A new university research chair program unveiled by the government of Ontario is coming under fire from the province’s academic community.

The Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations is criticizing the $25 million program designed to fund eight research chairs on public policy issues because professors currently working in the province aren’t eligible for the appointments.

"There is a double irony to this program," said OCUFA president Michael Doucet. "One would expect the Ontario government, which has provided the funding, would want some familiarity and expertise with provincial issues given that these positions were designed to be research policy chairs whose findings and analysis would potentially inform government policy development.

"And it is passing strange that Ontario academics are eligible to hold Canada Research Chairs but are explicitly excluded from holding Ontario research chairs. Why one but not the other?"

The government and the Council of Ontario Universities, which jointly developed the rules of the program, have struggled to defend their decision to bar Ontario academics from applying for the chairs.

"What we didn’t want were Ontario universities raiding each other," council vice-president Jamie Mackay said of the policy. "That doesn’t make the jurisdiction of Ontario any stronger."

Ontario’s minister of training, colleges and universities said there was no intention to disparage the province’s professors.

"I’d put our professors against anybody’s," Chris Bentley said. "At the end of the process we’ll have eight more. That’s the key."

But others say the message being sent out is that there are no leading-edge thinkers among the ranks of the province’s faculty.

"They might be thinking they’re attracting the most brilliant academics from around the world, but what they’re saying is that in Ontario we don’t have any brilliant minds," said NDP education critic Rosario Marchese.

Under the program, the government of Ontario will provide $25 million to fund endowments that universities can invest, using the returns to pay the chairs.

Universities have until mid-October to submit applications for the chairs. Candidates, appointed for renewable seven-year terms, are to be approved by Jan. 1, 2007.