A Generation of Excellence 9781442683952

Table of contents :
Contents
Preface
1. Leyerle’s Idea
2. Getting Started
3. First Business
4. The AIRS Program
5. Expansion of the Mandate
6. Origins: The Universe and the Tree of Life
7. Population Health
8. Superconductivity
9. Years of Testing
10. Origins II
11. Economic Growth and Policy
12. Human Development
13. The Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces
14. The Knife Edge
15. The Law Program
16. New Leadership
17. Nanoelectronics
18. Renewal
Appendix A: CIAR Research Program Members
Appendix B: CIAR Advisory Committees
Appendix C: CIAR Research Council
Appendix D: CIAR Board of Directors
Appendix E: CIAR Staff
Notes
Selected Bibliography
Index

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A GENERATION OF EXCELLENCE

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CRAIG BROWN

A Generation of Excellence A History of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO PRESS Toronto Buffalo London

www.utppublishing.com © The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research 2007 University of Toronto Press Toronto Buffalo London Printed in Canada ISBN 978-0-8020-9232-8

Printed on acid-free paper

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Brown, Robert Craig, 1935– A generation of excellence : a history of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research / Craig Brown. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-0-8020-9232-8 1. Canadian Institute for Advanced Research – History. 2. Research – Canada – History. I. Title. Q180.C3B764 2007

001.406’071

C2006-906614-0

University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial assistance to its publishing program of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. University of Toronto Press acknowledges the financial support for its publishing activities of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (BPIDP).

This book is dedicated to the scholars, associates, fellows, and staff of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

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Contents

Preface ix 1 Leyerle’s Idea

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2 Getting Started 18 3 First Business

31

4 The AIRS Program

44

5 Expansion of the Mandate

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6 Origins: The Universe and the Tree of Life 7 Population Health

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8 Superconductivity

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9 Years of Testing 10 Origins II

93

131

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11 Economic Growth and Policy 12 Human Development

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13 The Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces 14 The Knife Edge 15 The Law Program

192 209

16 New Leadership 223

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17 Nanoelectronics

246

18 Renewal 258 Appendix A: CIAR Research Program Members Appendix B: CIAR Advisory Committees 277 Appendix C: CIAR Research Council

281

Appendix D: CIAR Board of Directors

283

Appendix E: CIAR Staff

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Notes 289 Selected Bibliography Index 339

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Preface

In 2001 the president of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIAR) asked me to write a history of the first twenty years of the institute’s work. It was an invitation that was hard to refuse. I had had a small part in the institute’s origins and startup phase and had watched its development with interest for several years. This was a task that would let me trace its trials, its successes and failures, and its growing reputation as a Canadian organization that brought together scientists and scholars of the highest quality from Canada and abroad to explore fundamental issues in science and scholarship. Chaviva Hošek and her colleagues at the institute and Fraser Mustard, the institute’s founding president and head of the Founders’ Network, gave me complete access to the records of the institute. That freedom made the project feasible but imposed an obligation. By their very nature, the records of the institute contain large amounts of personal information about its staff, the members of its research programs, and the dozens of people who served on the institute’s board, councils, and various committees. Much of that information has helped me to understand the context and background of the institute’s work but its private nature has been respected in this book. The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research is a private, non-profit organization located in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It was established in 1982 to promote and sponsor collaborative research programs by scientists and social scientists in universities and other research institutions in Canada and abroad. President Hošek is a scholar in American literature and former professor of English at the University of Toronto with broad experience in public service. She is supported by vice-presidents of research, advancement and communications, and finance, and a staff of

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twenty-one people. Richard Ivey is chair of the board of directors, which has twenty members. The president and the board are assisted by a twenty-three-member council of advisors. The heart of CIAR is its fourteen-member research council, which assists the president in the creation and oversight of the institute’s research programs. Like the members of the board of directors and council of advisors, the members of the research council serve on a voluntary basis. CIAR currently supports twelve research programs ranging from Cosmology and Gravity and Evolutionary Biology to Nanoelectronics, Institutions, Organizations and Growth, and Successful Societies. More than 250 scientists and scholars, Canadians and citizens of several other nations, are doing research in these programs. The funding for the institute and its research programs comes from both public and private sources. Three-quarters of the CIAR’s annual budget is devoted to its research programs. The governance and administration of the institute uses less than 5 per cent of its annual income. CIAR’s resources are used to fund the interaction of scholars in its research programs. It pays the costs of meetings of program members, works with its partner universities to attract to Canadian universities scholars and researchers of excellent quality, and, in some cases, pays for released time from some of the teaching and administrative duties of its program members. Typically a program will have at least one two- or three-day meeting of all its members annually and smaller meetings of members working together on a particular aspect of the program’s research. In this CIAR is unique; no other institution or agency devoted to research support, in Canada or abroad, uses its resources in this way. The approach, pioneered in its first programs, has proved highly successful. Members of a program based in universities separated by half a continent or even an ocean are given the opportunity to meet with colleagues and collaborate on joint research agendas that would not happen without CIAR. Graduate students often get to meet with distinguished senior scientists and scholars in circumstances that could not occur without CIAR. Consistently, the international experts who come to the institute to evaluate its research programs single out this feature of CIAR’s work for special praise. The idea of an institute of advanced research originated in the School of Graduate Studies at the University of Toronto. In the late 1970s its dean, Professor John Leyerle, was eager to establish an institution where scholars and scientists from several disciplines could work together in areas of common interest. In 1980 the president of the university, James

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Ham, formed a committee to explore the question of whether such an institution should be based at the university. It recommended that an institution be set up independent of the University of Toronto and designed to bring researchers from universities across Canada together in common research programs linked by networks of communications, what CIAR’s first president, Fraser Mustard, often called Canada’s ‘university without walls.’ The institute began operations in a small suite of offices at the University of Toronto’s Massey College in the fall of 1981. Shortly after, the institute moved to offices in an Ontario government building on University Avenue. It was there, in 1982, that Fraser Mustard took up his full-time work as president of the institute. Mustard was an eminent researcher in medical science who had been at the University of Toronto before going to McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. Mustard was dean of medicine and later vice-president for medical sciences before accepting the invitation to lead CIAR. He had a daunting task. CIAR had but a shell of an organization. It lived in borrowed accommodation with borrowed furnishings. A few donations from local supporters and $125,000 from the government of Ontario made up the total of its resources. Its board of directors lacked broad-based national representation. A small group of Ontario-based scientists and scholars, most drawn from President Ham’s earlier committee, were the only members of an initial advisory group that began the exploration of potential research opportunities. And Mustard himself had only a young executive assistant and a secretary. The board had to be enlarged and charged to assist the president in raising funds to support the institute. A nationally representative research council had to be established to seek out and evaluate proposals for research programs. Scholars and scientists had to be identified and chosen to participate in the programs. Universities had to be persuaded to become partners of the institute in its research programs. And the hardest task was meeting potential donors, private and public, and convincing them that supporting CIAR – which promised only basic research of superior quality, not product or spinoffs – was an investment worth making. In rather short order, the structure of the institute began to take shape. Mustard and the chair of the board of directors, the businessman John Wilson, crisscrossed the nation seeking out members for an enlarged, representative board. John Leyerle used his contacts with graduate school deans across Canada to solicit possible members of a multidisciplinary, nationally recruited research council. It held its first meeting in September 1982 with members from Newfoundland to Brit-

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ish Columbia and from a host of disciplines: physics, chemistry, and biology; literature, classics, religion, and history; law, political science, social work, and architecture were all represented. Less than a year later, in July 1983, the institute’s first research program, Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Society, got under way. Five years later a peer review evaluation group concluded that ‘by any objective measure the AIR program must be rated an unequivocal success.’ Other programs followed, usually only after intensive investigation by the research council. The first of these, still a centrepiece of CIAR’s research agenda, was Cosmology and Gravity. Evolutionary Biology was the third program and it, too, quickly developed as a world leader in its field. And, as resources permitted, other programs followed. But finding the money was a continuous problem, and more than once the institute teetered on the brink of collapse, only to find enough dollars to carry on. Despite glowing program reviews, it took not hours but weeks, months, and occasionally years to build funding partnerships with both private and public donors. In 1996 Fraser Mustard stepped down as president of CIAR and established the Founders’ Network, a group of people from academia and the private and public sectors in Canada and abroad who played major roles in the development of CIAR. Mustard was succeeded by Stefan Dupré, a distinguished political scientist from the University of Toronto. Dupré’s mandate was to lay the foundation for financial stability for the institute. With that target in sight in December 1999, he stepped down. Chaviva Hošek became CIAR’s third president in January 2001. Just a year later, the institute entered its twentieth year. To mark the occasion, Hošek and her colleagues at CIAR organized an all-programs congress in Victoria, British Columbia. Over three days the congress delegates, including more than 100 program members, members of the board and council, guests, and members from the Universities of Victoria and British Columbia, and the media heard representatives of CIAR’s eight research programs give spirited presentations of their work. The congress was all that Hošek had hoped it would be: a great success and a celebration of a generation of Canadian research excellence. This book is the story of that first generation of CIAR. A large number of people provided support and encouragement while I was researching and writing the manuscript. The three presidents read drafts of its chapters, commented freely, and corrected generously. The directors of the research programs agreed to read drafts of the material related to their programs, and most of them offered comment, corrections, and criticism. So, too, did a number of other people:

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members of programs and institute officers and staff members. Several of these people and some others allowed me to interview them, some several times, to further enlighten me and add personal memories and anecdotes about their CIAR experience. Professor Richard Lipsey, distinguished economist and founding director of the Economic Growth and Policy Program, very generously reviewed his own papers at the Simon Fraser University Archives and sent me copies of his material relating to the institute. That material and all the other documentation on paper and on tape which I have used in the preparation of this book will be deposited in my papers at the University of Toronto Archives and closed for thirty years. At the institute, Susan Leclaire was always ready to help find material and desk space and answer questions about the institute’s development. Paula Driedger and Sue Schenk found documents, photographs, disks, and tapes for me to use, and Pat Fitzpatrick and Sally Anne Hrica managed to find time in Chaviva Hošek’s busy schedule for me to talk to her. Frank Vetere, at a late stage in the writing of the manuscript, skilfully edited draft chapters. At Founders’ Network, Dorothy McKinnon and Cheryl Mooney helped in ways too numerous to mention, and Hillary Whitside was an invaluable partner in organizing the records of the institute housed there covering the years to 1996. Terry Wilde, a talented doctoral candidate in Canadian history at York University, was an excellent research assistant for a year during the preparation of this book. Barbara Czarnecki’s superb editorial skills transformed my final draft into a professionally prepared manuscript, and my editor, Len Husband, has guided the manuscript through the evaluation and appraisal process at the University of Toronto Press. Craig Brown Toronto, November 2006.

