Montreal

Scientists in Canada are feeling a rush of optimism over the words and actions of the new prime minister, Paul Martin, who says that if he was born again, he'd like to come back as a basic researcher.

Martin, who succeeded fellow Liberal Jean Chretien on 12 December, first made the remark in a recorded message to his supporters. The comment was then repeated in a November newspaper interview, in which Martin vowed to make science and technology a central pillar of government policy. “I'm making it a fundamental tenet of my government,” he told the Toronto Star.

On the day he took office, Martin named Arthur Carty, president of the National Research Council Canada, the country's main research and development agency, as his full-time science adviser — the first such appointment in Canada for 30 years. Martin also says that he plans to chair a new cabinet committee to set scientific priorities, and will work to revitalize the Advisory Council on Science and Technology, an external panel that has had a low profile in recent years. In addition, he has appointed seasoned politician Joe Fontana as parliamentary secretary for science and small business.

John Polanyi, a chemist at the University of Toronto who won the Nobel prize in 1986 for his work on reaction dynamics, says that Martin's first month in office is “a hopeful moment in the history of Canadian science”. But he cautions that Martin will have to resist pressure to over-commercialize research, especially at universities. “Our scientists are becoming less effective because of baroque schemes for milking science of its wealth-creating aspect,” he complains.

Martin was finance minister when Chretien's government reversed cuts that had hampered the three federal agencies that fund most university research, and found billions of dollars for such initiatives as the Canada Foundation for Innovation.

In a speech in Montreal in October, Martin hinted at a more commercial approach to research policy, calling for “a fundamental change in the way that our research institutions assess the economic potential of their discoveries”. But he later added that “basic research that does nothing else but expand the sum of human knowledge is sufficient reward in itself for the expenditure that government puts in.”