We would like to inform you of the existence of a petition that denounces the importance given to EDI and SDG criteria in FRQ scholarship and grant programs, criteria that go against freedom of research and arbitrarily impose points of view that are moral, to which everyone must be free to adhere or not.
Launched last April and already signed by more than 200 colleagues, we are relaunching it again following the publication of another letter on this subject in La Presse and to the unsatisfactory response of the FRQ:
Link to the petition to sign: https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vTWv_0ugChYhCYW4pncWJ3GylIw5Wzs5xKSch69SgWQwNWo0Ng90APh9Ic-I0OvvucppL07m3zIuk3k/pub
Letter published in La Presse (November 18, 2022):
https://www.lapresse.ca/debats/opinions/2022-11-18/la-mise-au-pas-de-la-recherche.php
and the unsatisfactory response from the FRQ (December 8, 2022):
https://www.lapresse.ca/debats/opinions/2022-12-08/replique/reflexion-sur-le-lien-entre-science-et-societe.php
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To Mr. Rémi Quirion,
Chief Scientist,
Fonds de recherche du Québec
500, Sherbrooke West, office 800
Montreal (Quebec) H3A 3C6
remi.quirion@frq.gouv.qc.ca
/cc Scientific Directions of the Quebec Research Funds,
janice.bailey@frq.gouv.qc.ca, Ms. Janice Bailey, FRQNT
carole.jabet@frq.gouv.qc.ca, Ms. Carole Jabet, FRQS
louise.poissant@frq.gouv.qc.ca, Ms. Louise Poissant, FRQSC
Subjects: questioning the place that EDI and SDGs will occupy during the next funding competition for Strategic Groupings and revision of the “social mobilization” criteria included in the FRQSC graduate excellence scholarship competitions.
Mr. Chief Scientist,
We have become aware of the new FRQ evaluation criteria for graduate grant and scholarship applications with respect to the UN's so-called "EDI" (equity, diversity and inclusion) and "SDG" (sustainable development goals) requirements. We are writing this letter because a careful reading of these criteria, which goes beyond the assertions that these evaluations will take into account the specificity of the disciplines, leads us to the conviction that these imposed criteria will have significant consequences even though their basis, legitimacy and validity have not really been established. As it stands, the official adoption of the UN's SDG criteria, combined with those relating to EDI, poses serious problems that cannot be ignored. No less questionable, as we will see, is the consideration of a "social mobilization" criterion in the evaluation of master's, doctoral and postdoctoral scholarship applications.
As relevant as they may seem at first glance, these recent orientations – never really widely debated among members of the different disciplines covered by the FRQ – reflect, in our opinion, a problematic conception of the practices that constitute the scientific field. First of all, it is surprising that the FRQ validates notions that are not very quantifiable and whose vagueness opens the door to significant shifts. In our opinion, it is important to recall that, despite the fact that the formula “equity, inclusion and diversity” (EDI) is everywhere consecrated, these terms do not belong to the academic world. They originally come from managerial theories at the turn of the last century. They were tested in private enterprise before being extended and imposed on government administrations, the media, cultural circles, schools and, today, research.
As for the "inclusive excellence" defended by the Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Strategy 2021-2026 of the FRQ (p. 5), it is not accompanied in this text by any clear definition of "excellence", a notion which obviously implies exclusion, unless we consider all requests as "excellent", thus emptying the term of its content. Let us note here that by saying this we are not promoting excellence (inclusive of whom exactly?) This curious expression was launched by American think tanks and more specifically by the Ford Foundation in 2003, on the occasion of a grant awarded to the Association of American Colleges and Universities and entitled " Making Excellence Inclusive ", with the aim of improving student performance and reducing the dropout rate in higher education. It was mostly a slogan. In short, "equity", "diversity", "inclusion" are not concepts, but rather what discourse analysis specialists call ideologemes, in line with the neoliberal doctrines of the moment.