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A GENERATION OF EXCELLENCE

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1 Leyerle’s Idea

The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research was organized at the University of Toronto. The idea for an institute for advanced studies, as the project was initially called, came from John Leyerle. In the fall of 1978, Leyerle was a professor of English and, at age fiftytwo, the newly appointed dean of the university’s School of Graduate Studies. A medievalist who had come to the University of Toronto’s Department of English in 1959, he had been born and raised in the United States. After graduation from the United States Naval Academy as an engineer and naval officer, he had taken an arts degree at Oxford and begun his doctoral studies at Harvard before the call to Toronto. Leyerle was a man of ideas, plans, and ambitions. Two years after his arrival in Toronto, he had been a founder of the university’s Centre for Medieval Studies, where graduate students pursued instruction and research with the vast and rich faculty resources of the university’s medievalists and the scholars of the Pontifical Institute for Medieval Studies.1 In 1963, Leyerle began the first of two terms as director of the centre and quickly established a reputation as an activist and effective administrator. During his directorship, the Centre for Medieval Studies grew to be a showpiece of academic excellence at the university. Early in the fall of 1978, before Leyerle had actually taken up his decanal responsibilities,2 he learned from a friend, Jean Lengellé, head of the negotiated grants section of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council in Ottawa, that the council was going to have unallocated funds in its new negotiated grants program. It was looking for projects and, as Leyerle wrote to the university’s president, James Ham, was ‘receptive to well-formulated proposals that are adventuresome, innovative, and directed to basic research of high quality.’3 Leyerle

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enlisted the aid of Professor Angus Cameron, a younger colleague in the English Department and the Centre for Medieval Studies who was a gifted scholar, in drafting a proposal to establish a centre for advanced research at the University of Toronto. Several prominent figures in the university commented and assisted in preparing the draft, which was then presented to a luncheon meeting of leading scholars and scientists on 16 November 1978.4 The centre would encourage and support ‘research that broke new ground in concept, in the relations between disciplines and administrative units within the university and between the university and the larger community.’ Initially it would focus on work in the humanities and social sciences during a five- to eight-year pilot project, developing facilities and services that paralleled the more elaborate ones already in place for the natural and life sciences. It would bring together scholars already involved in established research programs and provide a place for visiting humanists and social scientists on sabbatical leave.5 Leyerle followed the luncheon with a letter to the president, asking him to appoint a committee to study the feasibility of establishing a centre for advanced studies at the university. Jim Ham announced in an early December memorandum that he had asked Donald Chant, the vice-president and provost, Harry Eastman, the vice-president, research and planning, and Arthur Kruger, dean of arts and science, to serve as a task force on the desirability of establishing such a centre at the university. There were no new funds to set up another ‘conventionally organized centre or institute,’ he added.6 In a formal response to Leyerle’s letter, the president explained his view that the basic problem was that ‘our colleagues in the humanities and social sciences do not come forward with the numbers of distinctive proposals for research and scholarship that we might reasonably expect.’ Ham, a distinguished member and former dean of the Faculty of Applied Sciences and Engineering and Leyerle’s immediate predecessor as dean of the School of Graduate Studies, was particularly eager to stimulate innovative, collaborative research projects in the arts disciplines. ‘What honey (besides money) does it take to draw scholars together,’ he asked, ‘in a shared concern if not common cause?’ Ham suggested that the university’s research board appoint a ‘ginger group’ of humanists and social scientists to find ways to trigger ‘foci of coherent scholarship’ and to examine whether a centre for advanced studies could help. In addition, he urged Leyerle to take parallel initiatives at the Graduate School and especially to encourage projects to ‘support a company of young scholars.’7

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There was no feasibility committee – not yet, and not for months to come. The president had only recently been appointed and was still adjusting to his new responsibilities.8 He was a cautious man finding his way in challenging times. The late 1960s and early 1970s had been an era of rapid expansion in Ontario’s university system. But now Ham and his colleagues at Ontario universities faced severe fiscal restraint and predictions of sharply declining enrolments. He told the Bulletin, the university newspaper, soon after the announcement of his selection as president in January 1978, that the University of Toronto had to concentrate on the basic issues of academic achievement. ‘This institution has the responsibility to live within its means,’ he said, adding darkly that he might even have to consider dismissing tenured faculty for fiscal reasons.9 New initiatives, especially new initiatives without guaranteed funding, were not a high priority. Jim Ham wanted to encourage innovative research initiatives in the arts disciplines. But a feasibility committee and a centre for advanced studies would not come quickly. Something helpful might emerge from the research board’s ginger group. More important, he had given John Leyerle a strong signal to continue to promote a centre for advanced research, and the dean of graduate studies eagerly accepted. It was a beginning.




The campaign for a feasibility committee lasted another eighteen months.10 At the end of December 1978, Ham told Leyerle to develop a revised proposal and give it wide circulation through the School of Graduate Studies. Angus Cameron and Gordon Watson, then director of the Graduate School’s Centre for Criminology, were assigned the task under Leyerle’s supervision.11 The document was circulated in March 1979 to department heads and to the Graduate School’s directors of centres and institutes. It proposed a five- to eight-year pilot project for a centre for advanced studies, initially focused on the humanities and social sciences, to coordinate the research resources in the university and promote the research of the university’s younger scholars. There might be as many as a hundred members, who could include Toronto’s University Professors, Killam Scholars, principal investigators of large research projects, and visiting scholars. Sources of funding might include the Connaught Fund in Toronto, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and perhaps the Mellon Foundation in the United States.12

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The replies were strongly supportive.13 But some expressed concern that the sciences were being excluded from the proposal. Kenneth Hare, the director of the Graduate Institute of Environmental Studies, wrote, ‘To me the essence of our intellectual dilemma is to find a way of combining the humane and the scientific perspective.’ He supported the centre but argued that ‘we should go well beyond it.’14 Donald Fernie, chair of the Department of Astronomy, told Leyerle that ‘many potential problems of the future would be obviated if sciences were included right from the beginning. Otherwise there is a risk of growing polarization between various fields.’15 By April, it was clear that several potential allies were strongly committed to inclusion of the sciences in the proposal. Dean Max Clarkson of the Faculty of Management Studies expressed his concern about establishing a centre for advanced studies ‘which deliberately divorces itself from the sciences.’ Leyerle told him that ‘others also take the view that the sciences ought to be included ... The plan has been modified accordingly.’16 And it was. When the proposal was formally presented to and approved by the Council of the School of Graduate Studies on 15 May 1979, the first purpose of establishing a centre for advanced studies at the University of Toronto was ‘to foster basic, conceptual research of high quality at an advanced level across the full spectrum of knowledge in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and life sciences.’17 Armed with a strong endorsement from the Graduate School council, John Leyerle now had a detailed proposal for a centre for advanced studies across the disciplines. It outlined the potential membership, administrative structure, and possible sources of funding. It would be at the University of Toronto, but where should it be located? Both Trinity College’s Devonshire House and Massey College had been mooted. Then a member of Victoria College suggested to Leyerle that, in the wake of the closing of the Faculty of Food Sciences,18 the Lillian Massey Building, adjacent to Victoria and across the street from the Royal Ontario Museum, would be ‘an eminently appropriate site.’ There were various legal complications over title to the building, but Victoria and the university were negotiating about it and contemplating its sale. If Leyerle was interested, he would have to act promptly.19 In July he met with Goldwin French, the president of Victoria University.20 French told him that Victoria was interested in having the research centre housed in Lillian Massey if arrangements, including funding for renovation of the building, could be worked out. Leyerle told the Graduate School council at its September meeting that there

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was a ‘good prospect’ of a building for the institute for advanced research and funding for its restoration.21 But no follow-up was apparent at Victoria,22 and months went by while Toronto weighed its options. Eventually it declared that it had no interest in the building. The institute for advanced studies was still a proposal without sanction or mandate, and certainly there were no funds to finance a renovation, estimated at $2 million, to the Lillian Massey Building.22 The idea fizzled out and other possibilities would have to be explored. Still, the meeting with French had enormous import for the proposed institute. French told Leyerle that Lou Siminovitch, a professor in the Faculty of Medicine and one of the earliest supporters of the institute scheme, had passed a copy of the proposal on to John Wilson, the chair of the board of regents at Victoria. Wilson, who was very excited about the concept, was chair of Woods, Gordon, a prominent Toronto accounting and consulting firm.24 He had been chair of the health services committee of the Ontario Council of Health and was treasurer of the St Lawrence Centre for the Arts in Toronto. He was widely regarded as a highly effective fundraiser in the private sector. John Leyerle had not met him at that time, but John Wilson would soon play a vital role in the creation of the centre. After further consultations with a group of outstanding younger scholars in October, Leyerle called a working group together on 16 November to prepare an updated proposal. Deans David Nowlan, an economist, Ernest McCulloch, a prominent medical scientist, and Lorna Marsden, a sociologist, were joined there by Principal Larry Lynch of St. Michael’s College, Adrian Brook of the research board, Arthur Kruger, dean of the Faculty of Arts and Science, Robin Armstrong, chair of the Physics Department, Donald Chant, vice-president and provost, Harry Eastman, vice-president of research and planning, and Angus Cameron. There was strong support from Chant, Kruger, and others for Leyerle’s convictions that institute members must be actively involved in teaching as well as research25 and that the emphasis should be on younger scholars – as Robin Armstrong described them, ‘young performers we would otherwise lose.’26 All assumed that the institute for advanced research would be within the University of Toronto, but Eastman, responsible for planning and worried about financing new ventures, wondered how the relationship would work. By day’s end, the group had sketched out an administrative structure and forecast a start-up budget of $350,000 and a ‘steady state’ budget of $10 million to $15 million in 1985 and $30 million to $40 million in 1990. Eastman’s question was not resolved. Sum-

