The Canada Research Chairs program
In 2000, the
Government of Canada, through the join initiative of three government agencies launched and funds a permanent program named The
Canada Research Chairs Program (CRCP) to
establish 2,000 research professorships—Canada Research Chairs—in eligible
degree-granting institutions across the country.
CRCP stands at the
centre of a national strategy to make Canada one of the world's top countries
in research and development.
The CRCP invests
approximately $265 million per year to attract and retain some of the world's
most accomplished and promising minds.
There are two types of Canada Research Chairs:
Tier 1 Chairs, tenable for
seven years and renewable, are for outstanding researchers acknowledged by
their peers as world leaders in their fields. For each Tier 1 Chair, the
university receives $200,000 annually for seven years.
Tier 2 Chairs, tenable for five
years and renewable once, are for exceptional emerging researchers,
acknowledged by their peers as having the potential to lead in their field. For
each Tier 2 Chair, the university receives $100,000 annually for five years.
Tier 2 Chairs are not meant to be a feeder group to Tier 1 Chairs. The
intent of Tier 2 Chairs is to provide emerging researchers with support that will
kick-start their careers. As part of their strategic considerations in managing
their allocations, universities should develop a succession plan for their Tier
2 Chairs.
Chair holders aim to achieve
research excellence in engineering and the natural sciences, health sciences,
humanities, and social sciences. They improve our depth of knowledge and
quality of life, strengthen Canada's international competitiveness, and help
train the next generation of highly skilled people through student supervision,
teaching, and the coordination of other researchers' work. www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca/home-accueil-eng.aspx.
Selection
process
Each eligible degree-granting institution receives an allocation of Chairs. For each Chair,
a university nominates a researcher whose work complements its strategic research plan and who
meets the program's high standards.
Three members of a College of Reviewers, composed of
experts from around the world, assess each nomination and recommend whether to
support it.
Commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion
The Government of
Canada and the CRCP [claim to be] committed to excellence in research and
research training for the benefit of Canadians. Achieving a more equitable,
diverse and inclusive Canadian research enterprise is essential to creating the
excellent, innovative and impactful research necessary to seize opportunities
and for responding to global challenges. As such, the program is committed to
the federal government’s policies on non-discrimination and employment equity.
Participating institutions administer funds in
partnership with the agencies and the Secretariat. Therefore, all institutions
that accept agency funding are expected to make concerted efforts to meet their
equity and diversity targets, and provide a supportive and inclusive workplace.
This supports the goals of equity, diversity and inclusion within the CRCP and
the broader Canadian research enterprise. www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca/about_us-a_notre_sujet/index-eng.aspx?pedisable=true
Re-commitment to the equity, diversity and inclusion rule
Based on the comparative statistical demographic outcomes of the nomination and appointment processes to date, the steering committee of the program appears to be seriously miffed by what they consider to be the apparent lack of the commitment to the rule shown by the universities in designing and managing their respective programs of nominating scholars to the Chairs allocated to each of them. This lack of commitment is established by the underrepresentation of women, indigenous people, those with disabilities, and visible minorities. In statistical terms this lack of commitment is illustrated by the fact that only 28% of Chair holders at large universities are women and they are more likely to be in Tier 2 of Chairs of the program.
Consequently, in response to the recommendation in the program’s 15th-year evaluation that management should require institutions to adopt greater transparency in their allocation, selection and renewal processes for chair holders, the Canada Research Chairs Program decided to implement a new Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Action Plan.
The new plan will
focus on improving the governance, transparency and monitoring of equity and
diversity within the program. These actions will support institutions in making
swift progress towards addressing the underrepresentation of the four
designated groups (FDGs)—women, persons with disabilities, Aboriginal Peoples
and members of visible minorities—within the program. More substantive changes
that may be necessary to address the equity and diversity challenges within the
program will be considered as part of a public consultation.
