Science and Research committee  I'm sorry; was it for me or Dr. McMartin?

Science and Research committee  I think so. In Halifax we have seen an incredible increase in housing costs. We also have a food bank at Dalhousie, but, as Ms. Diab mentioned earlier, not all small universities are in.... Halifax isn't a big city, but there are other smaller universities here that are hit with the same impacts.

Science and Research committee  Thank you. We absolutely do that. I gave you a couple of examples where our partnerships are wide-reaching across all spectrums of universities, including in our own province, with numerous smaller universities and a wonderful, robust community college system. We believe that partnerships strengthen us.

Science and Research committee  I would agree with Dr. McMartin, and I would note that all types of research are important, from basic to applied to community-driven. As research institutions, we all need to be thinking of all of those types of research. One of our biggest successes is in applied research in our partnership—it's the only university partnership in the world—with Tesla and the lithium-ion battery work we do.

Science and Research committee  Currently, on the first stage of “lab to market”, we're one of the partnered national leads, with Toronto Metropolitan and Concordia, though we have lots of good partners across the country—33 to be exact. We have found that some other sources of funding have helped our graduate students to commercialize, but we've also found that the business community is very generous with its time in helping our graduate students learn about business development and growth of a business.

Science and Research committee  Exactly.

Science and Research committee  Yes, we do.

Science and Research committee  Ours has been trending up, for sure, in terms of the number of patents and start-ups that we've grown and supported...IP.

Science and Research committee  Yes, we do the same.

Science and Research committee  Indeed, that's what we've done. The reason we were successful in the CFREF application is that we didn't lead it alone. It truly was a partnership with Dalhousie, Université du Québec à Rimouski, Université Laval and Memorial University. It was a genuine partnership. The administrative costs are split among the universities as proportional to the grant.

Science and Research committee  In my reading of the budget, it was envisioned that academia, industry and not-for-profits would be there. This reminds me of the old STIC committee that used to be in existence to set strategic priorities. The STIC, by my recollection, didn't have a capacity to communicate its findings to government, or, indeed, to the public.

Science and Research committee  As my colleague Dr. McMartin said, we're also supportive of the Bouchard report and think the announcements in the budget on Tuesday were absolutely outstanding. The community across Canada and Nova Scotia is extraordinarily grateful for this funding for mission-driven research, the capstone committee and the new Canadian science committee that will oversee the Canadian science strategy.

Science and Research committee  We have wonderful partnerships with our other Nova Scotia universities and the Nova Scotia Community College. We currently have 52 projects with 70 funders. We have partnerships with all of the universities and with the Nova Scotia Community College right now. Some of those are multiple on the same file.

Science and Research committee  I think you would find that Guelph probably does receive the bulk of agricultural research funding, right up there with Alberta and Saskatchewan, in terms of funding dollars for agricultural research. The U15 group, in my understanding—it predates me, as a university executive—was formed in 2012 in order to bring views of common interest across research-intensive universities to the government.

Science and Research committee  Yes, we do. We have a faculty of agriculture.