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mary notes concluded that ‘problems remain about governance and reporting structure within the University.’ Funding was even more problematic; projections of steady state funds were a dream to be realized and, as all university divisions worked through budget cuts, ‘startup costs will require all [the] hard money [the] university and SGS can muster.’27 In this period, Fraser Mustard, vice-president for health sciences at McMaster University and a long-time friend of both Lou Siminovitch and John Wilson, learned of the proposal during a conversation with them outside Victoria College. ‘I remember my introduction to all this was John Wilson and Lou Siminovitch ... talking about this. I said this is a great idea, and that’s how I was dragooned into the group,’ Mustard later recalled.28 Mustard’s interest excited Leyerle: he was a distinguished medical scientist with important contacts throughout the medical community and across the Ontario university system. He had influential friends in the private sector. In mid-December, Mustard joined Siminovitch, Eastman, Armstrong, Cameron, and the Graduate School deans for dinner at Massey College. He was keenly interested, so much so that he confessed that he much preferred involvement in the institute to requests from a search committee that he take the presidency of McMaster.29 He took away the most recent version of the proposal. On 27 December, he wrote to his friend McCulloch at the Graduate School, ‘This is the first idea that has really excited my own imagination within university circles since 1965 when I talked with John Evans about trying to start the School of Medicine at McMaster.’ ‘In a period of harsh economic restraint in university funding in Ontario,’ he added, ‘your institute concept is the best strategy I have yet heard for maintaining excellence ... and actually strengthening it during the 1980’s.’ Mustard was intrigued by the possibility that the institute might be able to establish research links with other universities in Canada. He believed that it should have board members from the private sector ‘who understand the role of excellence in society’ and that ‘with the right approach, a fairly substantial endowment fund could be put behind the institute which would give it fiscal independence from the rest of the university and thereby leave it reasonably free from the leveling effects of economic constraints on the universities.’30 ‘Yeah, I was excited,’ he recalled later, ‘because I could see that such a thing, if you could create it, could break out of boxes.’31 McCulloch gave the letter to Leyerle on New Year’s Eve. ‘The sentiments,’ he wrote, ‘are sweet.’32

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At the same time, Lou Siminovitch passed on a report from a consulting group which he had asked to evaluate how the proposal might be regarded in the private sector. It was not encouraging. ‘The proposed Institute seems,’ it said, ‘to be vague in both purpose and scope.’33 Moreover, after a year and a half of promotion of an institute for advanced research, at the beginning of 1980 John Leyerle still had ‘no power to push the thing forward without the agreement of central administration or some external agency, and I had neither. So I was in a constant process of persuasion.’34 But as spring approached, responses began to fall into place. The first came from Massey College, where, on 21 March, the college corporation approved the institute proposal in principle. It established a working group to plan, with representatives of the Graduate School, how the institute ‘and Massey College can best work together.’ Robertson Davies, the master of Massey, informed Jim Ham a few weeks later that Massey College would provide a headquarters for the proposed institute for five years, making five offices available in 1980–81 and another five the following year. The institute would pay for the offices and the use of other facilities at the college, and all accounts of the college and the institute would be kept separate.35 In mid-April, Lou Siminovitch and Ernest McCulloch met John Wilson to seek his response to the latest version of the proposal.36 Wilson sent several pages of comments to Leyerle on 21 April. They were, he said, ‘quite critical of the present plan.’ But Wilson assured Leyerle that he was ‘fully committed to the basic concept and purposes of the proposed Institute.’ If the institute was to get substantial support from the private sector, it would have to have ‘a specific identity which will have high visibility and which will clearly separate it from any surrounding institution,’ meaning the University of Toronto or, for that matter, Massey College. Its research program would have to be a ‘clear addition’ to the research activity of both the University of Toronto and other Canadian universities and one that would ‘provide significant and needed benefits to both scholarship and the future well-being of the general public.’ Its research program must also avoid the perception that it was ‘endangering’ or providing ‘unwarranted and unwanted competition’ with the research activities of the University of Toronto. The proposal was appealing, Wilson concluded, but ‘it does not provide a sufficiently clear plan to be saleable.’37 In early May, Wilson followed up with a memorandum on the functions of research fellows and a plan for a feasibility study.38 He believed there was more work to be done. The place

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to do it was in a feasibility study, and John Wilson very much wanted to be part of it. As Wilson’s enthusiasm grew, Harry Eastman’s diminished. The problem was money. Eastman doubted that the institute could raise start-up funds for 1980–81 from outside sources and thought that the projected budget of more than $300,000 would have to come from the university and be diverted from other purposes. If the institute projected a steady state budget to be financed by a $25-million endowment, it would probably have to attract funds that would otherwise be available to the university. The institute also planned to use numerous university facilities and resources, and there was no evidence in its proposal that the institute planned to pay the university for these uses. The model of Princeton, where the Institute for Advanced Study was wholly financed outside the university and was totally independent of the university, was the one Eastman thought appropriate for Toronto’s proposed institute. ‘Proponents will be quite disappointed if you do not support the proposal and may express some resentment,’ he told President Ham. ‘But my conclusions remain the same; the benefits claimed are mere assertions, the resource target cannot be met and would encroach on U of T resources, and IAS would interfere with the lines of responsibilities at the U of T which are confused enough as it is.’39 Don Chant, the provost, also had concerns about the proposal. It was not clear to him what fellows of the institute would do that could not be done ‘under present circumstances’ at the University of Toronto. Like Eastman, he believed the proposal was ‘grossly unrealistic in its funding expectations and it would most certainly compete with other fundraising activities of the University.’ Its governance was ambiguous. ‘Either the Institute should be entirely a creature of Massey College or it should be entirely under the governance of the University,’ he told Ham. ‘At heart I am sympathetic to the proposal,’ he added. But his concerns ‘must be met’ before proceeding further.40 In early May, Chant reported to the president that he had concluded that a feasibility study should be done.41 The president still wavered. He told Leyerle that while the idea of an institute continued to intrigue him, he was troubled by the proposed ‘separate but associated’ status of the institute. If it was going to be independent of the university, Ham added, ‘then the Institute must begin its life with its own resources, which are gathered in ways that do not compromise the interests of the University.’ Moreover, if the institute proposed to be associated with the university in raising its endowment

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funds, it must find a way to do so without limiting ‘the University’s own opportunities to gain funds for its existing needs.’42 At the end of May, the president finally agreed to set up a feasibility committee. A month later Chant, on his last day in office, suggested to Leyerle that the committee focus on three issues. The first was whether the institute could raise adequate funding from private-sector sources not otherwise available to the university. The second was what the governing structure of the institute would be and how it would relate to the governance of the university. And last, the committee should evaluate the role of laboratory-based scientists in the proposed institute. In August, the new provost, David Strangway, and Leyerle sent a statement of authorization for the feasibility committee and guidelines for its agenda to the president for his signature.43




Jim Ham announced the establishment of the committee on 16 September 1980. The first issue to be examined was how the proposed institute could have ‘a national character transcending the interests of any one university but nevertheless be closely affiliated with the University of Toronto as the primary sponsor.’ What should be the structure and organization of the institute, how should it be governed, and what would be the appropriate relationship with the University of Toronto? The institute would need to solicit private funds and would ‘take particular note of the strong affiliation’ with the university. The committee was to ‘report upon the impact that the solicitation for private funds would be expected to have upon the flow of private support to the University of Toronto.’ Lastly, the committee was to critically examine how the institute would ‘advance basic conceptual research across the whole spectrum of knowledge’ and how it would ‘emphasize the central connections between research and teaching,’ and to recommend ‘feasible, concrete goals, objectives and initial programs.’44 The members of the committee included Angus Cameron, John Leyerle, Lou Siminovitch, Fraser Mustard, and John Wilson; St. Clair Balfour, the head of Southam Corporation and a member of the university’s governing council; Professor R. Craig Brown of the Department of History; Professor Stefan Dupré of the Department of Political Science and member of the Ontario Council on University Affairs; Professor J. Barry French of the Department of Aerospace Studies; and Professor Robin Armstrong, chair of the Department of Physics, who also chaired the committee.

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A Generation of Excellence

David Strangway, the provost, and Donald Ivey, the vice-president for institutional relations, were ex officio members and observers.45 Early discussion centred on the primary purpose of the institute: ‘to increase by 1 or more the number of world class people at the University of Toronto.’ An initial model proposed an institute which would grow to sixteen members ‘not already in the system,’ who would be fully paid by the institute, and eighty members who were already at the University of Toronto. The institute, the committee observed, ‘will be able to snatch high quality from the jaws of mediocrity in that it will free individuals from University problems and frustrations and from government regulations imposed on the Universities.’46 Financing the institute was projected in two phases. The start-up funds, John Wilson noted in a discussion paper, ‘will have to come from the University of Toronto or other institutions ... or even directly from government.’ It would take time to establish sustainable financing, and the primary effort had to be to find operating funds. The operating budget for the institute at full strength was projected at $1.4 million annually. Wilson thought it important to establish a ‘first rate periodic publication embodying the Institute’s prime concern with excellence and the common thread of social concern’ connected to its research programs to raise public awareness of the institute.47 High visibility was essential to fundraising, whether for operating funds or, later, for a projected endowment of $30 million. And all members of the committee agreed that the money ‘must be raised without interfering with U. of T. fund raising.’48 Possible sources of funding, the committee thought, included the two senior levels of government, foundations interested in supporting innovative research, wealthy individuals, and perhaps a portion of various universities’ research funds. But how to raise the large amounts of money required for the institute without ‘interfering’ with the university while, at the same time, identifying the University of Toronto as its ‘primary sponsor’ troubled several members of the committee.49 There were other concerns about the projected relationship of the institute to the university. A subcommittee on university relations noted in January 1981 that while approval for the institute was expected from the university’s governing bodies, support for the institute within the University of Toronto was not guaranteed. ‘It must be won by explaining how an IAS would, and would not, affect the University of Toronto and those who work here.’ The subcommittee argued that from the outset ‘a substantial portion’ of the members should be ‘from other institutions in Canada or elsewhere’ instead of having most members

Leyerle’s Idea

13

cross-appointed from U of T. The members from outside must not be given preferential treatment in the appointment procedures of the university at the conclusion of their institute appointments. And, the subcommittee believed, the institute would have to compensate university schools and departments for the lost teaching time of members crossappointed to the institute to do research for extended periods.50 In short, the proposed institute, established as a separate entity with its own governing structure within the University of Toronto, could be perceived not just as an obstacle to university fundraising but also as a competitive institution which could disrupt the university’s normal regulations and procedures. Whether members of the institute should be engaged in teaching during their appointments was another area of concern. John Leyerle had always regarded teaching as an essential component of appointments to the institute. Fraser Mustard also was strongly committed to the idea: he foresaw institute members being housed in university departments or faculties and teaching undergraduate courses as well as playing ‘a major part in graduate education.’51 But a subcommittee on function recorded that the objective of the institute ‘would be to concentrate solely on promoting excellence in research.’ The institute, it added, ‘must be an independent corporation, able to concentrate on enhancing one facet of the academy – research – without at the same time having to support the other facets, teaching and public service.’ The university relations subcommittee argued that ‘a formal, obligatory teaching requirement’ should not be imposed on institute appointees and that whatever teaching was done should not overlap with or duplicate the work already done in the appointee’s department home.52 At the beginning of 1981, the committee was studying various research institute models from other jurisdictions, including the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, the Weizmann Institute of Science in Israel, the Center for Advanced Studies in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford, the Netherlands Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and Social Sciences, and the National Humanities Center in North Carolina. Some members were drafting a promotional document that could be shown to potential donors.53 Subcommittees on function, funding, and university relations were refining drafts of their portions of a final report to the president, due in March. On 3 March, Robin Armstrong met with President Ham. Armstrong told the president that St. Clair Balfour was convinced that an IAS associated with the University of Toronto could interfere with U of T’s fund-

