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Federal Scientific Activities, 2007/2008

Federal extramural expenditures

This section focuses on the federal government’s extramural S&T expenditures, that is, expenditures outside its own research centres. The section presents the total payments to business enterprises, higher education sector, Canadian non-profit institutions, provincial and municipal governments, foreign performers and other performers. In 2007/2008, the federal government will be earmarking $4.6 billion, or 48% of its total S&T spending, to extramural activities. The main beneficiaries will be universities ($2.9 billion) and business enterprises ($1.1 billion). In addition, private non-profit institutions will receive $252 million, foreign performers $309 million and others, including individuals and provincial and municipal governments, will receive $68 million. (Tables 1-6 and 3-1)

Business enterprises

1. Federal S&T funding in the industry sector will be approximately $1.1 billion in 2007/2008, an increase of 1.8% from planned expenditures in 2006/2007. (Table 3-1) Industry Canada ($293 million), Canadian International Development Agency ($191 million) and National Defence ($138 million) will be the major funders in 2007/2008. (Table 3-2)
2. R&D payments in 2007/2008 will be $732 million, a decrease of 0.7% from the $737 million allocated in 2006/2007. (Table 3-1)
3. In 2007/2008, the Canadian Space Agency will be spending $101 million, 48% of the R&D contracts total, followed by the Department of National Defence at 32% or $67 million. (Table 3-4)
4. Industry Canada payments in the form of R&D grants will amount to $292 million or 56% of the total, followed by the National Research Council of Canada at 18% or $92 million. (Table 3-4)

Higher education

1. In 2007/2008, the higher education sector will receive $2.6 billion in funding for R&D activities and $280 million for RSA. The three research councils - the Canadian Institutes of Health Research ($784 million), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council ($725 million), and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council ($489 million) - along with the Canada Foundation for Innovation ($430 million) will be the major federal government funders of R&D performed by the higher education sector. (Table 3-3)
2. The Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research will be the largest federal government funders of higher education sector. Their combined spending will account for over 58% of the total R&D that will be funded to the higher education sector. (Table 3-4)

Foreign performers

1. Federal S&T payments in 2007/2008 to the foreign performers sector will be approximately $309 million. (Table 3-7)
2. The Canadian International Development Agency ($102 million), the International Development Research Centre ($76 million) and the Canadian Space Agency ($43 million) will be the main federal government funders of S&T activities to foreign performers and will account for 72% of all S&T spending in this sector ($309 million). (Table 3-7)

Federal personnel

This section presents data on personnel (in person-years) allocated to S&T activities. A person-year is a measure of the time actually devoted to the conduct of scientific activities. An employee who is engaged in scientific activities for half a year has a person-year full-time equivalence (FTE) of 0.5 person-year. Personnel statistics for 2007/2008 are based on the plans of departments and agencies at the beginning of the fiscal year.

1. In 2007/2008, 35,555 federal government person-years will be devoted to S&T activities, a 2.4% increase from the 34,707 person-years reported in 2003/2004. The majority (56%) of person-years will be engaged in RSA in 2007/2008. (Table 4-1)
2. The natural sciences and engineering field will account for 70% of the estimated total personnel expenditures in 2007/2008, of which 59% will be engaged in R&D. In contrast, personnel in the social sciences and humanities will account for 30% of the total, only 7% of which will be engaged in R&D. (Table 4-1)
3. A breakdown of S&T personnel by category identifies the Scientific and Professional category as the largest, with 46% of all personnel in 2007/2008 falling into this category. It should be noted that Statistics Canada will remain the largest employer of S&T personnel with 5,177 person-years. (Tables 4-5 and 4-11)
4. In 2007/2008, the federal departments and agencies that will allocate the largest number of personnel (person-years) to S&T activities will be Statistics Canada (5,177 person-years), the National Research Council of Canada (4,044 person-years), Environment Canada (3,576 person-years) and Natural Resources Canada (3,177 person-years). These institutions will account for 45% of the total person-years assigned to federal S&T activities. (Table 4-5)
5. In 2007/2008, the federal departments and agencies that will allocate the largest number of personnel (person-years) to R&D activities will be the National Research Council of Canada (3,593 person-years), Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada (2,142 person-years), Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (1,570 person-years) and National Defence (1,416 person-years). These institutions will account for more than 56% of the total person-years assigned to federal R&D activities. (Table 4-9)
6. In 2005/2006, personnel performing S&T activities in federal institutions accounted for 35,102 full-time equivalents (FTE). The majority of these personnel were located in the National Capital Region (19,780 FTE or 56%), while 15,322 FTE were employed outside the National Capital Region, including 3,716 in Quebec and 4,079 in Ontario. (Table 4-14)

Federal expenditures by province and territories

This section presents the geographical distribution of federal S&T activities. Federal departments and agencies must allocate the spending and personnel of their scientific activities by province or territory. Since no effort is made to predict or estimate provincial spending, these expenditures are available only at the end of the fiscal year. This means that provincial data is available only up to 2005/2006.

1. The National Capital Region received $2.9 billion, or 34% of total federal government expenditures by geographic region in 2005/2006. (Table 5-1)
2. One-quarter of federal S&T expenditures occurred in Ontario ($2.1 billion), while 17% of spending was allocated to Quebec ($1.5 billion). (Table 5-1)
3. Ontario received 31% of federal R&D spending allocated geographically, or $1.7 billion, ranking ahead of Quebec ($1.2 billion). (Table 5-3)
4. Compared with the regional breakdown in 2004/2005, federal government expenditures on S&T rose in the Yukon, Northwest and Nunavut Territories (46%), Saskatchewan (23%), Prince Edward Island (21%) and Manitoba (12%). (Table 5-1)
5. In 2005/2006, the federal government provided $754 million to the business enterprise sector in the form of grants and contracts for R&D activity. Ontario enterprises received $368 million, or 49%, Quebec enterprises received 27%, the Atlantic Provinces (Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick) received 7% or $54 million, and British Columbia’s share was 11%. (Table 5-3)
6. Ontario’s higher education sector received almost 28% of the federal government’s total $3.3 billion in extramural R&D expenditures. Its share, combined with that of Quebec, accounted for 47% of total extramural R&D spending. (Table 5-3)