Thank you, Madam Chair.

Good afternoon. I want to thank all members of this committee for inviting me to appear as you study aspects of the new proposed capstone research funding organization. We heard of this first in budget 2024.

My name is Alison Evans. I'm the president and CEO of Research Canada, which is an alliance of organizations from across the health research and innovation ecosystem. Our members range from hospital research institutes to pharmaceutical companies, from med tech start-ups to post-secondary institutions, from provincial health organizations to health charities. Despite differences across these organizations, we share a vision that a world-leading health research and innovation system is essential to the health and prosperity of Canadians and the country.

One of the most important things I observed through several town halls, focus groups, board conversations, stakeholder and member engagements in the lead-up to budget 2024, in the months that have followed and in service of the capstone organization consultations earlier this summer is this: There is growing consensus from health and broader research and innovation stakeholders that the severity of our declining prosperity, competitiveness and innovation must be addressed in new ways and without delay, so much so that previously siloed sectors and organizations are lining up to work together in ways I've not seen before.

Incredible things are happening in businesses, labs, clinical trials and regional innovation hubs, but for those pockets of success and ingenuity to lead to transformative outcomes across the country, national leadership in the form of compelling vision, decreased regulatory and other hurdles and the provision and coordination of much-needed resources are essential. Now is the time to be bold. We need renewed ambition for research and innovation as a driver of not just health outcomes but economic outcomes that matter, and in so doing, alleviate the alarming and growing frustration of Canadians as they grapple with the many repercussions of declining productivity, quality of life and health.

Canada has not adequately translated its investments in research and in building a highly educated workforce into domestic innovation. Why is it that we don't have a homegrown global biopharmaceutical success story much like RIM? The top three biotechs on the NASDAQ—Amgen, Vertex and Gilead—have a market capitalization of over $400 billion U.S., which eclipses the market cap of all 129 oil and gas companies.

Look at Novo Nordisk, whose market cap at times has exceeded the entire GDP of Denmark. The irony is that this company was founded on insulin, a Canadian innovation, which they licensed for one dollar.

Thus Research Canada welcomed budget 2024's investments and measures that respond to key findings in the report of the advisory panel on the federal research support system that suggest a readiness to modernize and strengthen Canada's research and innovation system.

The promise of the capstone organization is for greater coordination and impact of the research supported by NSERC, SSHRC and CIHR as well as the advancement of Canada's leadership in internationally collaborative, major multidisciplinary and mission-driven research. The capstone organization, if effectively implemented and refined with ongoing input from stakeholders, could do even more. It could be used to strengthen the linkages between basic research, clinical research and the commercialization of research for better health and economic outcomes in ways we've not been able to achieve.

In our submission to the tri-agency presidents earlier this summer, we suggested a number of principles to be upheld in the pursuit of this capstone organization, and I'm happy to elaborate on them in the Q and A period, particularly those that pertain to CIHR and the health portfolio.

We also identified risks, including funding, the connection of health research to the health of Canadians and the system of health care delivery. We saw those reflected in the “what we heard” report, and we're glad to see them there.

We also note the critical importance of marrying structure with strategy, which is to say that structural changes in the absence of strategy and prioritization could jeopardize the intent of transformative change. Tinkering at the margins of our research and innovation ecosystem, adjusting structures, programs and policies is no longer sufficient.

What we need is leadership and overarching vision, which is why we've also been actively feeding into the work being done to stand up a council on science and innovation.

We understand that this is a challenging moment and that competition for mindshare and resources is at an all-time high. Other countries see research and innovation as the way forward. We believe that Canada has an opportunity to lift itself out of this record slump in productivity by maximizing previous investments in infrastructure, grants, programs and organizations for all types of research and innovation.