14

A Generation of Excellence

raising potential. Balfour believed that in order to sell itself, the institute must be ‘explicitly different.’ Stefan Dupré and others believed the institute was a good idea but it ‘shouldn’t be started inside’ the university. Armstrong also reported that members of the committee were concerned about a potential bid by Queen’s University to form a similar institute, which would interfere with this proposal. He told the president that he, Balfour, Wilson, Mustard, and Leyerle were prepared to establish a separately incorporated entity right away.54 The next day, John Wilson met with Ham and told him that on his personal account he had asked Donald Guthrie of the law firm Cassels Brock to obtain a federal charter and appropriate charitable status for a Canadian Institute for Advanced Studies. All of this seemed precipitate to Jim Ham. The feasibility committee, after all, had not even formally reported to him, and he was upset by the hasty steps that Wilson and the others were taking. On March 9, Wilson wrote to Ham: ‘This is being done as a matter of caution and expediency. It should not be viewed by you or anyone else as preempting any action you might wish to take. There is no intention on my part or anyone else’s that the proposed charter would be used in any manner whatsoever detrimental to the interests of the University of Toronto ... When obtained, the charter can and will be made available to the University if it wishes to use it.’55 Peter Munsche, the executive assistant to the feasibility committee, recalled that in February and March, discussion in the committee shifted from asking whether the institute should ‘be part of the University of Toronto.’ ‘The question was reversed: if it is going to be independent of the University, what needed to happen in order to realize that vision?’ The change, he added, ‘solved a whole bunch of problems.’56 Fraser Mustard remembered that he and John Wilson were increasingly convinced that the proposed institute should be ‘national’ in both focus and identity. Therefore, ‘it should not be housed within the context of a particular institution.’ They envisioned a network of talented people distributed across Canada, and ‘if you hubbed it all in one institution you wouldn’t build capacity across the country ... We both realized,’ Mustard said, ‘that to raise financial support for this from the federal government and across the country, you had to be as national as you possibly could be, or you would get into great difficulty.’57 The proposed institute was going to be independent, separate, and not affiliated with the University of Toronto. That was abundantly clear in the committee’s final report to the president, which he received a few weeks after his meetings with Armstrong

Leyerle’s Idea

15

and Wilson. To be effective, the report said, the institute ‘must be a private corporation, free to set its own goals and priorities. Direct participation by this or any other university in the establishment of a Canadian Institute for Advanced Studies, therefore, would be inadvisable.’ The institute would not attempt to duplicate the range and variety of a university research program. Instead, it would ‘focus its activities on those frontier areas where it could make the most effective contribution.’ It projected a structure with a director, board of directors, office staff, a small contingent of senior fellows, and a growing group of fellows operating on a budget of $225,000 in year one, rising to $1.1 million in the third year. It would have to be funded primarily from the private sector, and ‘to maximize the Institute’s chances of obtaining a substantial and unrestricted endowment ... the University of Toronto should not be an active participant in its establishment.’ The committee hoped that the university would respond positively to a request from the institute to use its facilities and services for reasonable cost. ‘In essence, the Institute would be a tenant of the University of Toronto, paying an agreed sum for the space and facilities it used.’ The committee recommended: 1 that the University of Toronto should support in principle the creation of a Canadian Institute for Advanced Studies but not be a direct participant in its establishment, and 2 that the University at the executive level extend to the initial Board of Trustees of the Institute such cooperation as it feels proper in the circumstances.58 This was not what Jim Ham and his colleagues had anticipated. His committee had been asked to report on the feasibility of an institute for advanced studies ‘closely affiliated’ with the University of Toronto. The committee had concluded that an institute for advanced study was feasible if it was not affiliated with the university. And some of the committee’s members had taken the decisive step of seeking a federal charter for an institute even before the report to the president was submitted. Beyond expressing support in principle for the creation of such an institute and potentially extending ‘such cooperation as it feels proper’ to it in due course, the president had no option. ‘Jim Ham was relieved,’ Robin Armstrong recalled, ‘because he did not have to deal with it and its implications for the university.’59 In June 1981, Ham presented the report to the academic affairs committee of the governing council ‘for information.’60 ‘Wisely,’ Ham told Mustard in

16

A Generation of Excellence




1982, ‘the Institute came to be established as an entity separate from the University ... This was an action I personally endorsed.’61

While John Wilson awaited the granting of a federal charter, a charter board began organizing the institute. Donald Guthrie had discovered, while acquiring the federal charter, that the name ‘Institute for Advanced Studies’ was not available, so the name ‘Canadian Institute for Advanced Research’ was adopted. The board’s first meeting was held at Massey College on 4 May 1981.62 Wilson was selected as chair of the board and Leyerle as secretary-treasurer. Deans Ernest McCulloch and Lorna Marsden from the Graduate School were co-opted as members of the board, and the other members of the feasibility committee who wished to join were invited to become members. The executive committee of the board would be Wilson, Leyerle, Mustard, McCulloch, and Balfour. The group agreed to disband ‘on Charter Day, the date when the CIAR begins its formal legal life under its charter.’63 A subcommittee on finances was established to develop a budget for the institute. Another on priorities had a mandate to ‘define the subject areas of initial concentration’ on a research agenda, and a third had the task of recommending a director for the institute.64 That same day, Wilson and Mustard had also met with Premier William Davis of Ontario and Bette Stephenson, the minister of education and colleges and universities, who was a friend of Mustard’s. They briefed the premier and the minister on their expectations for CIAR and asked for support from the province. They had asked Stephenson for $250,000 each year for five years as seed money for the institute, and she told them she would reply very soon. She also raised the possibility that CIAR might use an old Ontario government building on University Avenue as its headquarters. ‘In general,’ Wilson and Mustard reported to the charter board, Stephenson ‘displayed a lively enthusiasm for establishing the CIAR.’ Some weeks later, Stephenson reported that the institute could use space at the building at no cost and that the government of Ontario would match in the first year up to $125,000 against what the institute could raise in the private sector.65 By then the subcommittees were at work. The priorities subcommittee recommended that the institute quickly establish working relationships with key research universities across Canada. It forecast the institute having a core group of fellows based at the institute, with

Leyerle’s Idea

17

appropriate research bases at the U of T and ‘other neighbouring universities.’ They would hold renewable five-year appointments. A group of associate fellows on five-year renewable appointments would be based in their own universities, with institutional links to CIAR. And visiting fellows on one-to three-year appointments would be based in their own universities but expected to spend time at CIAR. Most important, the subcommittee stated the primary objective of CIAR: To recruit four to eight distinguished fellows whose scholarship, intelligence, and breadth, and areas of interest will create a core around which the local, national and international links can be established to create an internationally recognized institute embracing the humanities, and the life, physical and social sciences. The recruitment of these fellows should be primarily determined by their abilities and availability not by their specific areas of interest.66

At the end of July, Leyerle wrote to Wilson to formally recommend, on behalf of the search committee, that Fraser Mustard be appointed the founding president of CIAR. The institute, he wrote, ‘will flourish under the leadership of Dr. Mustard, who is, evidently, the right man at the right time for this appointment.’67 On 27 August 1981, with the institute’s charter secured, the inaugural meeting of the board of directors was held at the Prince Arthur Hotel in Toronto. The members were John Leyerle, Ernest McCulloch, Fraser Mustard, and St. Clair Balfour, with John Wilson in the chair. Robin Armstrong was elected to membership on the board, and Wilson and Mustard reported on further meetings with the government of Ontario about financial support for the institute. The board agreed that until space became available at the old Ontario government building, Massey College would be the headquarters for the institute. Finally, Fraser Mustard advised the board that ‘he was prepared to accept the position [of president] provided that sufficient financial backing was committed to permit the Institute to commence operations and carry on a minimum level of operations for five years.’ He would, he advised, be available fulltime for the task beginning in January 1982.68 John Leyerle’s idea had become a reality – not the reality he had originally imagined, but a more ambitious and more challenging reality, an independent national research institute. As Leyerle, an old sailor, might have said, CIAR was launched.

2 Getting Started

In the fall of 1981, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research was scarcely more than a name and an idea. It had a federal charter and a board of directors, each of whom had full-time responsibilities to other institutions. The institute had no research programs. It had no fellows. It had no office. Most critical, it had no money. Without fellows, without a research program or programs, it would be exceedingly difficult to raise funds from either private or public sources. And without funds it could not plan, initiate, or support either fellows or research programs. That was the dilemma that occupied the directors’ attention when they met in September. The board elected St. Clair Balfour as vice-chair, Mustard as president, Leyerle as secretary, and Robin Armstrong as treasurer. John Wilson reported that the institute still awaited a licence under the Income Tax Act to issue receipts for charitable donations. He added that his further discussions with Minister Stephenson and an executive assistant to Premier Davis about seed money from the Ontario government had been positive. But both the minister and the premier strongly suggested that the board be expanded ‘to include more individuals with influence in the business and financial communities.’1 The board agreed; because its primary function was to raise money for the institute, recruitment of new members ‘should therefore weigh heavily’ in the effort. It was also important, Mustard stressed, that new directors come from western Canada and Quebec to give the board a more national character. ‘Distinguished academics,’ a member observed, would be more useful on an advisory board to guide the research activities of the institute.2 A number of possible recruits, including Richard Thomson, chair of the Toronto-Dominion Bank, the Vancouver businessman Allan Craw-