In furtherance of this plan, on May 10, 2017, the president
of the SSHRC and the head of the CRC steering committee wrote an open letter to
the Presidents of the universities which have these chairs the following
letter: www.chairs-chaires.gc.ca ›
Home › Program Details
To the university presidents who participate in the Canada Research Chairs Program:
I am writing on
behalf of the Steering Committee for the Canada Research Chairs Program (CRCP),
as a follow up to my communication of April of 2016 urging institutions to make
concerted efforts to address the underrepresentation of the four designated
groups (FDGs: women, Aboriginal Peoples, persons with disabilities and visible
minorities) in their nominations for Canada Research Chair positions. Since
that time, the results of the 15th-year evaluation of the program
have confirmed that greater transparency and accountability in the processes
used by institutions for the allocation and selection of chair holders is
necessary to ensure that institutional equity and diversity targets are met.
As part of its
response to the 15th-year evaluation, the Steering Committee is pleased to
share with you the Canada Research Chairs Program’s Equity, Diversity and
Inclusion Action Plan. The action plan focuses on improving the governance, transparency and
monitoring of equity and diversity within the program. It includes actions that
will support institutions in making swift progress towards meeting their equity
and diversity targets, in addition to ensuring that the essential principles of
equity, diversity and inclusion are strengthened within the program. These
include additional institutional requirements, some of which must be met by
October 2017, and the remainder of which are due for completion in
December 2017.
We are calling on you
and your colleagues to take this opportunity to undertake a serious and
meaningful review of your institution’s recruitment practices and work
environment to identify the systemic barriers that may be impeding your equity,
diversity and inclusion objectives within the program. If an institution
fails to meet the deadlines stipulated in the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion
Action Plan (1. Public accountability: October 27, 2017; 2. Institutional
Equity Action Plan: December 15, 2017; and 3. Equity targets met by
December 2019) the program will withhold peer review and payments for
nominations submitted to the fall 2017 nomination intake cycle, and to
future cycles as necessary, until the requirements are fulfilled.
Moving forward,
program management will monitor the submitted nominations in accordance with
each institution’s equity and diversity targets to ensure that progress is
being made and sustained. If progressive improvements are not made in meeting
equity targets between December 2017 and December 2019, additional
measures may be taken. These additional measures—that are not included in the
action plan, but that may be necessary to address the long-standing equity,
diversity and inclusion challenges within the program—will be carefully
considered as part of a public consultation, which will be held over the course
of the spring and summer of this year. The consultation will discuss what
further changes could be made to the program to respond to all of the
recommendations of the evaluation.
As a federal program
that provides funding to Canadian universities in order to facilitate the
employment of individuals, program management is legally bound to ensure that
the edicts within the
Canadian Human Rights Act and the Employment Equity Act are upheld. As
provincial employers, universities are bound by provincial human rights laws,
which include very similar principles and prohibit systemic discrimination.
The Canadian
Government is firmly committed to ensuring equity, diversity and inclusion with
both the Canada Research Chairs Program and the Canadian research enterprise
more broadly, and thereby, to the creation of the excellent, innovative and
impactful research environment Canada requires to seize opportunities and
respond to global challenges. To this end, we look forward to receiving your
institution’s equity, diversity and inclusion action plan in December.
Sincerely,
Ted Hewitt, PhD
President, SSHRC
President, SSHRC
To translate this long
letter into a short plain English version, as the Globe and Mail put it, the
people running this program are hoping that the new measures would help address
the chronic underrepresentation of women, indigenous people, those with
disabilities and visible minorities among the award ranks for the Top Tier (1)
appointments.
Under the new rules,
post-secondary degree granting institutions have until December 15 of the
current year to create an action plan on how to achieve more diversity among
the candidates and then have another 18 to 24 months to ensure that the
demographics of those given the awards reflect the demographics of those
academics eligible to receive them.
To put it bluntly,
the universities are being warned that if they fail to make significant
progress towards these goals by December 2019 may end up losing the funding for
one or more of the Chairs allocated to them.
Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC) Program
In 2008, the
government through the join initiative of three government agencies launched and
funds a more elite program named the Canada Excellence Research Chairs (CERC)
Program for the purpose of supporting Canadian universities in their efforts to
build on Canada's growing reputation as a global leader in research and
innovation. The program awards world-renowned researchers and their teams up to
$10 million over seven years to establish ambitious research programs at
Canadian universities. These awards are among the most prestigious and generous
available globally. www.cerc.gc.ca/home-accueil-eng.aspx
Both the CRCP and
the CERC programs are tri-agency initiatives of the Social
Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC), the Natural
Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Canadian
Institutes of Health Research. It is administered by the Tri-agency Institutional
Programs Secretariat (TIPS), which is housed within SSHRC. www.cerc.gc.ca/home-accueil-eng.aspx
Commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion under this program
Based on the recent public statements of the Science Minister Kirsty Duncan, reported in the Globe and Mail, the administrators of the program at the university level do not appear to be showing the level of commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion expected of them by the Minister.
Consequently,
last year the Minister imposed on the universities competing for one or more of
these Chairs to submit a diversity plan along their applications.
According to the
Globe and Mail, this past May month, speaking to a gathering of university
presidents in Montreal, the Minister hinted that new measures were in the works
for a larger program, she used the occasion to admonish them for not doing more
to address this issue. The following day she told the interviewer:” When I
became Minister of Science, I made it clear that I expected the universities to
meet the equity and diversity targets that they had agreed to meet a decade
ago…For the most part, they have failed to do so. It’s been a decade and there
simply hasn’t been enough progress.”
The problems inherent to the equity, diversity and inclusion rule (“EDIR”) formulated
for the two programs and its implementation.
The Merit Principle
Clearly, having
regard to the specific objectives of these two programs, no rational person
could or would take issue with the principle that the process of nomination for
all of these chairs must be based on the relative Merit Principle that would
identify the most accomplished scholars free of discrimination based on their
membership in one or more of the four defined groups (FDGs), since generally
speaking, membership in one or more of these groups is wholly irrelevant to
nominations made on the Merit Principle.
On the other
hand, on the same premises, a rational person would certainly take serious issue
with;
First, a
nomination process that requires the demographic profile of the nominees to
match that of the potential nominee population defined by reference to the
stipulated FDGs, and for that matter,
Second, a
confirmation process that requires the
demographic profile of the nominees confirmed by the Board of Reviewers to
match that of the nominees for a particular chair or for that matter of all
those eligible to receive a chair.
The premise of the commitment to the EDIR
The premise on which
the university administrators are being required to commit themselves to this
program, stated above, is:
“Achieving a more equitable, diverse and inclusive
Canadian research enterprise is essential to creating the excellent, innovative
and impactful research necessary to seize opportunities and for responding to
global challenges.”
The first problem
with this outlandish, albeit, well-intentioned premise is that as a matter of
common sense, an equity, diversity and inclusion plan by reference to the FDGs, surely cannot per se
help attain the goals set out in that sentence and
therefore cannot possibly be essential to the attainment of these goals. Nor,
for that matter this statement is or can be substantiated by empirical evidence.
The second problem
with nominations oriented to the FDGs is that of the formulation of a
definition through which the eligibility of membership to each of these groups that
does not create inequities in the identification of the members of each group.
Even the first
group-women- that used to present no definitional problem has now become
problematic by the introduction of additional or new genders and the
distinction between gender and gender identity.
The definition
of the second group tagged -Aboriginal peoples- is even more problematic. For example, the Employment
Equity Act, one of the two legal pillars of EDIR defines the phrase as” persons who are
Indians, Inuit or Métis”, while in the text dealing with the ethics of research
into the aboriginal peoples related to the Equity, Diversity and
Inclusion Action Plan the phrase appears to be “a person of Indian, Inuit or Métis descent,
regardless of where they reside and whether or not their names appear on an
official register”, qualified by the notion of self-identification. (Italics mine)
The
definition of the group of persons with disabilities is a tricky one. For
example;
1. The
definition of disability in the the Canadian Human Rights Act reads: “disability means any previous
or existing mental or physical disability and includes disfigurement and
previous or existing dependence on alcohol or a drug” ((déficience)
2. The Employment Equity Act provides:
Persons with disabilities means persons who have a long-term or recurring physical, mental, sensory,
psychiatric or learning impairment and who
(a) Consider themselves to be disadvantaged in
employment by reason of that impairment, or
(b) Believe that an employer or potential employer is
likely to consider them to be disadvantaged in employment by reason of that
impairment,
and includes persons whose
functional limitations owing to their impairment have been accommodated in
their current job or workplace. (personnes handicapées).
