The Veterinary Infectious Disease Organization has run out of room.
So now the internationally renowned centre for livestock disease research is looking for money to finance a major expansion of its facility on the campus of the University of Saskatchewan.
“We’re working on a plan to double our physical space capacity,” VIDO director Lorne Babiuk said last week.
Preliminary blueprints have been drawn up for the $13 million project and a business plan is being prepared.
The expanded facility could be used to expand not only VIDO’s floor space, but also the scope of its research.
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“Part of what is seen to be attractive to potential funders is the potential link between what we can do in veterinary medicine and how that can be applied to human medicine,” he said.
If VIDO’s board of directors approves the business plan at its Jan. 21 meeting, the organization will apply for financial assistance from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, an arm’s length funding organization established by the federal government.
It provides funds on a 40/60 cost-shared basis. VIDO will be looking to the provincial governments of Saskatchewan and Alberta to provide the matching funds.
The 25-year-old building that now houses VIDO was built to accommodate 50 employees. There are 85 on staff. If the expansion goes ahead, that would swell to about 120.
Babiuk said cramped quarters are affecting VIDO’s ability to conduct needed research.
“We have all kinds of opportunities for getting projects and funds that would support the things we’re doing, but we don’t have the space or the ability to pay the people,” he said.
Outside support
VIDO’s annual budget is about $6 million, with about half of that going to salaries. The non-profit organization has no guaranteed year-to-year funding. Instead it operates through donations and grants from a variety of sources including research funding agencies, private sources, livestock producer groups and governments. The university provides services and pays the director’s salary.
Babiuk said the organization faces an ongoing funding problem because most organizations want their money to be used to finance only specific research projects, and often direct that it not be used to pay salaries or other administrative costs.
“We can get grant money to do the projects quite easily, but we can’t get the grant money to pay the people to do it,” he said. “People need to recognize that you can’t run an organization without some infrastructure support for salaries.”
He said he hopes producer groups and others will be more willing to provide core funding, rather than project funding, and let VIDO use the money as it sees fit.
