L’Association canadienne des neurosciences milite pour un meilleur soutien à la science au Canada et pour une augmentation du budget des trois organismes de financement fédéraux, les IRSC, le CRSNG et le CRSH.

Nous avons mené un sondage auprès de nos membres du 23 août au 6 septembre 2022 afin d’obtenir leur opinion sur nos objectifs et nos cibles de représentation pour les mois et les années à venir.

Le sondage a été envoyé par courriel à nos membres et sur notre site web. Nous avons reçu 147 réponses. Les résultats sont présentés ci-dessous.

Qui a répondu

95% des répondants étaient membres de l’ACN, et la majorité d’entre eux étaient directeurs de recherche.

Autres questions pour les directeurs de recherche

Quels sont vos sources de financement principales (indiquer toutes celles qui s’appliquent)

Si vous recevez du financement des IRSC, CRSNG ou CRSH, veuillez estimer le pourcentage de ce financement qui est utilisé pour payer des salaires

En moyenne 59% des fonds servent à payer des salaires (moyenne= 59%, médiane=65%)

Consultation sur les objectifs de l’ACN

Financement des IRSC

L’ACN devrait plaider pour une augmentation du budget des IRSC de

• Moyenne: 37%
• Médiane: 25%

Le budget des IRSC devrait être indexé à l’inflation

• 99% ont répondu oui

Financement du CRSNG

L’ACN devrait plaider en faveur de l’augmentation du budget du CRSNG

L’ACN devrait plaider pour une augmentation du budget du CRSNG de  (%)

• Moyenne: 38%
• Médiane: 25%

Le budget du CRSNG devrait être indexé à l’inflation

• 99% ont répondu oui

Financement du CRSH

Au cours des dernières années, l’ACN a plaidé en faveur d’une augmentation de 25 % du budget du CRSH afin d’atteindre les objectifs énoncés dans l’Examen des sciences fondamentales (rapport Naylor) et de compenser le revers de la pandémie de COVID-19 pour les laboratoires de recherche au Canada.

L’ACN devrait plaider en faveur de l’augmentation du budget du CRSH

L’ACN devrait plaider pour une augmentation du budget du CRSH de (%)

• Moyenne: 29%
• Médiane: 25%

Le budget du CRSH devrait être indexé à l’inflation

• 96% ont répondu oui

Soutien pour les étudiants et post-docs

L’ACN devrait plaider pour une augmentation du budget de

• Moyenne: 51%
• Médiane: 50%

• 98% ont répondu oui

Financement ciblé pour la recherche sur le cerveau et en neuroscience

Un certain nombre d’initiatives ont été proposées au Canada pour soutenir spécifiquement la recherche en neurosciences, en plus des initiatives soutenues par les trois organismes subventionnaires fédéraux. Cette question est liée à ces initiatives indépendantes.

62% des répondants sont intéressés à participer, montrant un haut niveau d’intérêt.

Section financement – commentaires

Cost of living is skyrocketing and in Vancouver rental prices are insane. We need to do more

Student stipends are paid for by departmental TAships and/or CG/OG scholarships. If/when I get a greater funding package (CIHR), I’ll supplement/replace the TAships.

NSERC only enough for animals, not students

my NSERC grant is 26,000 per annum.  this is not enough to pay 1 student salary.   Without  the intermittent, short term charitable grants I would not be able to conduct research that trains students.

I run a neurophysiology lab, and our university requires that we have a FT vet tech on staff.

I have largely been limited to NSERC funding (read – low funding) so cannot afford much more than 1-2 grad students who make up the balance of their stipend by TA-ing or getting what is typically a one semester fellowship.

This will likely need to increase in the future given that post-doc and grad student salaries are woefully low, especially in metro areas like Toronto.

Our institution has forced investigators to increase the stipends paid to students to compensate for increased cost of living and higher stipends. Although this is commendable, it has radically increased the fraction of our grants directed to salaries. This means lower funds for operating costs and ultimately will lower the number of positions available to trainees and reduced competitiveness of canadian labs. Institutions need to pressure tricouncils to increase funding for operating grants. not simply increase levels and numbers of studentships and fellowships, as this is noly a small percentage of the trainee salaries.

all paid from TAships

Currently, two of my post-doc are supported by their own fellowship. If they did not get them, the % will be 70%.

Currently NOT awarded any grant from the Tri-Agencies

« I have been supported for spinal cord injury research in the past by CIHR. However, for the past 10 years or so, virtually nothing from CIHR.

Currently, I receive funding from US and European granting agencies and from philanthropic donations I have solicited with the assistance of my hospital foundation.

CIHR has ceased to exist for me!

ONF another source of funding was killed this year by the Ford Government of Ontario, ONF formerly funded my research. Other Canadian charities have stopped funding spinal cord injury research. »

26000$/an NSERC = Programmation de recherche avec financement insuffisant pour offrir un salaire décent et complet pour un étudiant PhD et le matériel nécessaire pour les activités de recherche.

Commentaires additionnels

Better to advocate for general open funds. Otherwise will go to other brain initiatives that IMO are not as open. But also government apparently can’t just give to one of tri-agencies. So.. kind of moot to bring apart

increasing the number of grad student awards is good; increasing the amount (above $35K) is not. This is already above the average student stipends. Funding more students is far better than funding the same number of students at a higher amount.