Getting Started 19

ford, Larry Clarke, the chief executive officer of Spar Aerospace in Toronto, and Larkin Kerwin, the chair of the National Research Council and a Quebecer, were proposed. Mustard then informed his colleagues that while his ‘conditional acceptance’ of the presidency was still confidential, President Alvin Lee of McMaster was very supportive. John Leyerle reported that Philippe Garigue, the new principal of Glendon College, York University, had been working on a plan for an institute for advanced studies at York, and Leyerle urged Mustard to see him. Finally, the board discussed a suggestion that the Duncan and Walter Gordon Foundation might give CIAR funds to support a year of released time for research for the distinguished chemist John Polanyi of the University of Toronto. The attraction of the proposal was that it would show potential donors a prominent institute scientist and instant program which would be ‘a concrete example of how it intended to foster Canadian research.’ The problem was that the venture would appear to establish a strong, direct link with the university, and that was just what all agreed the institute should avoid. More than that, some members believed that the first program of the institute should be to fund something ‘which the universities were not doing, such as repatriating Canadian researchers now working abroad.’ This, in turn, highlighted another problem. CIAR needed an advisory group to formulate its research policy, and it needed it soon.3 The difficulty of adding new board members nationally was that the current members knew very few potential recruits outside Toronto or Ontario. An exception was Allan Crawford in Vancouver. Crawford had an important and growing business, Anatek Electronics, which supplied sophisticated technical and scientific equipment to Canadian university science departments. He served on the board of the University Hospital at the University of British Columbia. Recently the hospital had been battling with the president of the university over whether it should retain its own autonomous board or, as the president wanted, come under his direct control. Walter Koerner, chair of the hospital board, had delegated Crawford to investigate the options and report. Crawford consulted with a friend at the University of Toronto Medical School, who sent him to see Mustard at McMaster. Mustard strongly recommended retaining a separate board for the hospital. Sometime later, Mustard and Crawford participated in a panel discussion on Canadian science and technology start-up companies at a Canadian Association of Physicists meeting at McMaster.4 Each man was deeply impressed by the other. Crawford had a detailed

20

A Generation of Excellence

knowledge of the state of scientific research in Canadian universities and strong links to leaders in the British Columbia business community. Mustard was attracted to a successful entrepreneur, trained as an electrical engineer, who had built a small supply service in Ontario into a very successful business with national vision and contacts. Mustard called him a few days after the September CIAR board meeting. Crawford, a committed nationalist like Mustard, was immediately excited about the proposal. ‘One of the great things about this [CIAR] was that it never decided it was just going to be a scientific initiative, but it had a broader perspective to it, which I thought was absolutely tremendous,’ he recalled.5 ‘Allan’s interest and the fact that he really thinks that what we are trying to do is essential for the country,’ Mustard wrote to Wilson, made it imperative that either Wilson or both of them should meet Crawford ‘as soon as we can.’6 John Wilson told the board in November that he had met with Crawford and was convinced that he would ‘satisfy, at least in part, the need for western representation.’ In December, Crawford was invited to join the board of directors. A pattern of recruitment had been established. As names came forward, Wilson or Mustard, occasionally Leyerle or Balfour, would contact the person to gauge potential interest. A meeting with Wilson or Mustard, frequently both, followed to present the case for the institute. It was an impressive partnership to sell CIAR. Mustard was an internationally recognized scientist who bristled with energy and enthusiasm for the project. Wilson was a soft-spoken but very persuasive, hardheaded businessman. Wilson ‘fancied himself as the practical person at the table,’ Peter Munsche recalled, ‘the one who could figure out how to get things done. It was all very fine for academics to sit around and say what the institute should look like, but unless it was saleable in the private sector it wasn’t really going to be. So there was this nice play between a kind of academic ambition and values and so on and the very practical considerations of a businessman who had a project which he had to sell to a bunch of investors.’7 The same day that Crawford’s invitation was approved by the board, Larry Clarke was also invited to join. And Richard Thomson had lent his name and support to the institute and been appointed its honorary treasurer. Recruiting business and financial leadership for CIAR’s board took time, persuasion, patience, and a tolerance for refusals. There were many and they were always polite, but firm. But by the end of 1981, a process of recruitment had been set, the chief function of board mem-

Getting Started 21

bers had been defined, and the transition of CIAR’s board from a small group, all but two of whom were academics, towards its eventual character and purpose had begun.




An October 1981 prospectus for CIAR’s first three years estimated costs in its first year of $280,000 for board operations, a core office staff, the president’s salary, the appointment of a fellow in the last quarter of the year, research support for both the president and the fellow, funds for a research policy committee, and fundraising and promotional expenses. It was the key fundraising document of CIAR, and when it was written, the institute had no money at all. The prospectus also declared that in year two, two more fellows would be appointed, followed by two more in year three, each receiving $80,000 in salary and $60,000 in research and support funds per annum. The goal was to meet costs of $800,000 in year two and $1.4 million in year three.8 The University of Toronto’s feasibility committee had discovered that most of the advanced research institutes they examined were, as Peter Munsche put it, ‘almost invariably based on one-shot infusions of wealth from a single source ... I think that most people had in mind ... finding a single godfather that would provide the money to realize this dream.’ The vision of an ideal funding mechanism, a very large donation from a donor or two among persons of great wealth in Canada, lingered at the board of directors. But when John Wilson was rebuffed by Kenneth Thomson and, perhaps, by the Irving family, this hope was dashed. These people, Munsche recalled, ‘were simply not interested in providing a big block of capital to endow this thing.’9 In the public sector, the institute had raised its request for support from the Ontario government to $500,000 a year for five years. But Wilson reported to the board in October that, although ‘the Premier likes the idea,’ there was still no commitment. Mustard responded, with a hint of frustration, that if Ontario did not give a definitive answer by the end of the month, ‘the board should shift its focus to the private sector.’ Still, the campaign at Queen’s Park could not be halted: the premier’s general interest and Minister Stephenson’s support were the only positive signals out there.10 By December the news was scarcely better. Board members fed names and contacts to Wilson, who made preliminary soundings of a number of Canadian foundations. ‘The response has been generally encouraging,’ he reported, but here, too, there were no

22

A Generation of Excellence

commitments. Balfour was concerned. Approaching the Canadian foundations, he observed, was ‘entering into direct competition with the universities.’ Others thought that this competition couldn’t be avoided, ‘at least in the initial phase of the Institute’s existence,’ but argued that once an endowment fund had been built up, the head-to-head competition with the universities would diminish. A large, sustaining endowment for CIAR lived on as the ultimate goal of fundraising. It would for years to come. But in the meantime, Wilson reported in December 1981 that there was still no response from Queen’s Park.11 The situation was becoming critical. At its first meeting, in August, Mustard had told the board that he could be available fulltime in January, now just days away. Though he was as committed as ever, there was no money to support him, and his assumption of fulltime responsibilities was put off. Wilson reported in February 1982 that he had made submissions to several Canadian foundations for seed money or endowment funds and that he would not proceed further until the results of these early applications was known. It was important to note, he added, that the foundations were interested in projects CIAR might sponsor but not in CIAR itself. That response underlined again the need for a research council to identify projects for the institute. Mustard said that Stuart Smith, the recently appointed head of the Science Council of Canada, had the same message. Smith suggested that the science council might consider contracting with the institute to work on certain projects, and the revenue from these could be used to cover some of the institute’s operating expenses. The point about projects was more important than the board members realized in early 1982: it opened a policy issue that would not be resolved for many years. There was a glimmer of light on the financial horizon. Although Bette Stephenson had told Mustard that she did not hold out ‘much hope’ for getting seed money from the premier in 1982, she also said she might be able to find $100,000 in her budget. In addition, while no word was forthcoming about a headquarters site in the old Ontario government building on University Avenue, Stephenson suggested that the institute might occupy the second floor of George Brown House on Beverley Street, just south of the University. And Crawford turned the attention of the board to seeking support from corporate donors instead of foundations or very wealthy individuals. If, he noted, the federal government would allow corporations to get tax deductions for donations to the

Getting Started 23

institute, similar to those that they got for investments in research and development, ‘then industry could be a strong source of support.’ Wilson was eager to pursue the matter even though the federal government had still not approved the institute’s application for charitable status.12 In March, after months of seemingly hopeless effort and increasing concern, the news got better. Most important, Mustard had worked out an arrangement with Alvin Lee at McMaster to take sabbatical leave for six months, starting on July 1. If the institute’s fundraising campaign was successful, Mustard reported to the board, the leave could be extended. Mustard had research money from the Medical Research Council but would need an executive assistant, a secretary, and a working headquarters. He thought CIAR would need $100,000 to become operational. In essence, then, the first tangible support for the institute came from Mustard’s university. It would pay him during his sabbatical year. Now it was up to the board to follow up with operational funds. Wilson, Balfour, Crawford, and Clarke were appointed as a subcommittee to study and report on the best approaches to take to donors. And a start had already been made. Wilson reported that the Gordon Foundation had committed $10,000 in seed money, and Spar Aerospace had made an initial commitment of $2,500, with the prospect of building quickly to $25,000. Wilson and Mustard also had visited Mustard’s long-time friend Joseph Peller, a medical colleague who had given up his profession to become president of Andrés Wines. Peller had been asked to help pay for the office of the president or for ongoing support for Mustard’s research. He was genuinely interested in Mustard’s work and what the institute proposed to do.13 In May, the CIAR’s first-stage financing all came together. Peller had committed $40,000 a year for three years. A portion of the money would help fund Mustard as the first fellow of the institute while McMaster paid three-quarters of his salary for the coming year.14 The Gordon Foundation’s $10,000 was also for three years, and Stephenson’s ministries (Education and Colleges and Universities) had pledged $120,000 a year for three years, with the first payment coming within two months. Spar’s initial commitment was followed by $5,000 from Southam Limited. Suddenly the institute had at least $170,000 a year from 1982 through 1984, and Crawford was organizing a meeting for Wilson and Mustard with a British Columbia cabinet minister, university presidents, and business leaders. George Brown House was still being considered as a headquarters when news arrived that Victoria University had revived its once passing interest in CIAR. It was prepared to give the institute

24

A Generation of Excellence

land on which to build a headquarters. Board members were sceptical. Not only was the scheme beyond the institute’s means; the potential location on the University of Toronto campus also ‘would undermine the Institute’s attempt to present itself as an independent institution.’ Still, with so much positive news at hand, the board decided it would make a public announcement of the formation of the institute in June. Spar offered the services of a senior public relations official to coordinate the event.15 At the end of May, Wilson and Mustard went to Vancouver and Victoria to meet George Pedersen, president of Simon Fraser University, and Howard Petch, president of the University of Victoria. Especially memorable to Crawford was their meeting with the minister of education, Patrick McGeer, a neuroscientist at the University of British Columbia. ‘Mustard and John Wilson really were there as a couple of sales guys and presented this plan as something that was national in scope. If it was going to be national, it had to have the support of all parts of the country, and B.C. was going to be a key,’ Crawford said. ‘McGeer, I think partly because of his makeup, really didn’t believe this. He thought this was probably another attempt by Easterners to take over B.C. ... They hammered away at him for an hour and a half, and McGeer is a hell of a good debater ... I thought at one point that John Wilson was gonna slug him ... The two of them came out incensed. They were just mad as hell.’ Crawford concluded that ‘it was a wonderful meeting,’ followed later in the day by a gathering at the Vancouver Club with ‘the movers and shakers.’ McGeer was there, as were Norman Anderson, the chair of Cominco, Jerry Hobbs, Cominco’s former president and chair and, like Crawford, a director of the University Hospital, Jack Cline, the chancellor of UBC, Gordon Shrum, former chair of BC Hydro, Allan Pierce, president of W. Mercer Limited, and David Freeman. As they had so many times before, Wilson and Mustard came away with no commitments. But significant contacts had been established and there was interest in forming a British Columbia ‘chapter’ of potential privatesector supporters. Crawford, Wilson, and Mustard all believed that Jerry Hobbs ‘was likely to be a key figure.’16 In Toronto, Mustard needed assistance. He approached Peter Munsche to be his executive assistant. Munsche had taken a similar position at Leyerle’s School of Graduate Studies when his assignment with the feasibility committee was finished, and while there he had acted unofficially as the recording secretary and factotum of the nascent institute. As

