The comments were made in a front-page article in The Ottawa Citizen during CITR's Annual Research Conference last fall and in a speech at the conference. The source of knowledge-economy people is universities, he said, and the key to expanding the university system right now is research funding. We need more professors and for that to happen we need the research support.
Research funding is the weakest element.
Mr. Nicholson also expressed concern over the decline in the number of PhD degrees granted in electrical and computer engineering. This decline starves companies of the most advanced experts, and universities of professors. The temptation of high salaries in industry is partially responsible, he said, but so is a shift in research priorities. Some have suggested the research focus of universities has become rather short-term and industrially focused, so why not go into industry and do the same sort of work but get paid more.