U of A president hopes for research exemptions under Alberta's proposed Bill 18
University received $215M in federal funding for research in 2023, president says
University of Alberta president Bill Flanagan hopes the province exempts research funding from the oversight proposed by Bill 18.
The Provincial Priorities Act, tabled last month, states that any agreement — including funding — between the federal government and an Alberta municipality, school board or university will be vetted by the provincial government.
Flanagan said he has been in regular conversations with the Alberta government, promoting the significance of research conducted at the university and how it benefits the province.
"We're a research powerhouse to the great benefit of Alberta," he said during an interview with CBC's Edmonton AM on Tuesday.
"So we don't want anything that comes in between us and our ability to secure even more federal funding."
In 2023, the university received $215 million in federal funding for research in humanities, health sciences, social sciences and natural applied sciences — a 19 per cent increase over the past five years, Flanagan said.
"Ideally, we'd just like to see post-secondaries taken out from the bill," he said. "And if that's not possible, then we're going to be seeking exemptions for the federal research funding."
Flanagan said from his conversations with Advanced Education Minister Rajan Sawhney, he knows she is interested in looking at what exemptions could be available for post-secondary education.
He said adding universities to the bill also increases red tape.
"I don't think the province wants to be vetting 1,800 separate agreements every year from the University of Alberta," he said.
He said the process for applying for grants is already competitive and adding to it would not foster more research in the province.
LISTEN | President Bill Flanagan discusses the impact of Bill 18 on the University of Alberta:
In an email, the minister's office wrote that engagement with universities is a central component of implementing the act.
"The approval process will be determined through stakeholder engagement and the regulatory development process. We will be working closely with post-secondary institutions to determine what funding agreements are already in place, explore potential exemptions, and gather feedback," press secretary Mackenzie Blyth said in the statement.
"We will be looking at all available options to establish a streamlined approval process that avoids adding administrative burden on affected organizations."
Once passed, the province has marked early 2025 for the law to take effect.
Premier Danielle Smith told reporters in an April news conference that the bill was tabled because Ottawa is making political decisions about which research projects to fund "based on a certain ideology."
Flanagan said experts in the field are assessing proposals, not the federal government. He said the scope of the research happening at the university spans all political spectrums across many disciplines.
"It's absolutely vast," he said.
Alumni contributions
Flanagan also discussed the results of a new survey from accounting firm Ernst & Young, which estimates U of A graduates contribute $136.4 billion to the Alberta economy annually.
The 2023 report, commissioned by the university and released publicly on Tuesday, looked at U of A alumni contributions over the past 100 years.
WATCH | U of A grads contributing billions of dollars to Alberta economy:
Flanagan said the decision to release the report was not related to Bill 18.
"We were always of course keen to demonstrate the impact of the [university]," he said.
The report found that companies started by University of Alberta graduates make up 41 per cent of the province's total GDP, estimated to be around $336 billion in 2023.
"That even astonished me," Flanagan said.
The survey found alumni-founded companies employ 560,000 people in the province — over 22 per cent of the province's total workforce.
Flanagan said the economy U of A grads have created is knowledge-based, whether it's innovation in tech, medicine or energy. U of A grads have also established beer, wellness, shoe and food companies.
More than 300,000 U of A grads have established 75,000 companies that contribute $250 billion to the global economy, the report states.
The survey also found that around 71 per cent of the university graduates work for organizations within the province.
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