In this section, we provide a short description of three competitive research programs, followed by information on some of their outcomes and impacts. For the reader who would like more detail on the programs and the application and adjudication processes, consult the Ministry website .

Early Researcher Awards

Introduced in 2006, the Early Researcher Awards program provides operating funding for leading, early career researchers working at publicly funded Ontario universities, colleges, hospitals and research institutes to help them attract talented people to their research teams.

From 2005 to 2016, the government has awarded $151 million through ERA to 1,081 researchers, leveraging over $54 million in additional private and public funds. footnote 15

Dr. Nadia Mykytzcuk, Laurentian University

Environmental microbiologist Dr. Nadia Mykytzuk received an ERA in 2016 and is researching how microbes can be used to recover metals and reduce impacts from mine waste. The Laurentian University Industrial Research Chair is working with industrial partners such as BacTech Environmental, Vale, Denison Environmental Services Inc., and Glencore INO as she and her team develop novel cost-effective ways of preventing the release of contaminants to aquatic systems. She has trained nearly 40 highly qualified personnel and work has been cited by researchers in more than 30 countries. Dr. Mykytzcuk completed her Bachelor of Science at Carleton University, then her Ph.D. at Laurentian University, and a post-doctoral fellowship at McGill University in Montreal.

ERA provides up to five years of funding to eligible early career researchers working at publicly-funded Ontario research institutions to build their research teams. The program’s aim is to improve Ontario’s ability to attract and retain the best and brightest research talent. Each award is a maximum of $100,000, plus up to $40,000 to cover the indirect costs of research; matched by up to $50,000 from the researcher’s institution and/or partner organization.

To be eligible for ERA funding support, a researcher must be a full-time faculty member or principal investigator at an eligible research institution; and who was first appointed to the position of an independent academic researcher within the past five years; or has completed their first Doctor of Philosophy, Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree, Medical Doctor or terminal degree within the past ten years. The funding support is one time only.

Dr. Arthur Chan, University of Toronto

A recent recipient of an ERA grant, as a well as participant in the Ontario-China Young Scientist Exchange program, Assistant Professor Arthur Chan is investigating the role of different chemical composition in determining the ability to induce airway hypersensitivity, a hallmark of asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. As a participant in the OCYSE program Prof. Chan traveled to China in an academic exchange visiting a variety of institutions in China. He moved to Toronto after receiving his Bachelor of Science from University of Pennsylvania and Master’s and Ph.D. from California Institute of Technology.

The program encourages applications from all disciplines. Eligible applications are reviewed by a discipline-specific peer review panel, including a dedicated panel for arts and humanities. A panel submits recommendations to the Ontario Research Fund (ORF) Advisory Board, which makes a final recommendation for a decision by the Minister.

ERA applicants are required to undertake annual youth outreach activities and may use up to one per cent (equivalent to $1,000) of the funding provided by the Ministry to support their efforts.

Dr. Lora Giangregorio, University of Waterloo

Dr. Lora Giangregorio, the Schlegel Research Chair in Mobility & Aging, received an ERA grant in March 2011 to grow her team and mentor trainees in the field of bone health and exercise science, with a focus on older adults and individuals at risk of fracture. It was fundamental research that subsequently led to partnerships with other research organizations and funding bodies, resulting in international guidelines and exercises for individuals with osteoporosis. Dr. Giangregorio was awarded a New Investigator award by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Bloomberg Manulife Prize for the promotion of active health. Dr. Giangregorio completed her Ph.D. at McMaster University in Hamilton.

While ERA grants tend to be small in comparison to some of those in the Ontario Research Fund, they seem to be far more important and known in the academic research community. Many research institutions use them as a key recruitment tool due to their consistent success rates, which have ranged from 32% to 38% of applications on an annual basis.

ERA outcomes and impacts for the years 2005-06 to 2016-17

Developing research talent and promoting research excellence

  • nearly 36,000 opportunities made available to highly qualified personnel (HQP) to enhance their knowledge, training or skills
  • of the 5,963 HQP for whom clear career path information is available 61% are pursuing further opportunities at publicly funded research institutions, while 23% moved onto positions in the private sector
  • seven-in-ten of the departing HQP pursued careers within Ontario thus contributing directly to the province’s social and economic development
  • a total of 588 postdoctoral fellows have completed their training at ERA funded projects while 3,058 graduate and 3,332 undergraduate students have graduated while working as members of ERA research teams
  • 14,283 published works which have been cited over 143,000 times in other academic publications

Commercialization and technology transfer

  • 417 invention disclosures
  • 390 patent applications filed, with 97 patents granted and 104 licensing agreements
  • 16 spin-off companies formed with 41 employees
  • 3,353 instances of collaboration formed with private sector partners Youth outreach
  • 8,900 instances of ERA research team members having engaged in outreach activities with almost 245,000 elementary and high school students and over 104,000 other individuals.

