WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Canadian government’s policy of offsetting cuts in public research funding by luring private cash with matching grants has a dangerous underside to it, says the dean of a prestigious American agriculture college.
Based on American experience, it risks shifting the balance between public and private good, said Michael Martin, dean of the University of Minnesota college of agricultural, food and environmental sciences.
During a speech to the annual U.S. agricultural outlook forum, he said his college has a long history of soliciting money from private agribusiness with the promise of matching public dollars.
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“It started off being a system of public dollars attracting private dollars in pursuit of the public interest,” he said. “The balance has shifted. Increasingly, it is private dollars attracting public funds in pursuit of private interests.”
Martin said in an interview the United States went down the road of matching funds long before Canada started the journey.
It is a logical attempt to compensate for declining government support for research, he said. “But governments should understand it has its downside. We should be cautious.”
Canadian agriculture minister Ralph Goodale has announced plans to attract up to $35 million in private funds, to be matched by federal dollars. He says Ottawa will concentrate most of its funding on longer-term research.
Leads to problems
But Martin warned the drive for private dollars to fund projects that offer fast results becomes an addictive temptation.
He said the U.S. experience has exposed several problems.
It shortens the “time horizons” of increasing numbers of scientists who find private funding appealing or who have little choice.
“You get a lot of problem solving but not necessarily a lot of knowledge discovery.”
It turns “very good scientists into very bad accountants” who have to spend increasing amounts of time soliciting funds. And it makes research centres like the University of Minnesota agriculture college more dependent on private money and industry priorities.
“We are now about 27 percent dependent on short-term grants and contracts for our budget and it has been rising steadily as public funds are cut,” he said. “Our faculty have aggressively filled in the gaps but it has changed the balance of what we do and I’m not sure that change is in the best interests of the people we are supposed to be serving.”
He used the point to appeal at the conference for a national American agricultural research policy to set goals, recognize funding needs and decide what the mix should be.
He said American politicians are demanding more accountability for the results public research spending is producing, without understanding the broader forces at play.
“I fear we are being held more accountable for less meaningful outcomes.”