Coming to the fourth
category, the Employment Equity Act defines
- the phrase “ members of visible minorities as “persons, other than aboriginal peoples, who are
non-Caucasian in race or non-white in colour; (minorités
visibles) .Then again, what
about the potential candidates of mixed race? Caucasians with darker
complexions? Or non-Caucasians with white complexion?
The third problem
with the FDGs is that, the very decision to focus on the membership in these is
in itself highly discriminatory and therefore highly prejudicial to the career
and advancement prospects of academics that are otherwise discriminated on a
variety of other grounds such as: religion; culture, gender identity, sexual
orientation; non-visible national and ethnic origin or identity; marital status;
family status; political affiliation; ideological orientation or age.
I call the
mandatory prescription to focus on these four categories while demanding the
universities to comply with the prohibition to discriminate on any of the
grounds set out in the Canadian Human Rights Act and with the provisions of the
provisions of the Employment Equity Act a perfect illustration of an oxymoron.
The fourth problem is
that based on the utterances and threats of the officialdom ultimately
responsible for the steering and management of these programs, the self-professed
good intentions are liable to play havoc with these programs.
This will be the case
for the universities that will be punished for being unable to comply with the
prescribed numerical formula by cutting their funding and consequently the
number of Chairs to which they are
otherwise entitled, and for the scholars who through no fault of their own will be denied career advancement
opportunities.
This is what I would call
to be the government’s version of cutting one’s nose to spite one’s face.
The final problem is that save in the case of Tier 2
Chairs in the Canada Research Chairs program, one of the key objectives, and in some
instances, the overriding one of these programs, is to attract world renowned
foreign researchers and scholars.
This objective
creates an inherently discriminatory process, as the local candidates qualified
as they may be, would be automatically eliminated for lack of world renown or
renown competitive with that of foreign scholars.
In those
instances, surely the “so –called” equity, diversity and inclusion rule and the
various plans designed to implement it, will become irrelevant, for the simple
reason that they are impracticable. where the prospective nominees pursued by a
university comprise men and women who originate from a variety of countries.
In the
circumstances, one should not be surprised if universities go after foreign
nationals with world reputations whenever the opportunities arise or are
created by the universities in order to avoid the hassle of having to justify
appointments under the equity, diversity and inclusion rule and plans.
To this extent,
the commitment to equity, diversity and inclusion, may well prejudice our national
objectives of promoting excellence in Canadian research scholarship by
affording them the opportunity to secure an international reputation of
excellence.
At the end of the day
I do not claim
to be an expert in the formulation of EDIRs, devising plans in furtherance of
them.
However, as a
former academic who taught at three Canadian universities it does take much
expertise of the subject to figure out that the kind of rule involved in the
present case, with emphasis on the FDGs, will ultimately
a) Either become
an affirmative action quota system whose attainment, in an indeterminate number of instances may or
will require the bending or even the displacement of the fundamental rule of
selection based on the Merit principle, in
order to avoid the potential penalties attendant failure to comply with the EDIR
and plan,
b) Or, will
raise serious problems as to the manner in which and the basis on which the
potential nominees have been assessed to be qualified for appointment to a
particular Chair.
The proposed solution
As a former
Chairman of Public Service Commission’s Appeal Boards who adjudicated, among
other matters, appeals against proposed appointments in the Public Service of
Canada, I find it hard to figure out what all this fuss and bother is about and
whether the matter needs to get so complicated as to require all sorts of
plans.
As I see it, the
sole issue in the staffing of the Chairs is to determine whether the persons
appointed to these Chairs have been selected in accordance with the Merit
principle. Implicit in this principle is the cardinal rule that the selection
and appointment processes must not discriminate directly or indirectly against anyone
in the pool of potential candidates who
wished to apply and compete for one of the Chairs or for a specific one.
First recommendation
Based on the
substance of the letter sent by Dr.Hewitt, to the Presidents of the
universities participating in the Canada Research Chair Program, it is clear
that the Presidents and those involved in the management of the program are
facing serious credibility problems in relation to manner in which they go
about the business of selecting the nominees for the Chairs.