We do not deny, however, that these terms cover very real issues. Nor that progress needs to be made in the academic community in terms of access to positions or scholarships by various categories of people. It goes without saying that efforts in this direction must continue. But we observe that the new evaluation standards paradoxically bring inequities between research units and, even worse, that they actually risk widening the social disparities that already heavily affect cohorts of graduate students. Achieving equal access objectives or the SDGs defined by the UN, for example, does not involve controlling the content and issues of students' and researchers' research projects but rather through scholarship programs that allow less privileged categories to really have access to training leading to research positions. With regard to the SDGs, achieving them requires political actions of a completely different order than that of free research. As they regularly do, the Funds can indeed define targeted programs or joint initiatives with organizations, but not use general programs to impose a poorly defined vision of the world around the SDGs or EDI.
These notions are very vague, as, for example, in the objective of "mobilizing the research community to integrate EDI into all facets of research", leading in fact to "taking EDI into account in research designs where this is relevant, particularly in the methodology and dissemination of results" (Strategy, p. 10).
Apart from the fact that the "mobilization" is here forced as the military sense of the term suggests, one wonders if there is such a thing as an EDI "methodology"? In the social sciences, for example, is the qualitative approach more "fair" than the quantitative approach or vice versa? Let us take the case of a linear regression analysis, a standard statistical analysis method. Does it promote "diversity" and, above all, is that its function? However, the purpose of a good methodology is to ensure that the tools intended for producing results must be neutral in order to preserve a priori the objectivity of the analyses. And we could cite examples in the natural sciences. The methods and tools therefore do not take into account the gender, disability, or origin of the person using them. These are rather variables (class, race, sex) that come into play in an analysis as possible explanations of the phenomenon studied, but this has nothing to do with EDI standards.
Similarly, who can decide whether it is "relevant" to integrate EDI in a particular place in research plans? Program managers? And in the name of what? The risk of arbitrariness is clear here and constrains the construction of the object, an intellectual step that must only obey the validated methods of the different disciplines. As for generalizing these standards to "all facets of research", does this not in fact force researchers to choose the themes that will have the best chance of being funded? In this context, is not a historian wishing to work on the Middle Ages doomed in advance, since Ancien Régime societies were by definition unequal? And what about astrophysicists who wonder about exoplanets or the age of the universe? Only sophisms can lead one to believe that the imposed criteria do not favor forced "mobilization" projects.
This situation, already worrying for career researchers, is even more so when it comes to the awarding of graduate scholarships. From now on, 20% of the evaluation of doctoral level applications will focus, for example, on “social mobilization”. The candidates’ applications will thus be considered in light of the SDGs, which again includes the EDI standards, all of which must be part of the “training path, [the] research activities, science-society dialogue or personal social engagement” (Information Guide: New Evaluation Criteria for Training Scholarship Programs, 2021, p. 6).
But if it is apparently easier for a doctoral student specializing in indigenous literature to meet these kinds of expectations (although there is no guarantee that such research is in itself “EDI”), what about the student who would devote himself to Cartesian philosophy or pigeon ethology? Of course, the FRQ take care to specify that “not all research projects can contribute directly to the SDGs” (Guide, p. 6). But if this is indeed the case, then what value should be given to these criteria, since these competitions should not discriminate against candidates because of the themes chosen? Another problem arises. By giving this importance to the “social mobilization” section in the evaluation of scholarship applications, are we not multiplying the criteria to which students, already subject to the ideology of performance, will sometimes want to respond artificially and, if necessary, to the detriment of academic and scientific content? Which student, moreover, will have had the concrete means to accumulate voluntary “commitments”? The former Brébeuf graduate or the student from Mauricie, from a modest background and who works hard to make ends meet? We cannot overemphasize here the perverse effects of the “mobilization” requirements. Let us also note how strange it is to want to direct this “mobilization” by taking care to remind candidates that this criterion “does not aim to reflect your personal practices of waste management or responsible consumption for example, but your commitment” (Guide, p. 12). Finally, it is easy to predict that some students will inflate their “social mobilization” to optimize their chances of ranking. The risk of an abuse of “commitment” declarations has also been demonstrated in the case of major American universities (“We, The Privileged Parents That Matter…” (The Chronicle of Higher Education, 29.03.2021). Should they then be verified? If so, how?
