Federal budget strengthens university research with new funding

By Peggy Berkowitz. Universities are pleased and grateful for research commitments.
University research was a big winner in a federal budget that kept its promise to offer modest spending increases overall at a time of restrained economic growth for Canada. The $1.5 billion awarded to a new research excellence fund over 10 years is the centrepiece of several research funding commitments in Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s 2014 budget, tabled in Parliament Feb. 11. The budget also raised the base budgets of the three major federal research granting councils by $37 million, mainly for untargeted research, and gave a $9-million boost to the program that contributes to universities’ indirect costs of doing research. More...