Monday 15 July 2013

Business emphasis at research council has Canada’s scientists concerned

The wirte up about funding cuts for basic science in Canada, this time is in Physics Today: http://www.physicstoday.org/resource/1/phtoad/v66/i7/p26_s1?bypassSSO=1 "Unveiled on 7 May, the new structure of the NRC has been in the making since the release nearly two years ago of the government-commissioned report Innovation Canada: A Call to Action, which said Canada should identify strategic areas, streamline its interactions with companies, and focus more on commercialization. The NRC response includes a reorganization from 21 independent institutes into 12 R&D portfolios falling into the three categories of engineering, emerging technologies, and life sciences. In the process, the NRC has shed at least two institutes: A medical diagnostics center in Manitoba was closed, and in April the Canadian Neutron Beam Centre was transferred to Atomic Energy of Canada. “This refocused NRC, with a business-led innovation mission, is pivotal to the future of Canadian jobs, economic growth, and our long-term prosperity,” said Gary Goodyear, minister of state for science and technology.".... "Goodyear compares the refocused NRC to Germany’s Fraunhofer organization, a network of applications-oriented institutes. “In some sense that’s fine,” says Simon Fraser University biophysicist John Bechhoefer. “But what they don’t say is that Germany still has and funds the Max Planck Institutes. We don’t have anything like the Max Planck.”"

No comments:

Post a Comment