Youth outreach

  • 8,900 instances of ERA research team members having engaged in outreach activities with almost 245,000 elementary and high school students and over 104,000 other individuals.

Ontario Research Fund – Research Excellence (ORF-RE)

Launched in 2004, the Ontario Research Fund-Research Excellence promotes research excellence of strategic value to Ontario by supporting the direct operating and overhead costs of new, leading-edge, transformative, and internationally significant research in Ontario’s universities, colleges and research hospitals.

ORF-RE funding is a critical pillar of the province’s innovation system. By funding large-scale research operations for leading-edge projects, the program attracts, develops and retains research talent. It is also designed to facilitate collaboration and partnerships; and to foster increased public awareness of science and technology, particularly among educators and youth, and help the next generation of researchers connect to today’s research leaders.

The program partly fills a gap created by industry’s investment in profit-driven research, promotes mass collaborations and wide dissemination of ideas that benefit the public good. The investments focus on research with demonstrated benefits to Ontario’s industry, general economy and broader society.

Since 2004, the Ministry has committed $879 million towards 242 research projects through the ORF-RE program. These investments have leveraged more than $2 billion in private sector and institutional investments. The impact of this investment to the research competitiveness of Ontario’s universities and hospitals is significant.

Dr. Barry Saville, Trent University

Dr. Barry Saville received an ORF-RE in 2009 to explore how genomics approaches could be used to mitigate fungal threats to crops. As of 2016 Ontario’s farms produce $6.6 billionfootnote 16 from their major crops, which are all susceptible to fungal diseases. Understanding the impact of genetic variation on disease development is greatly improving the chances of developing sustainable means to combat these pathogens and protect Ontario’s field and greenhouse crops, and forestry sector.

ORF-RE contributes towards the eligible operating costs of an approved research project up to a maximum of 1/3 of the total project costs, with 1/3 of the remainder coming from the applicant institution(s) and 1/3 from the private sector and other partners. The minimum support provided by ORF-RE award is $1 million and the maximum support is $4 million. For projects in the social sciences, arts and humanities streams the minimum is $200,000; the maximum is $1 million.

Dr. Beth Parker, University of Guelph

Director of University of Guelph’s G360 Centre for Applied Groundwater Research, Dr. Beth Parker, received an ORF-RE award in 2009. The funding supported research conducted by a 13-member multidisciplinary team from three Ontario universities (Guelph, Waterloo and McMaster), in collaboration with Quebec, German and US organizations, that is improving the scientific basis for expanding bedrock aquifer use, designing aquifer protection and clean-up of abandoned industrial/commercial lands to achieve secure and sustainable municipal drinking water supplies. The project trained more than 100 highly qualified personnel and published almost 120 journal articles over the life of the project. Through a number of youth outreach events across the three university campuses, more than 2,000 elementary and high school students learned about how hydrogeology plays an integral role in maintaining Ontario’s safe water supplies.

ORF-RE funds projects through competitive rounds generally open to all disciplines. In some rounds, however, priority may be given to a strategic area of interest to the Province. For example, round eight in 2015 encouraged applications in three focus areas: bio-economy and clean technologies, advanced health technologies, and digital media and information and communications technologies.

The initial step in the application process is for an institution to submit a “Notice of Intent” to submit a proposal. The practice was adopted to encourage collaboration across similar or related proposals from different institutions. After it is submitted, a research proposal goes through a rigorous multi-stage adjudication process involving external, independent expert reviewers.

Each proposal is evaluated according to five main criteria: research excellence, impact and an impact implementation plan, recruitment and training, and a management plan with measurable milestones and deliverables. It is the impact component of the application that is sometimes misunderstood by stakeholders to focus only on commercialization, when, indeed it includes a much broader consideration of benefits to society and the economy.

Dr. Emil Petriu, University of Ottawa

Dr. Emil Petriu received an ORF-RE award in 2007 to develop a multimodal surveillance system using environmental surveillance sensors. Through the project, Dr. Petriu trained 58 highly qualified personnel and created three spin off companies. The team also participated in youth outreach activities that reached nearly 100 elementary and high school students. In 2016, Dr. Petriu received the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council’s Category 1 Synergy Award for Innovation with private sector partner Larus Technologies for the Total::Insight™ decision support system. Total::Insight™ uses computational intelligence and advanced learning techniques to analyze large volumes of data to enhance the situational awareness of decision-makers. The technology has been applied to defence, security, health care and infrastructure protection, with local and international recognition and application.footnote 17

ORF-RE outcomes and impacts for the years 2005-06 to 2016-17

Research excellence

  • nearly 16,500 published works produced, receiving over 132,500 citations in other academic studies

