Renewal of classroom and laboratory facilities and equipment also must be central to this effort, and a priority in any SuperBuild funds received by Western. On the other hand, the considerable faculty energies required to maintain and expand an extensive research infrastructure, and to compete favourably for the externally derived funds, that underpin any research-intensive enterprise, must be protected, sustained and further encouraged. Science is an essential and significant platform for future economic growth. Science is also expensive, and requires a disproportionate share of resources compared to many other university-based disciplines to fuel its growth. We must be prepared to make increased investment if success in science is to be a University priority.
Science produces ideas that spawn new technologies and other applications of knowledge.
This requires co-operative planning and budgeting among Faculties and their Deans, beginning at the earliest stages of project development. Our task is to identify the best people and the projects that make the greatest scientific sense and to do so with great dispatch and a real sense of excitement. I am still digesting the Provost s preliminary budget announcement for 2000-01, and will report to you on the details for the Faculty of Science in the near future. However, it is fair to say that the Faculty will remain no less strapped for resources in the coming year than it is in the current year. Be that as it may, we will take the actions that we can within a base-budget of about the same as last year.