Thank you for the opportunity to appear before this committee on science and research today. It's an honour to share my experiences on how federal funding criteria impact research excellence in Canada.

Public investment in research is vital for advancing knowledge, solving complex problems and training future researchers. However, evaluating proposals is challenging. Reviewers aim to fund research that positively impacts Canadians through innovation, evidence and creativity, and in ways that improve our understanding of the world, quality of life and equity.

Conventional measures of excellence often focus on quantitative indicators like the number of grants, publications, awards and scholarships; the number of students graduated; an individual's track record; and proposal strength. While these do reflect academic productivity, they don't always capture real-world impacts, such as informing policy and community decisions, improving health and education practices and outcomes, supporting economic growth, advancing reconciliation, and promoting environmental sustainability and social equity. Researchers highlight these impacts in applications, but measuring them remains difficult, and this creates challenges for rigorous, fair and consistent approaches to evaluation.

My name is Gita Ljubicic. I'm a professor in the school of earth, environment and society at McMaster University, and I lead the StraightUpNorth, or SUN, research team. I'm a geographer, trained in both natural and social sciences, working at the intersection of cultural and environmental geography. My research is rooted in respectful collaboration with indigenous knowledge holders to address complex social and ecological issues. For over 25 years I've worked primarily with Inuit communities in Nunavut, and, through students and collaborators, I've been involved in projects across Inuit Nunangat—which are Inuit homelands in the Canadian Arctic—and with first nations and Métis communities in Yukon and Northwest Territories. Our SUN team aims to ensure that research benefits our community partners, informs decision-making, improves research practice and supports emerging northern researchers.

My recommendations here today reflect personal experience in community-engaged and interdisciplinary research. Federal funding criteria must include qualitative indicators that rigorously and fairly assess research excellence. I have experience working with NSERC, SSHRC, CIHR—receiving those funds as well as reviewing applications—and interdisciplinary initiatives through the tri-council, Environment and Climate Change Canada, and Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs Canada.

Funding policies have evolved to better support interdisciplinary research, EDI initiatives, indigenous leadership partnerships, early career researchers, mentorship, and knowledge mobilization. However, alongside these important policy changes, targeted funding opportunities and new requirements in proposals, the conventional quantitative and academic focus metrics of excellence need to be re-envisioned.

There are six ways that I propose this can be achieved, and I would be happy to expand on any of these today or in follow-up written testimony. My suggestions are to ensure the representation of reviewers with direct cultural or community-specific experience in funding evaluation committees; to ensure the representation of early career researchers as reviewers for early career research-specific funding pools; to consider the amount of time dedicated to community-engaged and partnership research when assessing the rationale, methodology, budget and claims of significance in a proposal; to extend consideration of training and mentorship contributions beyond academic, highly qualified personnel; to assess partnerships according to their diversity of roles, strengths of relationships and evidence of collective planning and implementation; and to recognize that knowledge mobilization goes beyond academic audiences and public outreach.

In the few minutes I've had today, I've offered these six specific recommendations to refine how federal research funding is assessed and allocated.

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