Developing research talent

  • over 14,300 highly qualified personnel provided with nearly 40,000 opportunities to enhanced their knowledge, training or skills through the program
  • of the 5,076 HQP who have left ORF-RE funded projects, over one-third pursued careers in the private sector. Of those pursuing private sector careers, 73% did so within Ontario
  • a total of 4,332 doctoral, master’s and undergraduate students working on ORF-RE funded projects have graduated since the inception of the program

Commercialization

  • 730 patent applications have been filed and 250 patents granted
  • 149 new licensing agreements have been issued
  • 97 spin-off firms have been formed employing a total of 769 individuals
  • 980 invention disclosures have been reported
  • 1,398 new private sector and 2,996 new academic collaborations have been established

Alignment with key priority sectors

  • 89% of all ORF-RE committed funds went into projects aligned with the priority sectors outlined in Ontario’s Innovation Agenda

Youth outreach

  • just over 2,500 research team members have participated in outreach activities that have engaged more than 378,000 youth. There were just over 4,300 outreach activities specifically aimed at engaging high school aged students

Ontario Research Fund – Research Infrastructure (ORF-RI)

Research infrastructure is defined as equipment, laboratories, databases, specimens, scientific collections, computer hardware and software, communications linkages and buildings necessary to conduct leading-edge research.

The Ontario Research Fund - Research Infrastructure (ORF-RI) program ensures that Ontario’s publicly funded research institutions continue to have competitive, state-of-the-art infrastructure to engage in world-leading research and technology development.

Since its inception in 2004, ORF-RI has committed $1.2 billion towards 2,588 research infrastructure projects leveraging over $2.6 billion from federal, private, and institutional sources.

ORF-RI is designed to co-fund infrastructure projects with the federal government through programs operated by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI).

Canada Foundation for Innovation Canada Foundation for Innovation

Canada Foundation for Innovation Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) is a federal agency that makes financial investments for research infrastructure in Canada’s universities, colleges, research hospitals and non-profit research organizations. CFI manages several funds and runs various competitive rounds for funding of research infrastructure. Only research institutions may apply, not researchers or private industry.

CFI will cover up to 40% of the eligible costs of a research infrastructure project. Only eligible institutions – not individual researchers – may submit a project proposal. While the federal program does not explicitly require provincial co-funding, in practical terms there are few viable alternative operating funding sources available. Thus, ORF-RI was set-up to co-fund up to 40% of the eligible cost of a research infrastructure project approved by CFI. The institution is responsible for the 20% balance, including from its own, private and non-profit sources.

Facility for applied social welfare research, University of Windsor

Led by social worker Dr. Jill Grant, the facility was established to generate, disseminate and transfer knowledge that informs policies, programs and practices that foster and promote the welfare of our communities in four main areas: homelessness/housing, immigration, inclusive education and international collaborations on gender equity in developing countries.

ORF-RI has three main funding streams:

  • Small Infrastructure Fund (SIF) provides Ontario awards ranging in size from approximately $10,000 to up to $800,000, through three funding rounds a year against an institutional allocation. Awards are designed to attract and retain top international research talentfootnote 18
  • Large Infrastructure Fund (LIF) provides Ontario award amounts that can be up to $10 million, through rounds that fall every 18 months to two years. Awards are to support research in areas where Ontario is or can be internationally competitivefootnote 19
  • College-Industry Innovation Fund (CIIF) provides Ontario award amounts up to $1 million annually to Ontario’s Colleges. These are designed to build capacity to support innovation through regional business partnerships.footnote 20

Centre for Industrial Material Development (CIMD), Lambton College

The CIMD is a regional and provincial hub for industrial material and biomaterial development projects, ranging from developing recyclable materials to helping companies optimize their instrumentation to improve productivity and reduce energy consumption. Recently CIMD researcher Kevin Ryan and three students from Lambton’s Instrumentation Control Engineering Technology program worked in collaboration with the team from Sarnia microbrewery, the Refined Fool, to implement the new technology in their facility. The project gave the brewers the ability to monitor their tanks remotely using smart devices and automating the keg washing system which was previously done by hand. Led by Dr. Mehdi Sheikhzadeh, the CIMD received funding through the College Industry Innovation Fund of the ORF-RI to expand its operations so it can assist even more businesses across the province.

