Canadian University Research Policy at the Turn of the Century: Continuity and Change in the Social Relations of Academic Research

Abstract

Claire Polster examines recent changes to the academic environment and the federal government's recently discovered enthusiasm for academic research. The last five years have seen the creation of the Tri-Council Code of Research Ethics, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Advisory Council on Science and Technology Expert Panel on the Commercialization of University Research, the Canadian Foundation for Innovation, and Canada Research Chairs. Polster considers how these policies will affect the reorganization of academic researchers' activities, and concludes that the injection of federal funds may accelerate differentiation and hierarchy within and between Canadian universities, possibly triggering resistance on the part of the academics who compose them.