What the Prime Minister announced was not really a science strategy, but a business

strategy – and a short-sighted, self-serving one at that. The implicit premise is that all
you need to do is drop a few bucks in this magic machine called "science" and out the
other end comes profit and jobs.

Innovation cannot be generated (and measured) with a simple, linear equation in which
research begets technology, technology begets innovation and innovation begets jobs.
But universities and funding bodies have taken to promoting this simplistic formula in
the belief that it's the only way to extract funding from simple-minded politicians, and
government has made it one of the cornerstones of its economic policy.

Surely science has greater value to society than merely producing the next widget, even
if measuring that value may be difficult. If we are to shift from a resource-based
economy to a knowledge economy, we have to invest in brain power.

This is not to suggest that government should simply pour money into scientific
research willy-nilly. But nor should it limit itself to providing subsidies to profit-making
businesses, which is what the new science and technology strategy amounts to.

Government's role should be to invest tax dollars for the collective good. In science, that
means investing where businesses won't, namely in basic research. A secondary purpose
is to direct tax dollars where there are shortcomings and great public need, such as
aboriginal health, mental health and repairing environmental damage (as opposed to
just extracting more oil out of the ground). The strategy starves already neglected areas.

Whether it ultimately creates jobs or not, innovation is a complex process. It emerges in

an environment where there is healthy pursuit of knowledge, an exchange of ideas and
no small measure of serendipity.

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The scientific environment the federal government has created is precisely the opposite:
Scientists are muzzled, more time is spent on bureaucracy required to get funding than
on research itself, and the only measure of success is return on investment.

The reality is that the government investment in scientific research has been at best
stagnant in recent years. We've seen the multiplication of targeted funds and programs
(targeted to business goals and with the express purpose of generating good photo-ops),
but not an increase in overall funding.

The main funding agency, the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, has undergone
massive internal reshaping, mainly for the purpose of getting scientists to do
government's bidding and be more business-like by raising matching funds for their
research.

The problem with this approach is that it won't result in better science or more
innovation. On the contrary, it will make scientists shy away from taking risks or from
pursuing "paradigm-shifting" ideas (speaking of buzzwords). Instead, they will opt for
projects with sure-fire return on investment in the short term, and good political optics
that ensure continued funding.

In short, the new science and technology strategy will result in the rich getting richer,
and all of us being the poorer for it.