The Canadian Association for Neuroscience was proud to host its annual CAN Parliament Hill Day in Ottawa on November 5, 2024.
It was a full day of meetings with elected officials and representatives of the main federal funding agencies to discuss how to better support scientific research in Canada.
Our main recommendations were
Recommendation 1: That the Government of Canada increase the core budgets of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) by ten percent annually for the next five years, as recommended in the 2023 Report of the Advisory Panel on the Federal Research Support System[1]. The objective of this recommendation is to bring Canada’s investments in research and development to a level on par with other countries in the G7.
Recommendation 2: That the government of Canada make research on the Brain and Mental Health a national priority by investing in research to understand the brain through well-established and trusted organizations in the field.
You can read our leave-behind document here:
https://can-acn.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/CAN_hill-day_2024_leave_behind_document.pdf
[1] https://ised-isde.canada.ca/site/panel-federal-research-support/en/report-advisory-panel-federal-research-support-system