More
specifically, as Dr. Hewitt put it: “…the results of the 15th-year evaluation of the program have
confirmed greater transparency and accountability in the processes used by
institutions for the allocation and selection of chair holders is necessary to
ensure that institutional equity and diversity targets are met.”
To any person
with a reasonable knowledge of English, the alleged need is a polite way of
accusing the Presidents and their associates involved in the nomination process
of being engaged in sharp practices, cheating the system surreptitiously in
order to secure illicit results.
In the
circumstances, my first recommendation is for the university presidents to
repeal the present process of nomination.
The second recommendation
Instead, I would
recommend the adoption of a single integrated process that would cover the
entire process of selection and appointment of the successful candidates to the
Chairs for which each competed.
The process would
be conducted by two external boards or juries or board staffed by academics with
the required qualifications to handle the task at hand.
The process
Phase I: The University
1st stage: The university
will initiate the competition for each vacant Chair or groups of Chairs when a
vacancy occurs or will occur as a result of a resignation, retirement,
completion of the prescribed term of incumbency, regardless whether the
incumbent of the Chair requests a re-appointment or for an extension of the
original appointment in excess of half of the original term.
Towards this
end, the university, will draft and publish an announcement for each
competition focused on one or a group of Chairs, where the incumbents of the
group will pursue research in a particular discipline or specialty area or
where the research is of an inter-disciplinary subject.
2nd stage: For each competition, the university will write up a
job description which will specify;
Firstly, “the
basic requirements” for the Chair or group of Chairs, as the case may be, that
is the set of requirements which every candidate must satisfy in order to
proceed further in the selection process;
Secondly, the
specific knowledge, aptitudes and skills which the candidates must possess in
order to be eligible for appointment;
Thirdly, the
list and description of the documents which each candidate is required to file
in support of the application;
Fourthly, such
additional information and documentation which either or both Selection Boards
will require;
Finally, the
deadline by which the application and the specified documentation must be
filed.
Phase 2: The first Selection Board
3rd stage: Once the
applications are in, the one or more Selection Boards comprising three members,
constituted from among the members of the current Boards of Reviewers constituted
for each Chair or groups of Chairs as the case may be, will review them and
eliminate the candidates who fail to meet the basic requirements.
Phase 3: The second Selection Board
4th stage: Upon completion of the first stage, a second
Selection Board will be constituted along the lines of the first.
Upon review of
the files of the candidates who met the basic requirements, the Board will design
the manner in which it will assess the knowledge,
aptitudes and skills of each candidate having regard both to those specified in
the job description and to the research objectives which the candidate proposes
to pursue as the incumbent of the Chair, to determine the relative merits of each
applicant.
5h stage: At the end of the process, the
Selection Board will submit to the university the list of the candidates adjudged
to be qualified for the Chair, ranked in the order of relative merit.
Phase 4: The
University
6th stage: The University in turn will
advise each candidate of the outcome of the selection process; publish the list
of successful candidates eligible for appointment and offer the Chair to the candidate
that tops the list of eligibility.
In the event, the top candidate’s appointment cannot
proceed for valid reasons; the university must then offer the Chair to the next
candidate on the eligibility list.
Needless to add that the proposed solution is the
first cut of a generic one which nevertheless addresses and avoids the problems
inherent in the manner in which the government intends to proceed.
Nevertheless, the outlined method of identifying the
candidates qualified for a particular Chair or a group of Chairs in the
relative order of merit will spare the University of the Kinds of aggravating
not to mention offensive situations in which they find themselves. Every
researcher who thinks, feels and claims to
be qualified and therefore eligible for
appointment to a particular Chair will
be afforded the opportunity to substantiate the claim through a transparent and accountable selection
process.
In the event, the outcomes of the process fail to meet
the objectives of EDIR, than clearly, it will be established once and for all
that these objectives and the demographic formula prescribed to determine the
degree to which these have been attained are counter-productive and have
otherwise avoidable negative impacts on the paramount objectives of these two
programs.
Needless to say, in the premises,
the government having caused all the raucous about transparency, accountability
and the rest must be asked to assume the extra costs of administering the new
system.
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