As an NSERC PGSD holder who also receives additional funding I cannot imagine a student being in the position of relying solely on a PGSD award for PhD funding, particularly considering that doctoral degrees almost always run longer than the duration of the award and that the fixed value of the award leaves students particularly vulnerable to inflation risk. Even with additional funding sources my current compensation falls somewhere between 25% and 33% of that earned in industry by other students from my previous (computational) degrees who are doing similar work.

I am the recipient of a CIHR Canada Graduate Scholarship (amount received is $17,500). This amount of money, in addition to the amount I get as a research assistant, would not be enough money to pay for my expenses and to live comfortably if I lived on my own. Thankfully, I live with my parents. If I didn’t, I would need a part-time job to further support myself, which would take time away from my research and master’s program studies. I think more government funding is absolutely necessary to support graduate researchers.

I am very reluctant to advocate for higher trainee stipends if operating grants can’t ensure the same sort of increases to those without external awards; in that respect, I really think increases in operating grants need to come first since this is how most trainees are paid, and would allow all salaries to increase equally rather than exacerbating existing disparities. Further to this point, I worry about the level of solidarity and coordination across groups, whether its certain groups asking for bigger studentships or other groups asking for targeted funding. The Naylor Report may seem like ancient history but I still think it applies and should be used to guide our advocacy efforts. The issue is how to re-package it. I, for one, think of every lab as a small business, and gov’t should want to support small businesses especially those that train/employ the brightest young Canadians. Maybe this is language they could understand.

postdoc and graduate stipends should increase with each year of training/employment.

The NIH scale for postdoc salary is a better model than Canada’s

Graduate students in all fields receive stipends below the poverty line in all major institutes across Canada. Of course the federal gov’t has an obligation to provide adequate funding for research (via the tri-agency system) but focusing exclusively on governmental funding is dodging a major part of the problem, namely the institutions that are actively exploiting their ‘student’ workforce. I strongly believe that scientific advocates should lobby for policy that guarantees take-home pay for graduate students to be at least in line with local living wages (which are often determined by researchers at these very institutions!). Any scientist will tell you that graduate ‘students’ are treated and expected to behave much more like employees than students, but institutes and individual PIs are not required to abide by typical labour laws because of this misnomer. The system is fundamentally broken and the abuse and exploitation that thrive under the system are forcing amazing people out of research and causing intense harm. I appreciate all the work you are doing to advocate for us but I believe much more radical action is needed!

Happy to help this important effort. Thank you for your hard work!

I fully support these initiatives, especially re. trainee salaries.  But if student stipends increase and grant sizes don’t, then it will lead to inequities between students and/or fewer students/postdocs getting positions.

Many of the costs of research (particularly conferences) have gone up considerably more than the overall inflation rate (e.g., hotel room costs seem to have doubled in the past 5 years though inflation is nominally 5-10%).

Living the west coast these advocacy events are undoubtedly important but not practical for us to attend — travel is expensive, funds are limited!

There is not enough money to go around at every level of academic science in Canada!

I realize that asking for CIHR and NSERC to double their budget may seem absurd, but we have to look at what the NIH has done. Doubling the budget over a reasonable timeframe is exactly the type message that needs to be sent to show that Canada is serious about science.

For trainee stipends, there are multiple aspects to consider. Tri-council scholarships need to be increased to be above the poverty line and indexed to inflation, but it should be recognized that these are tax free awards. But any stipend supported through the tri-councils should also be increased and indexed in a similar way; these are simply far too low.

tyty for doing this work!

The stipends for postdoctoral fellows and graduate students should be constantly monitored and indexed to inflation

Really appreciated the petition sent around regarding stipends and research funding

Please note that I selected disagree to the student stipend question because I do not agree that more stipends should be available. However, I strongly agree that the value of those available should be greatly increased. I’m not sure if others had a mixed reaction to this question. Thank you for putting this survey together.

As researchers we need to constantly innovate our approach to stay relevant in the field and receive funding. Yet, after our startup funds and CFI/ORF grants are used, where do the funds come from to buy new infrastructure to innovate? How do we recruit talented graduate students and postdocs when the salaries we pay them (that are based upon fellowship values) are less than what they could earn as an Uber driver? For these reasons we need to increase the budget fro grants.

I repeat, my opinion is that increased value and number of studentships and fellowships is only a small part of what is needed and will not by itself solve the problem. This needs to be made crystal clear.

We need better funding support for graduate and postdoctoral researchers – fund more people and provide greater funding to support cost of living.  Most postdocs are offered somewhere between 40 and 60K per year, which isn’t even livable in a city like Vancouver, Montreal or Toronto, and is obscene in the context of a decade or more of education to get to that position.

At present, the best students are discouraged from pursuing a career in science as they see too much work and too little reward. We already see the rankings of Canadian universities falling in the world rankings as Canada spends less and less on Advanced education. Soon we will fall even further behind.

I live in Alberta so it is not feasible for me to participate in an Ottawa event

With regard to the student funding question, I think it’s very important to advocate for increased stipend levels for students. However, I’m neutral on advocating for more fellowships. More students is not what we necessarily need, as much as treating students better.

I think we should cancel Vanier and Banting fellowships and put the money into the general CGS and postdoctoral fellowships. I understand we want to promote outstanding trainees but I think it is better to foster more trainees than reward a handful of good ones (that might not turn out to be good anyways)

Happy to help with letters, calls, meetings as you see fit.