I am responding, on behalf of the Medical Research Council (MRC), to a letter from A. Berezin and others which appeared in the September 1997 issue of the CAUT Bulletin. That letter makes a number of serious, albeit unsubstantiated allegations about the allocation of research funding by the federal granting councils.

The authors charge there is "almost complete monopolization of research funding by a relatively small group of privileged grantees." MRC provides 1,646 investigators with operating support, and 1,793 individuals with salary support at various stages of their careers. Is this a "small group" of scientists? Indeed, MRC has tried to preserve the number of funded investigators, in the face of successive budget cuts by applying across-the-board reductions to the dollar awards recommended by its review panels.

However, there comes a point when further cuts in dollar awards prevent any grantees from conducting the significant work they proposed, and this would indeed be a waste of public money. Yet a broader distribution of smaller amounts of research support seems to be what Berezin et al. are advocating. They contend that the Councils' policies have been "devastating to the competitiveness of Canadian researchers on the international scene."

How would providing more researchers with trivial awards, which do not permit them to compete against the best international laboratories, reverse this alleged devastation of international competitiveness?

The second area of complaint from the authors focuses on the peer review process. It is criticized as being "secretive." Of course it is! Funding applications have to be treated in confidence, because no researchers would want their untested ideas appropriated by competitors.

The review of MRC funding applications in 1996-97 involved 450 members of peer review committees, and about 1,500 external referees per competition. Bulletin readers should know that applicants receive the uncensored comments of the reviewers so that they can provide a rebuttal and use the constructive comments for the next competition if they choose to re-submit an improved submission.

With this review process spread across the entire Canadian health research community, and including over 500 international reviewers, it is a tribute to the discretion of our colleagues that the process does remain so confidential.

In 1996, the MRC strengthened its policies to reduce even further any perception of conflict of interest in the review process. As before, review panel members must leave the room and abstain from voting when grants from their own institutions and from collaborators or associates are adjudicated. Now, members of panels are disqualified from serving during any competitions when their own grants are under review.

Berezin et al. would go further: all MRC grantholders would be disqualified from serving on review panels. While such panels might be free of conflict of interest, they would certainly be deficient in expertise. Berezin's proposal would eliminate those best qualified to provide expert peer review. Again, it is hard to see how this would improve the "contribution Canadian scientists are making to Canada."

The authors also complain about lack of accountability of the granting councils. In the case of the MRC, the authors should know that in 1996, the Council asked a distinguished international review panel to review the effectiveness of its programs, policies and relationships with other participants in health science research.

The panel concluded that the MRC is "an outstanding agency under dynamic and imaginative leadership doing first rate, internationally significant work in increasingly challenging circumstances. It fully merits the loyalty and support of the research community and the confidence placed in it by the government and people of Canada." In the spirit of openness that characterizes the MRC, the full text of the review was made available on the MRC's web site (http://wwwmrc.hc-sc.gc.ca/ir/rpt/toc.html).

Many able researchers and much good science remain unfunded by the MRC and NSERC when their budgets are cut. It is unfortunate that some are so embittered by this experience that they attack the granting councils as if they were the problem. The MRC has identified a "funding gap" between what it is able to fund, and what the researchers on its review panels would like to fund. This gap is about $80 million, and will rise to over $200 million in four years unless the decline in its budget is reversed.

Like all of us, Berezin et al. want to see improvements in Canadian science. Their best approach is to stop publicly attacking their colleagues who are the members and reviewers of the research councils and join them in making the public and decision-makers aware of the negative consequences of cuts to the councils' budgets.

Mark A. Bisby
Director, Programs Branch, Medical Research Council of Canada