Getting Started 25

McMaster had done by supporting Mustard, the Graduate School was also providing a vitally important subsidy to CIAR’s start-up phase. Without Munsche to coordinate assignments, arrange meetings, fix travel arrangements, and manage a host of other details, and keep a complete running record of all the institute’s activities, scarcely any of the work that had been accomplished since the charter would have been possible. Mustard now had a heavy assignment for Munsche: to assist the president in the performance of his duties; to provide staff support to the board of directors, the future research council, and any other institute bodies; to manage the office and the institute budget; to organize all the institute’s public activities; and to do whatever other work needed to be done or supervised. Munsche was pleased and confident that he could manage the job.17 In July 1982, when Mustard came aboard full-time, Munsche and Elizabeth Green, a secretary at the Graduate School, were appointed as CIAR’s office staff. Green would work full-time immediately and Munsche would be part-time until the end of June 1983 so that he could wind up his responsibilities at the Graduate School. There was one other crucial aspect to their appointments. Mustard and Jim Ham agreed that Munsche and Green would stay on the University of Toronto payroll and continue to participate in the university’s benefit plans. The institute would determine their compensation and would pay the university for their salaries and for the university’s contributions to their benefit plans. It was an exceedingly important precedent for the institute. It allowed Munsche and Green to continue in the better-thanaverage benefit plans the university offered its employees and, at the same time, saved the institute the cost of establishing and administering its own benefit plans. Mustard told Ham that he hoped it would set the ‘pattern for working relationships between the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research and the major universities in Canada.’ It did, and it became the model for CIAR’s appointments.18




As the discussions and plans for fundraising proceeded in late 1981 and early 1982, it became more and more clear that establishing a research council was another urgent priority. From the beginning, Mustard, Leyerle, and the others had known that the institute had to have a group of advisers from across Canada to make recommendations on its research policies and initiatives. The October 1981 prospectus forecast a ‘research

26

A Generation of Excellence

policy committee’ of ten or more members appointed by the board on the recommendation of the president. The institute’s senior fellows would be ex officio members, and the committee would be chaired by the president. He would also chair a subcommittee charged with evaluating and nominating senior fellows, fellows, and associates for each of the institute’s research programs. Members of the research policy committee, the prospectus concluded, would receive a ‘modest honorarium’ for their services and be reimbursed for expenses incurred in doing their work.19 At the October 1981 board meeting, Mustard announced that he and John Leyerle would soon draw up a list of prospective members of the committee, now to be called an ‘advisory board.’ They would be academic administrators, distinguished research scholars, foundation directors, and ‘other individuals, such as entrepreneurs, lawyers and architects, whose judgement and imagination would contribute to the Advisory Board’s deliberations.’ The board, he said, would consist of no more than twenty members but could be supplemented by ‘task forces’ to assist if additional sources of advice were needed.20 There the matter rested until the new year, as the board wrestled with the difficulties of recruiting new members and attracting start-up money for the institute. In early January, Leyerle wrote to the deans of all the graduate schools in Canada asking them, in consultation with their presidents, to suggest candidates from their institutions for the advisory board. The institute, he added, was a ‘bold initiative in an age when caution is the norm, but if Canada is to develop and prosper, we must be willing to look beyond our present difficulties and discouragements.’ He looked forward to receiving suggestions of persons who were ‘researchers of international stature, broad experience and sound judgment.’21 By late March, eighteen universities had not responded.22 But twenty had, nominating forty-six scholars, with more to come. All the letters welcomed the concept, and most simply sent the names and credentials of their nominees. Dean Terry Hogan of the University of Manitoba, speaking for himself and President Arnold Naimark, forthrightly raised questions that perhaps had occurred to other deans as well. ‘How closely do you see the Institute being tied to the University of Toronto?’ he asked. He and Naimark were concerned that the institute ‘might be tied in a restrictive fashion to the University of Toronto’ rather than being ‘broadly defined and national in character.’ Noting the aspiration of the institute for a broad, nationally representative research council, and the fact that the board of directors, at that time, consisted solely of members from Toronto or Hamilton, Hogan and Naimark commented

Getting Started 27

that the research council and the board ‘would need to be broadly representative of the country for the Institute’s national character to be ensured.’23 Leyerle quickly replied that ‘the Institute has no ties with the University of Toronto,’ that Allan Crawford and Larry Clarke had just joined the board, and that other nationally representative appointments to the board were anticipated in the near future. ‘The thrust of your letter is a chicken-egg problem,’ Leyerle added. Starting the CIAR was feasible only by the dedicated work of a relatively small group able to meet together often and with minimal cost in money and time. The result, in a country like Canada, is suspicion elsewhere of regionalism. The step of expanding membership in the CIAR to give the Institute a truly national character encounters the exact suspicion that the step is taken to avoid. I hope that what is presented in the Plan and in this letter reassures you and your colleagues that we are doing exactly what we say we are doing, not trying to authenticate a Toronto organization by giving it a veneer of national character. The University of Toronto can and should stand on its own.24

The impressive character of the nominees recommended by the graduate deans suggested that a strong, nationally representative research council could be struck. But Mustard told the board in February that it couldn’t be done until funding had been found. Because it was necessary to get started on plans for research policy and appointments, he asked the board members Leyerle and McCulloch and Lorna Marsden, Lou Siminovitch, and Arthur Bourns, former president of McMaster, to form an interim ad hoc advisory committee.25 They would assist him to devise strategies for building a research council and begin exploring potential research areas for the institute. The group met late in March 1982, just as the list of graduate deans’ nominees was being assembled. One of their tasks was to create a parallel list of potential research council members themselves. Already three possible research areas were being mooted: astrophysics, which might be linked to the soon-to-be-developed Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics at U of T; man and machines, an exploration of the impact on society of the emerging fields of artificial intelligence and robotics; and population, biotechnology, and health, an area where Mustard believed much work needed to be done to understand the health challenges of societies at the end of the twentieth century.

28

A Generation of Excellence

The group noted four different ways in which the institute could support research. First, it could support the individual research of a distinguished scholar. It could also serve as a coordinator for fundamental research projects being worked on at several universities. Or it could support research and development in projects that linked important work in universities to the needs of industry. Finally, it could establish one or more interdisciplinary research and scholarship programs on a national basis.26 A month later, the seed money for operations for the first three years was largely in place, and Mustard believed that the institute could afford an interim research council of ten to twelve members. The advisory committee thought it should have a three-year rotation of membership with the first appointments being for one, two, or three years. Unrecorded, but agreed by all on the committee, was a change: members of the research council would not be paid the ‘modest honorarium’ envisioned in the October prospectus. Mustard suggested developing one research program first, probably in health care. A second, ‘probably in connection with CITA,’ might follow. In addition, he and Leyerle wanted to appoint, as individual scholars, ‘some bright young researchers.’ And the institute might hold a large public conference on a ‘significant research topic’ in the spring of 1983.27 In May and June, the advisory committee designated man and machines and population health as interdisciplinary research areas that the research council should develop and agreed with Mustard that early work might begin on two other areas. Because resources were limited and only the seed money for the first three years was in place, it was likely that only associate fellows could be appointed to the first research programs. Appointing a number of younger, ‘junior’ fellows remained a goal to be achieved, not an immediate possibility. John Leyerle expressed a developing concern that the institute should not tie all its activities to research themes. The other alternative, supporting a distinguished individual scholar, preferably a young upand-comer, must not be relegated to a second category of priority. But Mustard argued that research themes embracing interdisciplinary research programs were especially important ‘in showing potential donors what kinds of projects CIAR would be working on.’28 What was emerging was a difference in development strategies between the two people who, along with John Wilson, were the most important founders of CIAR. Leyerle, from the earliest days in 1978, had foreseen an institute with places for distinguished individual schol-

Getting Started 29

ars. He supported funding theme-oriented research programs; they, too, were important. But they should not be the sole focus of activity. Mustard, on the other hand, saw the potential for the institute to promote interdisciplinary, interuniversity research programs in areas of national importance. They were what would bring a new, creative focus to basic research in Canada. The support of research by distinguished individuals, working usually in a single discipline, was the backbone of most of the important research work already being done in Canadian universities. It was the notion of breaking through barriers, both disciplinary and institutional, that Mustard believed would be the most useful in CIAR’s efforts to secure financial backing from both private and public donors. By July, the ad hoc advisory committee had gathered and evaluated its own list of names for potential research council members to add to the lists from the graduate deans and other sources. A final list of people was approved, and Mustard planned to approach them in July and early August. A small group of recognized scholars would be asked to begin planning a strategy for development of a research program in population health, and another was being organized to do the same for man and machines. Both would report to the new research council, which Mustard hoped to call together in September.29




At the board meeting on 18 June 1982, John Wilson announced that J. Maurice LeClair, the president of Canadian National Railways, a former dean of the Medical School at the University of Sherbrooke, and a former senior civil servant in the federal government, had agreed to join the board. He also reported that Bette Stephenson had cleared all the obstacles to occupancy of offices at 434 University Avenue. The Ontario government would cover the cost of refurbishing the space and supplying CIAR with office furniture and equipment. Together with the government’s three-year pledge of financial support, the office space was a very substantial benefit to the institute, relieving it of major infrastructure costs in its start-up period. Then, a week later, Fraser Mustard’s appointment as president of the institute was publicly announced. A bold headline across the top of page 7 of the Hamilton Spectator read: ‘$70m sought to set up independent research institute.’ The story told of Mustard’s resignation as vice-president of health sciences at McMaster, adding that he would continue his research into cardiovascular dis-

