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The budget may have ended 14 years of deficit cutting and freed Canada to consider new science initiatives (see Nature 392, 7; 1998). But if science is to profit, hard choices have to be made and clear priorities set, as there will be stiff competition for the C$70 billion (US$49 billion) surpluses expected over the next three years.

This theme emerged from a colloquium on federal government support for science organized by the University of Ottawa's Program of Research on International Management and Economy (PRIME).

Robert de Cotret, a former president of the government's Treasury Board and now a faculty member of the university, spoke of February's budget as a “watershed” that enabled the government to consider projects formerly unthinkable. De Cotret also said the present government had shown a strong commitment to science and technology.

But other speakers agreed with Howard Alper, the university's vice-rector of research, who said that “putting money on the table will accomplish nothing” for science. Specific proposals were needed.

Alper's own proposals included:

•more collaboration between the three research councils that provide grants — what he called “tri-council partnerships”;

•focusing research priorities on areas important to economic development, such as biopharmaceuticals, materials, information technology, and food and agriculture;

•making strategic investments in international science and technology;

•allowing cash contributions by foreign companies to university-industry partnerships, partly to promote job creation;

•developing a programme to repatriate established, mid-career Canadian scientists now working abroad.

Dan Lane, the university's vice-dean of administration, complained that a lack of direction in both the fisheries and oceans and environment departments had led to confusion about goals for science.

There was general praise for the budget's restoration of council funding to 1995 levels and the establishment of the Millennium Scholarship Fund. But J. Stephan Dupré, president of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, called the councils' increases mere “damage control”.

Dupré said a big question was whether provincial governments would provide enough operating support for universities, citing scientific manpower shortages which universities were unable to correct.

Further caution was added by Don McDiarmid, of the Canadian Association of Physicists, who warned delegates not to expect industry to invest in basic research because it is not in its own interest. And Gilles Paquet, professor of public policy and management at the university, said that he saw “no action” on science in the budget and no evidence that Ottawa was seriously “looking at anything except infrastructure”.

Moreover, he said, Canadian scientists were not helpful. “We still have a scientific community that is to a great extent corrupted by [the view that government should simply] send the money and not ask any questions,” Paquet said.