Finance minister Jim Flaherty and Prime Minister Stephen Harper give a thumbs up to science. Credit: B. Gable/REUTERS

While many nations are slashing science funding in austerity budgets, Canada's financial plan for the coming year defies the trend, leaving most scientists grudgingly happy with the results.

The federal budget for 2010–11, unveiled on 4 March, provides modest increases for the major science funding agencies, after a cut last year (see Nature 457, 646; 2009), and makes important investments in postdoc appointments. It means that Canada will probably keep its ranking as the top spender on science among the G7 leading industrialized countries, in terms of how much of its gross domestic product it invests in university research and development. The budget is seen by many as an attempt to placate a scientific community outraged by last year's cuts, and an acknowledgement of the importance of science to job creation.

The country's three main granting councils — the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada — together received a Can$32-million (US$31-million) annual boost. But that doesn't make up for last year's cut of Can$43 million, and it leaves NSERC's annual billion-dollar budget relatively flat. "We're profoundly disappointed," says James Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers in Ottawa, Ontario. "In real dollar terms they're behind where they were last year."

Others see the results in a better light. "When I look at the extent of restraint that the government has had to apply to manage a deficit, we are one of the only areas that has come out on top," says Indira Samarasekera, president of the University of Alberta in Edmonton. "I declare these increases as absolutely a victory."

The budget also creates a Can$45-million competitive postdoc programme (see table), with a stipend of Can$70,000 per year for 140 recipients. That might not sound like a lot of postdocs — it is about 10% of the University of Toronto's allocation alone, says Turk — but the high pay means that the programme should be able to attract young stars from around the globe. "It allows us to go after absolutely the best," says Samarasekera.

TRIUMF, Canada's national laboratory for particle physics at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, received the same amount in this budget as it did in its last five-year instalment, says director Nigel Lockyer. "Given the [financial] environment, we're extremely pleased with what we've got." The lab will have to cancel some projects, but it will still be able to focus on its two priorities: collecting data from the Large Hadron Collider at CERN, Europe's particle-physics centre in Geneva, Switzerland, and expanding its nuclear-medicine programme. TRIUMF also hopes to benefit from a new, Can$48-million pot for technologies to replace Canada's troubled medical-isotopes facilities (see Nature 460, 312–313; 2009).

Forestry focus

On environmental issues, the budget builds on last year's Economic Action Plan (which included a billion dollars each for clean energy and green infrastructure) with, for example, Can$100 million over four years to develop clean-energy production in the forestry sector. Genome Canada, which was neglected in last year's budget, has been given money specifically for forestry and environmental work.

One of the biggest winners is the Canadian Space Agency, with Can$397 million to develop the RADARSAT constellation of three Earth-monitoring satellites planned for launch in 2014. Another Can$18 million will go towards designing a promised High Arctic Research Station. The Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences was not so fortunate, however. Established by the federal government in 2000, the foundation has been pumping some Can$10 million a year into climate research and outreach, roughly on a par with recent NSERC climate-science grants. But its funding has not been renewed, and its projects will now have to wind up over the coming year. "It is a very serious body blow to climate research in Canada," says Tom Pedersen, director of the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions in Victoria, British Columbia.

The budget also announces plans for a comprehensive review of all federal support of research and development. A negative review could spell trouble for science, especially in light of further national belt tightening, says Paul Dufour, a science-policy expert with the International Development Research Centre in Ottawa, Ontario. "Next year and beyond we're going to really start to see the hit."

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