It should also be noted that, among the examples given of links between research themes and SDGs in the aforementioned Information Guide (p. 9 et seq.), only two examples out of 45 (i.e. 4,4%) refer to non-applied and strictly disinterested research – which is typical of what we call culture – in the field of humanities. The proposed unions are, moreover, dubious: what does “literary life in Quebec” have to do with SDG 11 “sustainable cities and communities” (Guide, p. 10)? One could also ask: “sustainable” in what aspect?
All of the above tends to show that these evaluation criteria are in complete rupture with the primary mission of the FRQ, as specified by the Act respecting the Ministry of Economic and Regional Development and Research (2003, c. 29). In article 63, we can read in particular that the functions of the FRQSC are:
1° to promote and financially support the development of research in the fields of social and human sciences, as well as in those of education, management, arts and literature;
2° to promote and financially assist the dissemination of knowledge in the fields of research related to the social and human sciences, as well as to education, management, arts and literature;
3° to promote and financially assist the training of researchers by awarding excellence scholarships to graduate and postgraduate students and to persons carrying out postdoctoral research, as well as by awarding development scholarships to persons wishing to re-enter the research circuit and by awarding subsidies for release from teaching duties for college professors engaged in research activities;
4° to establish any necessary partnership, in particular with universities, colleges, cultural institutions, ministries and relevant public and private bodies.
And equivalent paragraphs concern the FRQS and the FRQNT. Nothing in these explicit functions allows for a generalized requirement for conformity of projects and candidates to the UN “SDGs”, to social “mobilization” or to the “EDI” objectives.
Let's be clear: "social mobilization", like the SDG and EDI objectives, is not part of the FRQ's mission as defined by the legislator. This strongly suggests that imposing these criteria on all programs falls outside the legal framework assigned to the FRQ by the Quebec government.
Let us note in passing that we are not opposed in principle to social activism and that if the government wants to encourage the social involvement of citizens, it can do so directly by creating programs for this purpose, because this does not fall within the sphere of scientific research but within the sphere of social and community action. It can also decide to give special scholarships to students involved in various volunteer activities – even if it is often the better-off, who have free time, who are able to do so – but the FRQ cannot be used to forcibly enlist research in the service of arbitrarily imposed objectives. It should also be noted that from a legal perspective, requiring candidates for a scholarship or research project to declare what they have done or intend to do to "mobilize" and thus "advance" social causes goes against the Quebec Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which not only protects freedom of expression but also - we too often forget - the freedom not to express oneself on a subject, in this case on the SDGs, EDI and social commitment for a "cause."
In summary, EDI standards and SDG criteria:
1) are foreign to the very foundations of scientific research and are not part of the mission of the FRQ as defined by law;
2) constitute an attack on the academic freedom of graduate students and professors and, more broadly, on the freedom of individuals, that is to say, the possibility of choosing their research topic and their social activities without undue pressure;
3) exacerbate inequalities between students with the greatest capital (economic, social or cultural) and those from disadvantaged backgrounds who are therefore less likely to find free time to "get involved" socially in the name of a cause that is dear to them.
This is why we are asking that the FRQs thoroughly and without delay review the evaluation criteria for research units and graduate scholarship applications to limit them to the objectives defined by law by limiting themselves to the academic content of the projects submitted. Because the damaging mix of science and morality that we denounce does not stop at the "society" and "culture" domain. What should we think, for example, of the SDG objectives in mathematics or astrophysics?
In closing, let us recall that, as researchers, we are committed to the "science-society dialogue," but let us not confuse it with notions that do not respect the personal choices of researchers regarding their non-research activities. It is therefore appropriate to think differently about the issues of equity and diversity, starting with the needs and particularities of Quebec society. One thing is certain: in a good rational and scientific approach, it is on the condition that we rigorously distinguish the problems - those of morality, those of research - that the fundamental mission that presided over their creation can be preserved within the FRQ: the production of knowledge validated by recognized methods and the training of researchers competent in their fields or, to summarize, the quest for truth. As for the quest for good, it is obviously important and legitimate, but it is based on a different logic of action.
With our cordial greetings,
Arnaud Bernadet (McGill University)
Yves Gingras (UQAM)
Thierry Nootens (UQTR)