In addition, ORF-RI makes specialized infrastructure investments in partnership with the federal government and institutions in cyberinfrastructure or Advanced Research Computing.footnote 21

ORF-RI outcomes and impacts

Promoting the attraction, retention and development of highly qualified personnel

  • since 2005-06 ORF-RI funded infrastructure has played an important role in the decision of 3,356 researchers to join Ontario academic institutions
  • just over half (53%) of the new principal investigators recruited to head ORF-RI funded projects since 2012-13 came from outside of Canada; and over two-thirds of already established project leaders indicated that ORF-RI funded infrastructure played a very important role in their decision to remain at their host institution
  • since 2011-12 there have been 52,103 reported instances of postdoctoral fellows, graduate and undergraduate students having used ORF-RI infrastructure
  • a total of 4,435 technical personnel have been trained to use and operate project infrastructure since 2011-12

Social and economic benefits for Ontario

  • 248 patents granted since 2008-09 with 180 of these being granted between 2011-12 and 2015-16
  • 144 spin-off companies formed since the start of the program employing 788 individuals
  • 266 licensing agreements established since the start of the program
  • just over 7,400 public and private sector jobs have been created since the start of the program
  • since 2007-08 a total of 2,630 trainees have moved on to positions in the Canadian private sector

Research activities, infrastructure and collaborations

  • 26,578 peer-reviewed publications and 33,333 presentations have been generated since 2011-12
  • almost 38,000 instances of researchers having used ORF-RI funded infrastructure to advance their research since 2011-12
  • over two-thirds of project leaders in all five reporting years indicated that they had engaged in at least one academic collaboration
  • between 2011-12 and 2015-16 a total of 4,219 formal research agreements were struck.
  • between 80% and 90% of project leaders each year indicated that their highly specialized research equipment was state of the art

Making co-funding decisions with the federal government

The challenge for Ontario, and other provinces, is that the federal government controls timing and content of funding rounds with little consultation beforehand. In 2009, the Ministry adopted an “Ontario First” policy, for the ORF-RI Large Infrastructure Fund to maximize federal co-investments in research infrastructure while ensuring that the funding was going to projects aligned with Ontario’s strategic goals and funding constraints.

In practice, Ontario First works like this: CFI launches a competitive funding round which triggers applications from institutions make applications for funding of their research infrastructure. The Ministry provides prior feedback to CFI so that its funding decisions can be made with consideration of Ontario’s priorities. A “notice of intent” requirement for institutions was later added to strengthen and align their proposals with provincial priorities and funding capabilities. footnote 22

Ontario defers to CFI’s expert review process to establish the scientific excellence of projects. CFI has a rigorous, competitive and independent merit-review process that rewards excellence, is well established, and follows best practices. The Ministry only funds proposals which pass CFI scientific review.

Genome Canada

Genome Canada is a not-for-profit organization, funded by the Government of Canada. Genome Canada acts as a catalyst for developing and applying genomics and genomic-based technologies to create economic and social benefits for Canadians. Genome Canada makes investments together with regional Genome Centres, such as Ontario Genomics. These are independent entities that receive operational support from Genome Canada, provincial governments, and others

In addition to co-funding CFI infrastructure, the “Ontario First” approach is now also being used to co-fund federal operating programs at CFI and Genome Canada, including:

  • Major Sciences Initiatives (ORF-MSI) to help support the operating and maintenance costs of national research facilities (CFI)
  • Large-Scale Applied Research Projects (LSARP) that contributed to a more evidence-based approach to health, agri-food and agriculture, and natural resources and the environment (Genome Canada)
  • downstream research and development projects that address real world opportunities and challenges identified by industry, government, not-for-profits and other receptors of genomics knowledge and technologies (Genome Canada)
  • disruptive innovation in the field of genomics, which is defined as a new genomics-based technology or the application of an existing technology from another field, applied to the field of genomics, that is truly transformative in that it has the potential to either displace an existing technology, disrupt an existing market or create a new market (Genome Canada)

Recent funding support for Major Science Initiatives in Ontario

ORF-MSI is providing five year operating funding of $34 million to Ontario’s Advanced Computing facilities and $28.8 Million to the SNOLAB facility that can be used by institutions to match their recent CFI-MSI awards.

Ontario’s Advanced Computing facilities help Ontario’s leading researchers solve real world problems using sophisticated computers with massive data storage capabilities and computing power. This is part of the national Compute Canada MSI.

SNOLAB is a world-class science facility located two kilometers underground near Sudbury Ontario. The combination of great depth and cleanliness that SNOLAB affords allows researchers to study extremely rare interactions and weak processes in the fields of sub-atomic physics, largely neutrinos and dark matter physics.

The level of pre-launch consultation with provinces has improved, but the situation is not ideal. Ontario has little opportunity to shape the programs before launch, such as who is eligible and what costs are eligible. This includes a trend of increasing operating funding through CFI. Ontario’s goal is to maximize federal investments in Ontario with limited available funding. Some type of review is required that assists Ontario to select the best research infrastructure projects, while also avoiding duplication of federal review efforts and causing undue delays in funding decisions; and allowing the federal government to make its decisions with an understanding of provincial priorities.

Footnotes