[cmath] NSERC Survey

[Ivar Ekeland]

Dear colleagues

I have been asked what is the PIMS position on the NSERC survey. Here is 
the situation as we see it:

- wherever they go, be it in a common envelope for mathematics (option 
#2) or in a revamped MFA programs with experimental sciences (option 
#1), the three mathematics institutes will bring in their own money.

- the question then is: once the institutes money is in a common pot, 
how is it redistributed ?

In the case of the envelope, which would be administered by 
mathematicians, that money would stay within mathematics, and the 
community should be able to handle it in any way it wishes. I agree with 
Nassif's position that, as NSERC has structured it now, the envelope 
option does not empower the mathematical community in that respect, and 
that this should be changed.

In the case of a revamped MFA, it would be a free-for-all between 
disciplines, with the mathematicians in a small minority, but holding a 
disproportionate share of the pot. I cannot conceive that we would turn 
out to be the winners in that particular game, and any money lost in 
that fight would go to other disciplines.

So I think that the envelope, option #2, is our best bet. Mathematicians 
have been successful in Canada because they have stuck together and 
developed long-term vision. The envelope concept, if suitably adjusted, 
may become an institutionalized way of doing just that

-- 
Ivar Ekeland
Canada Research Chair in Mathematical Economics
University of British Columbia
http://www.pims.math.ca/~ekeland/