Board of Governors, October 28, 1999 - APPENDIX VI, Annex 4
Report on the 247th Meeting of the Council
of Ontario Universities
D.M.R. Bentley, Academic Colleague
At the meetings of the Academic Colleagues and the Council of Ontario Universities in Toronto
on October 7 and 8, 1999, several matters of interest to Senate were discussed:
- Dr. David Smith reported to Council that he is proceeding on schedule with his studies of
"Quality Indicators and Quality Enhancement in Universities: Experiences in Other
Jurisdictions" and "The Prospective Labour Market for University Faculty: Implications for
Ontario" and expects to have both completed by the end of the calendar year. With regard to
the former, he is attempting to answer two questions: what is meant by the quality of a
university? and how is it measured? With regard to the latter, he is approaching the impending
need for as many as 10,000 new faculty in Ontario by examining four issues: (i) the capacity of
Ontario graduate programmes to meet the rising demand for faculty; (ii) the capability of
Ontario universities to compete for faculty in the national and international markets; (iii) the
possibility that the knowledge-based economy and contingent financial factors will make it
difficult to attract talented people into the denuded groves of academia; and (iv) the question of
whether faculty could be used with greater efficiency.
- Dr. Heather Munroe-Blum provided Council with an electronic tour through the preliminary
draft of her forthcoming report to the Ontario government entitled "Strengthening Ontario's
Innovation System: the Strategic Role of University Research." In answer to the question of
how best to harness university research in the service of innovation and for the economic
benefit of Ontario society, Dr. Munroe-Blum will make numerous recommendations, including
the creation of an Ontario Science and Innovation Council and an Ontario Research
Foundation, the establishment of a Research Performance Fund, the provision of start-up funds
for new faculty, the endowment of distinguished research chairs, and the institution of
prestigious and lucrative annual awards for outstanding researchers in the Humanities and
Social Sciences. Ontario and its universities, she will argue in her report, must capitalize more
aggressively on their position at the heart of a G7 nation, cultivate more effectively the synergy
between teaching and research, and compete more concertedly for federal research funds.
Guided by the principles of "competition, excellence, and academic autonomy," they must meet
the challenges and seize the opportunities of "global connectedness" by defining and
undertaking "flagship research" - that is, research at an international level of importance and
recognition. Applications for resources from individual institutions should be related to that
institution's overall research plan and include a statement of the benefit to students of the
proposed research. All provincial research and scholarship programs should be open to all
disciplines. In short, more resources should be allocated to a reconfigured university research
enterprise in Ontario if the province is to be a leader in the development of new ideas, methods,
and applications.
- As part of the consciousness-raising exercise that COU has been undertaking for some time,
the Executive Heads held a well attended press conference at Queen's Park at 11.00 a.m. on
October 8. They also sent a letter (attached) to the Minister of Training, Colleges, and
Universities that broadly outlines the principles and financial needs of the Ontario university
system in the context of increasing enrolments. Prompted (not to say provoked) by the COU
press release and the letter of the Executive Heads, there was a good deal of discussion at the
meeting of the Academic Colleagues and at Council of the ways and means of successfully
bringing the views and needs of the universities to the attention of the government and the
public.