President's Report, June 1998

Ottawa Conference Highlights /Update

Many of us have just returned from our very successful and enjoyable 8th annual BBCS meeting at Carleton, splendidly organized by Chris Herdman and his committee. Over the two and half days of the meeting more than 325 participants attended, representing 43 different Canadian universities and a dozen more universities in the U.K. Brazil, France, USA, Germany, Australia, and Ireland. There were 258 presentations, a Mike Masson-led workshop, and the BBCS Hebb Awards were given for the first time this year.

The Keynote address was given by the Donald O. Hebb Distinguished Contribution Award winner, Gus Craik. Two Hebb Graduate Student Awards (for best paper or poster at the meeting) were made, and they went to Chris Sturdy (Queen's University) and Penny MacDonald (University of Toronto at Scarborough). There were an extraordinary number of outstanding student presentations and the committee trying to adjudicate the awards (1) argued that there had to be two awards this year, and (2) asked that Glen Bodner (Victoria), Vicki LeBlanc (McMaster), Bonnie Sonnenschein (Concordia), and Lianne Stanford (Dalhousie) be identified as "honourable mentions " in this regard.

During the Annual General meeting (the minutes will soon be on our web page, www.carleton.ca/bbcs), it was gratifying to hear that, to date, 1998 paid BBCS memberships were up 65% from those of 1997, and that the cash position of the society had also improved by 50% this past year. The decisions by NSERC (www.nserc.ca) to increase all research operating grants by 10% and to add 10 million dollars to the reallocation pool were lauded (see Appendix 1). It became clear at the meeting that many of us were not fully aware of the impact of the budgetary allocation. In brief, all our NSERC research grants have been increased by 10% as of April 1st, 1998. Details can be found on the NSERC web page. All BBCS members were asked to join the BBCS executive and the GSC 12 itself in writing thank you notes to both NSERC and their political masters (see Appendix 2).

The NSERC GSC 12 Reallocation Committee (Kolb (c), DiLollo, Herdman, MacLeod, and Stewart) also received praise for their report (on our webpage) and, as it has turned out, that praise was more than justified. Preliminary reports of the results of the reallocation competition indicate that our GSC (which contributed $926,000 to the pool) will draw $1,718,105 from it. This is a 9.35% increase. Given the 10 M. added to the pool from the increase to NSERC's budget, a 5% increase would have indicated that we held our own. Obviously we were judged to deserve more than an average share ).

Lorraine Allan and Pierre Jolicoeur were elected to replace Vince Di Lollo and Don Read on our Executive committee which now consists of Lorraine, Pierre, Richard Brown, Chris Herdman, Richard Tees and Jane Stewart. We also heard from Lorraine Allan, the new GSC 12 Chair, and Richard Brown our new BBCS president. While their remarks were brief, they certainly helped underline the fact that our organization and the GSC 12s' future is in capable hands.

Our next meeting is in Edmonton (June 18-19 1999) ,and the joint meeting with EPS in Cambridge, U.K. is set for July 19-22, 2000).

Cheers, Richard

Appendix 1

Dear Prime Minister,

On behalf of the Canadian Society for Brain, Behaviour, and Cognitive Science and of the Canadian researchers funded by NSERC's GSC 12 (experimental psychology), we express our deep appreciation for the significant increase in funding for Canadian science. The new funds will be devoted principally to postgraduate student salaries and to improving the research environment. This will help stem the exodus of some of our best minds to other countries, and will ensure that the Canadian public will continue to receive the best that advanced education has to offer.

The response of our research community has been uniformly laudatory and optimistic. There is no question that your enlightened budgetary action has been perceived as a key factor in enhancing the training of the next generation of scientists and as a boost to the implementation of cutting-edge research that will keep Canada competitive on the global scene.

Canadian experimental psychologists funded by NSERC have made outstanding contributions which have been put to productive use in the economy, and have impacted positively on the standard of living in Canada and around the world. Amongst them are discoveries relating to the role of catecholamines in recovery from stroke, and learning models of nausea to food after chemotherapy. These, as well as other Canadian discoveries, such as those concerning the influence of the dopamine systems on reward and memory, have been implemented in biotechnology applications.

Innovative research such as this will continue to be conducted in Canada, thanks to your forward-looking science policies and thoughtful stewardship of Canada's human capital. For our part, we renew our expression of gratitude for the recognition and support of our work, and we pledge to pursue, vigorously and creatively, both our teaching and research endeavours.

Sincerely yours

Richard Tees, President, CSBBCS

Lorraine Allan, Chair, NSERC GSC 12

Appendix 2

Dear Members of BBCS,

NSERC's response to the increased funding from the Federal Government must be regarded as enlightened. The substantial increment in the funds allocated to the Research Grants Program testify to the high regard in which NSERC holds that programme, and to its importance in the national research endeavour. This stands in stark contrast to past policies aimed at downgrading or even eliminating the Research Grants Program. Simply put, when NSERC's budget was increased this year, it decided to increase every existing operating grant by 10% (cost 20M.) and put an extra 10M. into the reallocation "pool"(raising it from 20M. to 30M).The fact that we (GSC 12 )did well in the Reallocation Exercise is a bonus. What is clear is that NSERC has demonstrated exactly the kind of priority setting we have said we wanted them to show and hence they deserve to receive our praise i.e. letters.

In announcing the funding decision, Tom Brzustowski, the President of NSERC, wrote as follows:

"I hope that members of the research community will join me in thanking the PM and the Ministers [i.e., the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Industry, and the Secretary of State (Science, Research and Development)] for the decisions in the 1998-99 budget by writing their own individual letters of appreciation, and writing them promptly. I am sure that the ministers would be interested to hear about the letter writer's own research, and about the impact of the support received through NSERC."

We urge all members of BBCS to show our appreciation by writing to the Ministers, with copy to Tom Brzustowski. His address is:

It's important that we communicate with NSERC and with the Government not only when we want to express our concerns, as we did a few years ago, but also when we wish to convey our appreciation for their efforts on behalf of the researchers of Canada.

The addresses of the relevant politicians are listed below. Let them hear from us!

Richard Tees, President, BBCS

Lorraine Allan, Chair, NSERC GSC 12

The Rt. Hon. Jean Chretien., Prime Minister

The Hon. Paul Martin, Minister of Finance

The Hon. John Manley, Minister of Industry

The Hon. Ron Duhamel, Secretary of State (Science, Research and Development)

 

The members of the Liberal Caucus on Postsecondary Education are:

 

Reg Alcock

Andrew Telegdi

Claudette Bradshaw

Stan Keyes

Ted McWhinney

John Godfrey

Rey Pagtakhan

Peter Adams

Raymonde Folco

All of the above can be reached at:

Since they are all MPs you don't need any postage.

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