the Science Council of Canada and the Canada Council (Ottawa, 1969Google Scholar).
5 It is argued in the Bonneau-Corry Report that federal granting agencies should make payments to universities designed to cover indirect costs of research they sponsor, including salaries, and that failing a federal-provincial agreement on an alternative figure, it be set at 45 per cent of the amount of each grant, and paid as contributions to the general revenues of the universities. See Louis-Philippe Bonneau and Corry, J.A., Quest for the Optimum: Research Policy in the Universities of Canada, Vol. 1, Report of a Commission to Study the Rationalisation of University Research (Ottawa, 1972), 94.Google Scholar
6 Cavanaugh, Alfred D., A Preliminary Evaluation of Cost Studies in Higher Education (Berkeley, 1969Google Scholar).
7 Bonneau and Corry, Quest for the Optimum, 32.
8 The conventional method is implicit in Bladen, Financing Higher Education; Macdonald, Role of Government; Department of the Secretary of State, Education Support Branch, Federal Expenditures on Research in the Academic Community 1966–67, 1967–68 (Ottawa, 1968Google Scholar); and Waines, W.J., “Federal Support of Universities and Colleges of Canada,” Financing Higher Education in Canada Report no 7 (Ottawa, 1970Google Scholar).
9 “Federal-Provincial Fiscal Arrangements Act, 1967, Post-Secondary Education Adjustment Payment Regulations,” PC 1968–615, Schedule B, The Canada Gazette, Part II, vol 102, 10 April 1968 (Ottawa, 1968).
10 Dominion Bureau of Statistics, Canadian Universities. Using the Canadian Association of University Business Officers’ definition of specific purpose funds, “These funds are recorded as income only to the extent of the funds expended.”
11 Macdonald, Role of Government.
12 Ibid., 150.
13 Ibid., 142.
14 Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, “An Exploratory Cost Analysis of Some Canadian Universities,” Report on the Study of Costs of University Programmes in Canada to AUCC, CAUBO, and CAUT (Ottawa, 1970Google Scholar).
15 This is a critical assumption. The results that follow from it, like the results of the conventional method, are only as good as it is. The assumption may have one further weakness. The problem of costing is to assign to the output of activities resources required to sustain those activities. Thus, if “total cost of research” means total cost of research activities on campus, costs of research outputs will be less than the assumed figure to the extent that “research” activities contribute to other outputs.
16 Sheehan, Bernard S., Federal Government Support of University Research and Graduate Students, 1966–1970 (Toronto, 1971Google Scholar).
17 See, for example, the role of the proposed national research academy in A Science Policy for Canada, Report of the Senate Special Committee on Science Policy, Vol. 2 (Ottawa, 1972), 467–8.
18 Commission on Post-Secondary Education in Ontario, Draft Report (Toronto, 1972), 46.Google Scholar
19 Sheehan, Bernard S., “Institutional Research As Adjunct to University Management, Stoa II (1972), 37–45.Google Scholar