Piece of Mind

Can we entice India’s brightest young academic stars to do their graduate work at McGill or UBC instead of Stanford or UCLA?
Stephen Toope (who is just back from India where he was heading a delegation of Canadian universities) and Arvind Gupta (The founder of the hugely successful GlobaLink) are surely trying to keep Canada in the game.

Yes we can! and even more so with the Obama administration:

“We also need to work with our friends around the world. Science, technology, and innovation proceed more rapidly and more cost-effectively when insights, costs, and risks are shared; and so many of the challenges that science and technology will help us meet are global in character… That is why my administration is ramping up participation in – and our commitment to – international science and technology cooperation across the many areas where it is clearly in our interest to do so.” Obama’s address to the National Academy of Science

The government has just announced a six person panel to lead a comprehensive review of all (Canadian) federal programs in support of business R&D (as promised in the 2010 budget). Our own Arvind Gupta (MITACS Director) is on the panel which consists of:
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Last year’s cuts to the research granting councils, though relatively small, were magnified by their inclusion in a so-called “stimulus budget” full of spending increases in other areas.

This year, the opposite is true. Funding increases, though relatively small, are made more significant by the context of spending restraint evidenced elsewhere in the budget.

At least in part, this decision is due to the efforts of researchers who made themselves heard. Whether by signing the “don’t leave Canada behind” petition or through other efforts, researchers told the government that supporting research is important. Kudos to the government for listening.
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Sarkozy et Obama n’ont pas exactement le même discours sur la recherche. C’est ce qu’un jeune chercheur a voulu démontrer en superposant deux de leurs interventions dans une vidéo postée sur YouTube. Le résultat : un président Obama offensif et remotivant, un président Sarkozy défensif et cherchant à diviser la communauté scientifique.

• At such a difficult moment, there are those who say we cannot afford to invest in science. That support for research is somehow a luxury at a moment defined by necessities. I fundamentally disagree. Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment, and our quality of life than it has ever been. And if there was ever a day that reminded us of our shared stake in science and research, it’s today.
• We double the budget of key agencies, including the National Science Foundation, a primary source of funding for academic research.
• We cannot allow our nation to fall behind.
• I am here today to set this goal: we will devote more than three percent of our GDP to research and development. We will not just meet, but we will exceed the level achieved at the height of the Space Race.
• Thank you all for your past, present, and future discoveries.

 
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“…. the great Michael Faraday, one of the giants that helped shape our modern understanding of electricity and magnetism. He was asked by the British Chancellor (Gladstone at the time) about what was the use of this electricity he was working on. His reply was “I do not know sir, but I wager that one day you will put a tax on it”.

Taken from the accidental mathematician.

Here is a video  link to a famous speech on Research and Innovation by Sarkozy on January 22, 2009. French researchers were so humiliated that they were unified –including those who believed in reforming the system — in rejecting his plans.

Here is an open letter to the President by Fields medalist Wendelin Werner, published in Le Monde.