Thank you very much.
My name, as you know, is Dr. June Francis. I'm the director of the Institute of the Black and African Diaspora Research and Engagement at Simon Fraser University. I'm also a professor in the Beedie School of Business and I chair the anti-racism data committee for the Province of British Columbia.
I want to acknowledge that at Simon Fraser University, we work on the unceded territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh people. My pronouns are she and her.
In my brief submission to you today, I would like to focus on diversity, equity and inclusion in research funding and submit that greater distribution of funds among universities of various sizes would better support these goals.
As acknowledged by the tri-agency action plan on DEI—diversity, equity and inclusion— “In order to achieve world-class research [in Canada], we must address systemic barriers that limit the full participation of all talented individuals” and “create a culture where...EDI considerations...[are] second nature.”
Likewise, the Bouchard report points to the need “to improve the underrepresentation and underparticipation of certain groups and encourage diversity across the research ecosystem” if we are supposed to address the “complex problems” we face that require “a broad range of perspectives and experiences.” Of course, as many of you know, the Canadian government acknowledged this inequity in the 2022 budget, where it aimed research funding directly at the under-representation of Black Canadians in academia.
Many universities, including mine, signed the “Scarborough Charter on Anti-Black Racism and Black Inclusion in Canadian Higher Education”—again, a commitment to redress anti-Black racism and foster flourishing for Black academics and researchers. The charter specifically calls for addressing the under-representation in funding agencies, including the tri-council and other federal funding agencies, again to address Black under-representation.
However, I submit to you that the success of all these efforts—all of the efforts directed at trying to increase the ingenuity and know-how of the broad range of racialized researchers who have, to this point, been excluded—will only actually work if researchers gain access to research grants to open and lead, in particular, new approaches—sometimes radically new directions in research—to fully represent the range of human know-how beyond the Eurocentric paradigms and subject matter that have dominated much of this research.
I will also say briefly that many of the awards from granting agencies support this idea that racialized people are, in fact, under-represented. We can go into that data if you wish, but I'll submit that we have that data.
Let me just say that Black and racialized researchers are not concentrated in U15 universities. In fact, they are fragmented across the research spectrum of universities. Therefore, more diverse funding would better address the needs of DEI in research. Innovative approaches, such as the Institute of the Black and African Diaspora, have emerged to support these new directions and to break the stranglehold of entrenched research paradigms. However, again, they're not concentrated in U15 universities. As a Black academic, I can attest to the numerous ways in which large universities have acted to perpetuate and create the very inequities in research that we're seeking to address by their processes, policies and approaches.
I want to also point out, if we want funnels, that Black and racialized students often start their careers in the universities that are closest to them because of a range of factors for graduate work, including financial factors. Many are often at small and medium-sized universities. Research funding, therefore, to these universities is essential to provide the access and support and mentorship if we are supposed to build a pipeline of future researchers to address this racial equity gap.
In conclusion, a more equitable spreading of research funding beyond U15 universities is essential to support more equitable, world-class research in Canada.
Thank you very much.