30

A Generation of Excellence

eases in his laboratory there. Mustard told the paper that the goal was to raise $70 million from private sources over ten years and to build the institute up to forty to fifty senior fellows. ‘Canada has no national institutions of higher learning which focus on excellence ... Our criteria (in the institute) are achievement and excellence. ‘Oh, the country needs it, and it can be made to work,’ he added. ‘We’ll get the money.’30

3 First Business

Mustard could not afford to wait for the research council to evaluate potential research programs. The invitations had gone out but membership was uncertain. And once the council was established, the next question was how the members would work together. The members from the ad hoc advisory committee might provide steering and guidance to the council. But in early July 1982, the committee itself had only vague notions and general ideas about what thematic areas had real potential for development and, equally important, what theme areas could attract funding. There was urgent work to be done, so the committee met regularly throughout the summer. Early on, it decided that each theme area would need a task force of high-profile researchers in the field to make recommendations on specific research initiatives and the people who could implement them. One theme Arthur Bourns promoted was broadly based research on the social impact of the emerging computer technology. There were strong computer science departments at Toronto, Waterloo, and Alberta and areas of strength at Laval, Université de Montréal, and British Columbia to provide some of the personnel on the scientific and technical side. But the real attractiveness of a program in man and machines was that it could engage humanists and social scientists also. Mustard asked the computer scientists Kelly Gotlieb of the University of Toronto and Eric Manning of the University of Waterloo, Ian Hacking, a philosopher of science at U of T, and William Tatton, a neurologist at the Playfair Institute of the Toronto Western Hospital, to prepare a report on the research potential of man and machines for the ad hoc committee. If the idea looked promising, their report would be the basis for a presentation to the research council at a later date.1 Two weeks later, Mustard presented a brief on population health. He

32

A Generation of Excellence

argued that Canada, with its ten different health-care systems, would be a ‘fruitful ground for research’ and that understanding the parameters of population health was especially important in the developing nations of the world. A multidisciplinary research program in the area could attract funding from the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and the Rockefeller Foundation. The statistician Peter Tugwell from McMaster, the economist Rod Fraser from Queen’s, the biophysicist and epidemiologist James Till from the Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto, and Tatton were asked to prepare an initial evaluation of the dimensions of the field, the strengths and weaknesses of Canadian research in the area, and a strategy for development. Another area was theoretical astrophysics. Peter Martin of Toronto and Richard Henriksen of Queen’s, supported by the Canadian Astronomical Society, were advocating the formation of the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics. They hoped to see it established at a Canadian university and funded by, among others, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. Martin and Henriksen had made their initial approach to CIAR much earlier. The advantage for CIAR of an association with CITA was that it could provide links to Queen’s, Victoria, and Toronto, the three universities being courted as potential sites for the institute, and to research centres like the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics at the National Research Council in Ottawa. Martin and Henriksen were asked to draft a proposal for the ad hoc advisory committee.2 On 1 August, they told the committee that theoretical astrophysics research had matured in the past decade and that several internationally recognized scholars were based in Canada, but their efforts were dispersed. CITA, they argued, could coordinate their work and facilitate increasingly important partnerships in research with the observational astronomers. As modern observational facilities in Canada and abroad gathered more and more sophisticated data, exciting new theoretical questions were being posed in cosmology and studies of galaxies, stars, the solar system, and the interstellar medium. Martin and Henriksen suggested that CIAR could support their program by appointing and funding a senior fellow to direct CITA. Or it might fund a number of associate fellows, provide office support for CITA, or cosponsor CITA’s conferences and seminars. The committee members thought all of this seemed to suggest that CIAR’s contribution to CITA would be much the same as that of a granting council. They quickly responded that providing grants to other research entities was not the function of CIAR. Later a follow-up meeting

First Business

33

of the committee decided that the only appropriate link with CITA would be amalgamation of the two units, with CITA becoming a permanent program of CIAR. ‘Conjunction with a separate institute would probably be unworkable.’ Mustard was delegated to propose to Martin and Henriksen that their potential institute be amalgamated with CIAR.3 In late September, shortly before the first research council meeting, Martin and Henriksen returned with a proposal that CIAR ‘undertake to establish CTA [CITA] as one activity under its jurisdiction.’ CIAR would then ‘make appropriate arrangements’ with a host university for a site for the program and with the National Research Council for cooperation in making temporary appointments of CITA personnel to the Herzberg Institute. CIAR and the host university would share the appointment of a director, and, over time, CIAR would appoint two senior fellows, three fellows, and several associate fellows to CITA to join a similar group of fellows from the National Research Council and the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council. They were invited to present their case to the first research council meeting.4 On 25 August, Tugwell, Fraser, Till, and Tatton had an initial meeting with the ad hoc advisory committee. Population health, they argued, was so broad a theme, with so many dimensions, that the first order of business had to be to carefully define general areas of research into the various important determinants of the health of organized populations. Then, but only then, could more intensive, and costly, work be started to develop a database to measure the ‘health’ of a population. To date there was almost no systematic, multidisciplinary research being done anywhere in the world on several determinants of health such as environmental impacts, personal lifestyles, socio-economic influences on health, or even biological factors. More than that, while health-care services had only marginal influence on human health as measured by life expectancy, they did have a significant impact on the quality of life in populations. They concluded that there was a very good chance that Canada, through CIAR, could play a lead role in exploring the determinants of health systematically. Still, more work needed to be done by Tugwell’s group and the advisory committee before a task force could be appointed to develop a proposal.5




The first meeting of the research council began with a reception and dinner on 29 September 1982, at John Wilson’s golf club, the Lambton

34

A Generation of Excellence

Golf and Country Club in Etobicoke. Sixteen scholars from across Canada had accepted Mustard’s invitation, and ten were present to join the ad hoc advisory committee members as the new research council.6 The next morning, the council assembled at the University Club in downtown Toronto to hear opening remarks on the origins of CIAR by John Leyerle. Mustard sketched the financial status of the institute, and the session then turned to a general discussion for the new members of the role of the institute. Mustard underlined the importance of bringing together outstanding scholars from several disciplines at different universities in Canada and abroad in its projected research program structure. Both individual scholarly appointments and thematic programs were on CIAR’s agenda, but the initial thrust was towards thematic program development. Angus Bruneau, a dynamic engineering consultant and businessman from St. John’s with strong connections to the scientific community at Memorial University, reminded the council that in some fields the true leaders in research were in industrial laboratories and government departments, not in universities. And Mustard looked to the day when the institute would have a true home, with not only suitable space for administrative operations but also meeting rooms and accommodations for program fellows visiting headquarters. Mustard told the council that one of its most important tasks would be to select the fellows of the institute. Junior fellows would be temporary appointments, but it was possible that some senior fellows might have permanent CIAR appointments. A candidate’s research ability and record and the stage of her or his intellectual development were going to be basic criteria for appointment. Several members cautioned that appointing only persons who had well-established reputations would not stimulate the creative interaction that CIAR was looking for. As Lou Siminovitch put it, the ‘emphasis on “success” would simply yield people who had no new ideas.’ Gilles Cloutier, a physicist and president of the Alberta Research Council, added the hope that the CIAR research council would have the courage to seek out and appoint ‘unorthodox’ researchers in its programs. Peter Larkin, a biologist and the dean of Graduate Studies at University of British Columbia, asked whether the council was intended to ‘simply pass judgment’ on research program proposals brought before it or would the council itself participate in exploring potential areas of research. Mustard and others agreed that the council should generate as well as receive proposals, especially those that promoted interdisciplinary research. The session concluded with recommendations to form four working

First Business

35

committees of the research council. A nominating committee would recommend, on a rotating basis, new candidates for council membership; a fellowship committee would establish procedures and criteria for appointment of fellows. A planning and priorities committee would recommend areas of research to be pursued and ways to accomplish its programs, and an executive committee would assist the president in development of the institute between meetings of the research council. The members of the executive committee would be Arthur Bourns, Angus Bruneau, John Leyerle, Bob Haynes, a biologist at York University, and Terrence Penelhum, a philosopher at the University of Calgary. They, in turn, would select the membership of the three other committees.7 In the afternoon, the research council heard presentations from the people developing theme research proposals for the institute. Rod Fraser and William Tatton elaborated briefly on a paper circulated before the meeting on population health. Some members questioned whether the field was simply too big for the institute to tackle, while others commented on the vagueness of some of the issues in the program. Still others differed about whether the program should participate in several areas or concentrate in one or two selected disciplines. Kelly Gotlieb and William Tatton stressed the importance of research in artificial intelligence in their outline of man and machines. But Bob Haynes was sceptical, noting that, to date, work in the AI area had not been very successful. Clarence Barber, an economist at the University of Manitoba, doubted the economic importance of AI research, and Arthur Bourns was disappointed that Gotlieb and Tatton had placed little emphasis on research on the impact of computer technology on society. That, he said, was an important area of research that neither the academic world nor the marketplace was pursuing. Henriksen and Martin followed with a review of the proposal they had made to CIAR just days before. They focused on the need to coordinate the work of theoretical astrophysicists in Canada and to develop stronger collaboration with their observational colleagues. Finally, a presentation on Canadian legal history was made by the historian Peter Oliver and the social scientist Jane Banfield Haynes from York University. They outlined the work and goals of the recently established Osgoode Society, which aimed to promote the study of legal history. The society was publishing several books in a field where scarcely any work had yet been done. The field offered a unique opportunity to study the development of Canadian society and to link the work of English-language and French-language scholars in the social sci-

36

A Generation of Excellence

ences. But Oliver agreed with Craig Brown that there were few senior scholars in the field to provide programmatic leadership. A number of members of the research council responded to the presentations with suggestions that more theme areas had to be considered before they would be prepared to make any decisions about CIAR’s initial areas of activity. This initiative from members established the research council’s control of the institute’s research agenda but threatened to delay action on starting a research program. That was a problem, especially for Mustard’s and the board’s fundraising activity. CIAR needed a program to sell to potential donors, and it needed it quickly. Lou Siminovitch, sensitive to these concerns, suggested that along with consideration of other possible research themes at the next meeting, the research council agree that one of the areas already on the table, man and machines, should be developed into a formal, detailed proposal. The council agreed and Mustard was asked to have Gotlieb, Tatton, and others form a task force to make a submission to the next council meeting.8 In the following weeks, the executive committee rounded out the membership of the council committees. Lorna Marsden was added to the executive committee, and John Leyerle, Bob Bell, and Craig Brown were named chairs of the fellowship, planning and priorities, and nominating committees.9 Mustard also visited the University of Alberta, the University of Waterloo, McGill, and the University of Toronto Faculty Club to acquaint university officials and interested faculty members with the concept and aspirations of the institute. At the beginning of November, a large task force on ‘people and machines’ met at CIAR headquarters to work out a research proposal for the next council meeting.10 In late November, the planning and priorities committee had a long discussion about the options for appointing fellows. All agreed that outstanding research ability was the threshold to appointment. But should a person’s research interest steer the appointment process, or should the institute select certain areas of intellectual activity and use that as a guide to selection? Most research institutes had begun with a limited selection of areas of interest. CIAR, however, was committing itself to potential research programs across the whole spectrum of disciplines. And that pointed to the thematic approach which Mustard had been advocating. It had ‘several virtues’: ‘First, it would relieve the Institute of the perhaps impossible task of deciding which disciplines are “fundamental” and “important” and which are not. Second, it would be consistent with the network structure of the Institute ... Third, if accompanied

