Canada must increase funding for graduate researchers: Editorial

The federal government must increase funding for graduate researchers to support Canada’s future, writes University of Toronto Professor Mark Lautens in an editorial for the Globe and Mail. Lautens writes that recent graduate student protests came just days after the announcements of $1.4B in grants from the Canada First Research Excellence Fund, and that the graduate students involved in the walkout were engaged in full-time research work. The author describes how these students are typically paid from research grants, but that the stipends have not increased to match the cost of living though the work they are doing is vital to academic research in Canada. The author calls for more money to flow into the system and for transparency regarding how research-stream graduate students and post-docs are currently funded.