The University of Toronto (U of T) has created an emergency fund to support its researchers who are facing unexpected funding losses due to cuts and policy changes in US federal research agencies.
The measures, announced earlier this month, come after deep cuts at institutions such as the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation under US President Donald Trump left dozens of U of T researchers facing sudden funding shortfalls.
Leah Cowan, the university's vice president for research, innovation and strategic initiatives, said the new fund will help provide continuity while researchers seek other sources of funding.
“We wanted to ensure that our world-leading research at the University of Toronto continues to thrive during this period of uncertainty,” Cowan said.
U of T is one of Canada's most research-intensive institutions and is regularly ranked among the country's top universities. Comprehensive research is a “global, collaborative enterprise,” Cowan said, with several faculty members collaborating with other researchers around the world.
The university typically receives about $20 million a year from U.S. federal research agencies or through partnerships with American universities, she said. That figure is a small drop in the total research funds, she said, but the loss of those funds still has a devastating impact on the researchers who rely on them.
Canadian scientists are concerned that the administration of US President Donald Trump has suspended federal health spending, including funding for research in Canadian laboratories.
One such researcher is medical biophysics professor Paul Fraser. He is working with scientists at New York's Columbia University and the Sloan Kettering Institute to develop new treatments for Alzheimer's disease.
He said he received funding through a foreign subaward program offered through the NIH, but that funding stopped coming after the agency stopped offering awards to scientists from outside the United States.
“It was pretty devastating,” Fraser said, adding that he is grateful that the funding from U of T gave him the “lifeline” he needed to keep his project afloat while he sought alternative funding.
Other Canadian funding agencies that could support his project include the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Alzheimer's Society of Canada. There are also charities that could support the project if they wanted, he said.
But Fraser said the Canadian Institutes of Health Research only hosts two grant competitions each year. If he had to pause his research for lack of funding while looking for alternatives, he said, he would likely have to let highly trained, specialized researchers leave his lab.
“This is a huge problem because these people have been trained for years and they have experience that is difficult to replace,” he said.
“Once you lose them, you can't get them back, and that's a big problem.”
He said research projects involving multiple scientists could suffer from disruptions in research funding because each scientist typically brings different areas of expertise to the larger project. When one of them loses funding, it can wreak havoc on the entire operation.
“If you lose one of those spokes in the wheel, you'll have to replace it or try to do without it. But sometimes it can be quite difficult to do without it,” he said.
“It’s in everyone’s best interest … to try to find a replacement to keep things going.”
The US Centers for Disease Control has long been a global leader in tracking diseases and developing evidence-based medical guidelines, but recent funding cuts and layoffs have many wondering whether the agency is still a reliable source. CBC's Nisha Patel looks at how some of these changes could put Canadians at risk.
Cowan said the emergency fund is not intended to replace U.S. federal funding. In the meantime, she hopes the Canadian government will continue to invest in a “sovereign research ecosystem” that will continue to support Canada's research collaborations with global partners.
Last month, the Coalition for Canadian Research, which represents universities, scientists and health research groups, wrote to Prime Minister Mark Carney asking his government to meet last year's budget commitments to invest in research funding. The letter was published ahead of the upcoming budget on November 4, which is widely expected to include cuts in several sectors.
Cowan said she is “concerned but encouraged” by signals that the government understands the importance of Canada's research and innovation ecosystem.
“This ecosystem is very important to Canada because it provides economic productivity, health solutions and solutions to many of the global challenges we face as a nation and around the world,” she said.
The Prime Minister's Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Saturday.
