CAUT has sharply criticized the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada's consultation paper "From Granting Council to Knowledge Council."

Released at the beginning of 2004, the SSHRC document would cause a fundamental transformation of the funding agency.

In its response, CAUT expressed concern that the proposed changes fail to recognize the intrinsic value of basic research in the humanities and social sciences, threaten the integrity of such research, diminish the role of peer review, marginalise the humanities and tie funding decisions too closely to government and commercial interests.

CAUT warned that at a time when the autonomy of the university and the integrity of scholarly research are already threatened by the increasing privatization and commercialization of universities' facilities, resources and production, SSHRC has a responsibility to protect the integrity of scholarly research from political and commercial pressures.

According to CAUT's submission, the proposed transformation of SSHRC is a thinly disguised implementation of the federal government's commercialization agenda that the majority of academics firmly rejected when it was advocated several years ago by the Prime Minister's Expert Panel on the Commercialization of University Research.

"At a time when social science and humanities scholarship is being systematically devalued and correspondingly underfunded," CAUT noted, "it is understandable that SSHRC's plan for transformation is underscored by the hope that 'the Government of Canada will continue to substantially increase its support for social sciences and humanities research.'"

CAUT suggests, in its response, that the proposals go too far in trying to please political authorities.

"We are gravely concerned that the proposed 'transformation' is one more step towards diminished autonomy for academic research and university-based researchers," said CAUT executive director James Turk.

Already, according to Turk, a major SSHRC program - Initiatives in the New Economy - has begun undermining peer review by requiring all applications to pass a "relevancy" test, administered by a panel, including government officials and industry representatives, that decides if the application can go to peer review.

He also noted that, previously, senior officials at SSHRC had pressed for a reassessment of the peer review process claiming the agency had to engage in more joint initiatives with government departments and private foundations in order to be relevant.

"It is inherently dangerous to evaluate research on the basis of utility or 'relevance,'" Turk said. "Forecasting what basic research will be relevant has had a dismal history. The only foreseeable practical implication is the inequitable channelling of funding into particular politically or commercially desired forms of applied research.

"Certainly there is an important role for applied research, but such projects should be assessed for their merits alongside basic or theoretical previous research through the established processes of peer review."

The CAUT brief raised a number of related concerns:

• "Suggestions ... that (SSHRC) must 'renovate' its structure to 'accommodate new family members' amount to a form of double speak that cloaks a move towards the diminished importance of peer review in the evaluation of research for SSHRC funding.
  
• "The ... proposal does not adequately take into account the importance of basic research ... The document unfairly represents scholars as isolated and elitist, separated from real-world concerns and the significant issues of their communities behind the thick walls of the ivory tower.
  
• "The role and importance of research in the humanities is conspicuously absent from this document.
  
• "(The Council's proposed) 'Interactive Engagement' would see increased support for partnerships that extend beyond disciplinary and institutional boundaries ... While large, collaborative, and/or interdisciplinary projects should not be discouraged, they should not come at the expense of individual intellectual inquiry.
  
• "While projects which involve and/or represent community interests should be encouraged, demanding that scholarly research be available for direct translation into action or immediately 'useful' information is tantamount to a lack of appreciation for the critical thinking, textual analysis, artistic ventures and archival research in which scholars routinely engage and which provide the foundation for most advances in knowledge, which regularly underline major chances in society ... stipulating conditions whereby social science and humanities research are required to have a visible and direct application amounts to an insidious form of anti-intellectualism.
  
• "As part of the initiative to encourage 'elected officials to embrace human sciences as central to the innovation strategy of the country,' these proposed transformations and the language in which they are articulated betray an ideological shift from the pursuit of adequate funding for the standard research grants to a funding paradigm which conforms to a political agenda for the continued commercialization of universities and scholarly research."
  

The SSHRC paper - From Granting Council to Knowledge Council - is available at www.sshrc.ca/web/whatsnew/initiatives/transformation/consultation_framework_e.pdf.