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“research infrastructure” means equipment, specimens, scientific collections, computer software, information databases, communications linkages and other intangible property used or to be used primarily for carrying on research, including housing and installations essential for the use and servicing of those things." (From the Budget Implementation Act, 1997, c. 26)
In 1997, the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI) was established by Act of Parliament to fund the development of research infrastructure. Since then it has committed $5.27 billion for more than 6,600 projects across Canada. This massive investment in research infrastructure was intended to build capacity for innovation, attract and retain top researchers (often from the USA), train graduate students and research staff, foster collaboration, and make sure Canadian institutions made good use of research infrastructure.
“The CFI Story” on the CFI web site describes the intentions thus:"CFI support is intended to:
strengthen Canada’s capacity for innovation; attract and retain highly skilled research personnel in Canada; stimulate the training of young Canadians through research; promote networking, collaboration, and multidisciplinarity among researchers; ensure the optimal use of research infrastructure within and among Canadian institutions.”
CFI was a welcome and new approach to funding research after the cutbacks of the early 1990s. What was different was that this funding was for something few of us had thought about, let alone applied for: namely, “research infrastructure.”
According to a Treasury Board
Evaluation of Foundations , “CFI was described, at that time, as an entirely new approach by the government to the support of research and development. From this starting point, involving a once-off investment of $800 million, the federal government went on to create a variety of foundations that either receive conditional grants for disbursement over a finite number of years or to create perpetual endowments that use the income generated by the endowment to fund their disbursement programs and operations." We were supposed to apply not to do research but to set up labs that would attract researchers, train graduate students and transform our research. As Robert Giroux, the Past President and CEO of the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, put it in a quote on the CFI site,
Before the CFI, the university research enterprise was in very bad state. The CFI re-energized university research in Canada. It brought hope and support. It attracted researchers to Canada and retained Canada's best and brightest. It encouraged state of the art investments in research infrastructure, and Canadian researchers became the envy of researchers from many countries around the world. CFI was the start of a revolution in research funding by the Canadian Government. See the “Quotes” page on the CFI web site, (External Link) . I doubt all researchers in the humanities would share this view of CFI as revolutionary, but it did, for those of us who applied, change how we thought about research funding.
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