By equating a commonplace safety measure with some of the darkest episodes and most appalling abuses in the history of medicine, our administration has lent our institutional reputation to anti-vax disinformation. This is unworthy of our University and the public health, epidemiology, and legal experts who work here. The McGill…

At one point in history, a handful of Scots-Canadian families in Montreal controlled a large portion of the Canadian economy from their mansions on the slopes of Mont-Royal. Some streets here bear their family names: McTavish, Redpath, Drummond. One of them, James McGill, had the local medical college renamed after…

I’ve been thinking about this common and understandable complaint about grant revisions—one I have made. The usual conclusion from this is one or more of the following: The system is “broken.” Reviewers are idiots. Reviewers are acting in bad faith. All of these things, of course, can be true sometimes…

Survey 1 CIHR has maintained a focus on four research priorities (i.e., Patient Improvements, Indigenous Health, Prevention, and Chronic Illness) to guide its strategic investments over the last ten years. What advice do you have for CIHR on areas it should be prioritizing in the coming five years? CIHR should focus on…

Short version Operating and training are the same thing in academic science. No matter what happens, the great majority of trainees will still be supported by operating grants. If we want to make arguments for the scientific or training benefits of fellowships, we need to be able to say why…

Grant succcess rates by gender has been a big focus of equity concerns, and most funding agencies now report this. I thought it might be interesting to look at how grant size might be affected. PLEASE NOTE: This is not a scientific study. The data (which I’ll link to below)…

I said on Twitter that this is bad, but I wanted to expand on how bad this outcome is, and lay out some thoughts on why things like this happen even when funders and reviewers have good intentions. tl;dr 1. Academia is a dunking contest where every time you…

From too much love of living, From hope and fear set free, We thank with brief thanksgiving Whatever gods may be That no life lives for ever; That dead men rise up never; That even the weariest river Winds somewhere safe to sea. - Swinburne, The Garden of Proserpine Because…

Canada’s research universities are under-resourced to support a knowledge economy or the Liberal government’s innovation agenda. — Comparisons are hard. In discussions about research funding, common comparative measures used by the OECD like HERD, GERD, BERD, etc, refer to the various R&D expenditures in different sectors. HERD comparisons come up a lot, (Higher Education R&D), as it’s a number where Canada looks pretty good. Scratch the surface…