With provincial medical insurance, Canada is ideally positioned to mine health databases and to investigate practices that would help to optimize service delivery. The impacts of such work could be huge, since even small improvements translate into large financial and social effects. Although arguments in favour of the freedom of academic research would seem to resist any priority setting at universities, they overlook the fact that broad priorities are now set with little public debate. The basic split between the funding of university research in social sciences, life sciences and physical sciences is determined by government s budgetary allocations to the three major Granting Councils. The decisions are not strongly supported by the analysis of technology trends or national needs, since such investigations have received minimal attention In Canada.
Government departments cite support of industry as a major research goal.
Research in support of regulatory activities is given a lower priority. Health Canada, for example, which has a major regulatory mandate, has a relatively low research budget. A good deal of activity across departments is oriented towards sustainable development. Little effort, however, has historically been made to coordinate sustainable development activities and to link them to university research. If Canada is to contribute important public goods for international consumption this would be an area where the nation could excel.