Student research award scrapped due to province's focus on economic outcomes

A program that funded health research by post-secondary students in Nova Scotia has been discontinued due to the province's focus on research that promotes economic growth and productivity.

The Scotia Scholars Award was administered through Research Nova Scotia and gave undergraduate, master's and PhD students at universities and the Nova Scotia Community College funding for research in specific health areas.

Those areas included disease detection, diagnosis, treatment and prevention, health-care delivery systems, caring for vulnerable populations, and promoting future health and well-being.

The average award for undergraduates was $5,500, while master's students received on average $12,000 and PhD students got around $39,000.

In 2024-25, the final year the awards were granted, Research Nova Scotia spent $1.2 million on them, with funding coming from the Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness.

Research Nova Scotia CEO Stefan Leslie said the discontinuation of the award program last year was directly linked to changes implemented as a result of Bill 12.

That piece of legislation, passed early last year, gave the advanced education minister the ability to dictate priorities for Research Nova Scotia. The new priorities explicitly require funded research to "establish a convincing connection between the investment and measurable changes in economic outcomes over the long term," according to Research Nova Scotia's website.

Leslie said Scotia Scholars used taxpayer funding, and Research Nova Scotia has a responsibility to be a steward of those resources and aim to achieve the objectives laid out by the province.

"The set of priorities that were provided to us in May were very much in pursuit of economic growth and productivity agenda," Leslie said in an interview with CBC News. "There was a de-emphasis on what would have been the strategic objective of the Scotia Scholars Award program."

Leslie said there are other funding programs that are accessible to researchers.

For example, he said Research Nova Scotia's new Ear to the Ground fund has a funding envelope of $1.5 million. Although that fund is not focused on health and is not specifically designated for students, researchers who previously would have applied for Scotia Scholars can apply for the new fund.

"It's not as if the discontinuation of the Scotia Scholars program takes money out of the research system entirely. What we're doing is refocusing how we're using it."

David Bruce, the director of research grants for St. Francis Xavier University in Antigonish, N.S., said "there was a sense of disappointment" among those involved in research about the loss of the award program.

Bruce said the program gave students the opportunity to learn research skills, including developing proposal and funding applications, mastering technical skills and presenting research outcomes.