First Business

37

by active encouragement of cross-disciplinary interaction, the approach has the potential of adding a new dimension to research in Canada, one which is, at present, absent from Canadian universities and other research institutions.’11 Ideas for thematic programs might originate in the research council or the board of directors, from the fellows of the institute, or from individuals affiliated with other research institutions – or even, perhaps, from interested members of the public. The committee decided it should screen the suggestions and, if they were promising, assign a task force similar to the one on people and machines to work up a proposal for the research council.12 A parallel meeting of the fellowship committee adopted a different emphasis. While it endorsed the appointment of fellows to ‘theme areas,’ it highlighted selection of ‘individual scholars and scientists, the nature of whose research (or, in some cases, temperament) means that they are not directly involved in one of the Institute’s designated “theme areas.”’ Such appointments, it believed, were ‘vital to the promotion of excellence and achievement in research in Canada.’13 Senior and associate fellows should be ‘persons who have demonstrated an ability to engage in world-class research, and who have not finished the most productive phase of their careers.’ If they were in thematic program areas, they would have to demonstrate the ‘ability to work in a cross-disciplinary environment.’ Senior fellows would be full-time appointments and associates, part-time. Each would hold a renewable three-to-five-year appointment. Junior fellows would be ‘young persons of exceptional promise in their field of research’ who would have renewable three-year appointments. The committee would collect and evaluate the criteria for all nominees and make recommendations to the research council.14 Council was scheduled to meet on 30 November and 1 December. John Wilson met the board of directors a week earlier. He reported that on 1 July, CIAR’s official opening date, the institute carried forward a surplus of $57,000. At the end of October, it had assets of $161,000, most of it from the grant from Stephenson’s departments in the Ontario government. Since opening, the institute had incurred expenditures of just under $20,000. As Wilson looked ahead, he noted that CIAR would need at least another half-million dollars a year for the next three years to ‘develop its research areas.’ Wilson then proposed that Robert Church, head of medical biochemistry at the University of Alberta and a highly respected Alberta businessman and rancher, and Jerry Hobbs, the former president and chair of Cominco, join the board. The names

38

A Generation of Excellence

were quickly accepted. Mustard reported that the research council would be ready to designate its first research program in February 1983. Mustard hoped the initial appointments of fellows could be made in July 1983, with a core group actively in place a year later.15 He was much more optimistic when the research council met. It heard that he hoped to have four to six senior fellows, twelve associates, and twelve to twenty junior fellows on board in July 1984, at a cost of $1.7 million. Mustard hedged on a question about whether all the appointments would be in thematic areas. He replied that the existence of program areas ‘did not preclude the appointment of outstanding individuals who were not involved in them,’ but the report of the planning and priorities committee, which followed immediately, heavily underlined the emphasis on ‘a “theme” approach in selecting its first fellows.’16 Leyerle reported on the conclusions of the fellowship committee, and the nominations committee recommended that Robin Armstrong and Ernest McCulloch, who had stepped down from the board of directors, be added to the research council. The committee recommended that members of the research council be rotated on a threeyear basis, with each member limited to two terms or six years of service, and that francophone members, female members, and humanities members be appointed.17 The main business of Council was the report from the people and machines task force. All members were present at the session. They presented an ambitious research program centred on neuroscience and vision, sensory perception, and robotics. The program had excellent potential for interdisciplinary work and had profound implications for economic and social development in Canada. A minimum of sixteen to twenty fellows would be necessary to constitute a ‘critical mass’ of work. The task force was reluctant to even speculate on what could be achieved in five years. The field, they said, was new and developing rapidly, and it needed a long-term commitment. In contrast to the Americans, who were devoting huge sums to research in artificial intelligence and robotics, the Canadians had considerable research talent but it was dispersed, uncoordinated, and poorly funded.18 Council’s response was mixed. Echoing concerns at the first council meeting, several members wished they had more than one program proposal to choose from. Others thought the proposal lacked focus and left important questions unanswered. Siminovitch cut through the cross-currents of this ‘typically Canadian’ debate and challenged the council to seize the opportunity to launch a ‘very promising’ research program. Angus Bruneau agreed;

First Business

39

the institute ‘should take a step, learn from it, and take another step.’ In the end, the council agreed that people and machines should be ‘provisionally designated’ CIAR’s first area of research. The executive committee and the planning and priorities committee should prepare a detailed program development plan to present to the February council meeting.19




John Wilson devoted early 1983 to developing regional support groups for CIAR across Canada and setting up a meeting of business leaders in Ottawa. Fraser Mustard took another trip to the West Coast to consult with the council members Peter Larkin at UBC and Howard Petch at Victoria. Petch was keen to develop a CIAR research program in space science, which, Mustard noted, would be ‘something more broadly based’ than the agenda for the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, which had just been established at the University of Toronto. In Calgary, Mustard met with Terry Penelhum, who suggested a program in the humanities on ‘understanding and values.’ It would do research on the development and transmission of values and their adjustment to new knowledge. And back in Toronto at a planning and priorities committee meeting on 20 January, Mustard raised the possibility of having a category of ‘special fellows’ of CIAR who could be appointed outside thematic programs and might attract funding from the Killam Program of the Canada Council and the Mellon Foundation in the United States.20 But most of Mustard’s attention, and that of the committees of the research council, focused on a plan for people and machines, now named the Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Society Program. A key issue was who could lead the development of the program. William Tatton had taken the lead role to date and had been effective in fleshing out a proposal. Mustard consulted people from the Montreal Neurological Institute, the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, who knew Tatton’s work. The appraisals were very good. Tatton was said to be a scientist of outstanding ability who was just entering upon the most productive stage of his career. Mustard also learned that Stanford and Alberta, where he had done his first degree, were both bidding for his talents. Were he to move, particularly to Palo Alto, it would sharply complicate Tatton’s ability to give the hands-on start-up leadership that the program needed.

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A Generation of Excellence

On the other hand, the CIAR program just might be the additional challenge that would keep Tatton in Toronto. The planning and priorities committee agreed that he should be nominated for fellowship, and it projected the additional appointment of three or four more associate fellows in the next several months to assist Tatton in getting the AIRS program under way.21 In February, the fellowship committee recommended that Tatton be appointed an associate fellow of CIAR, with the possibility of changing to senior fellowship in the future. It noted that the criteria for either appointment were the same. Associate status reflected only the amount of funding the institute would have for supporting him and the amount of his own time (30 per cent) that he would be able to devote to developing the initial stage of the program. Leyerle and Mustard also noted that there were exceptional circumstances in the way Tatton’s appointment had come forward. While there was no question about his research talent nor about his recognition in the field, his nomination had not come forward in competition with any other scholars in the field. He was someone the president and the ad hoc advisory committee had known and worked with. In addition, the fellowship committee recognized the unspoken but compelling fact that the institute had to move quickly to get a program director in place. It had to have a ‘product’ to present to potential donors if the institute was to have hope of raising the funds the AIRS program was going to need. That said, it was imperative that future nominations for fellowship in AIRS and other programs had to rigorously avoid being ‘follow-on’ appointments of an appointed fellow or members of a fellow’s old boys’ network.22 The research council met again at the University Club in Toronto on 16 and 17 February 1983. Wilson reported that he was beginning to get good responses from potential donors in the private sector. He forecast a much stronger financial base for the 1983–84 budget year, with a probable operating budget of $600,000 or more. It was still ‘unrealistic’ to go after endowment funding, he added. Operating revenue was the current objective, and ‘an endowment campaign would have to wait until the Institute had established itself and shown what it could do.’23 That was the charge to the council at this meeting: to begin ‘doing.’ Bob Bell, the chair of planning and priorities, then introduced the research program plan for Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Society. The exact course of research would depend on the interests and interactions of the fellows yet to be appointed, but the program had four objectives:

First Business

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1 To promote and strengthen research in the fields of sensory perception by computers and robotics; 2 To promote and strengthen research in the neurosciences, with particular reference to vision and motor control; 3 To promote research on the relationship between Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and social, economic and political processes; 4 To promote research and debate on the conceptual foundations of these technologies and their cultural implications.24 Council approved the program proposal and the fellowship committee’s recommendation that Tatton be appointed an associate fellow.25 Leyerle then opened a major discussion about developing a strategy for identifying and evaluating future fellowship nominees that would avoid the extraordinary circumstances that had necessarily led to Tatton’s appointment. All the points made in the fellowship committee discussion were again rehearsed, and it was clear that the research council could expect to hear soon from the committee about a more comprehensive appointments strategy. Attention then returned to the planning and priorities committee’s initial ideas about additional research programs. In every case, Bell remarked, after an initial evaluation by his committee, a task force would be struck to explore whether the research idea was worthy of development. Council then approved a recommendation to set up a task force on population health. Three other themes were presented. A task force for space science, which Howard Petch had been promoting, was approved. Council members noted that Canada had excellent facilities and outstanding people in the field, and Mustard reported that Peter Martin of the University of Toronto Astronomy Department had expressed strong interest in cooperating with CIAR in such a program. Lou Siminovitch and Bob Haynes were excited about the prospect that the emerging research in DNA could cast a wholly new perspective on evolutionary biology. Laboratory research in DNA was accelerating very rapidly and outpacing theoretical advances in biology. A research program in the field might help to close the gap. Sensing potential for a strong program, the council advised further exploration by the committee, with the possibility of appointing a task force in the near future. Understanding and values, Terry Penelhum’s suggestion, was also discussed. It had a different emphasis from AIRS and the other ideas. It would be the focus of an interdisciplinary program promoting interac-

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A Generation of Excellence

tion among humanities scholars. Its aim was ‘to create a framework which might attract support but would not scare off humanists wary of “group activity.”’ Penelhum thought that most of the research would be done by individual scholars rather than in research groups or teams. The interaction would come in periodic meetings to discuss common problems and issues confronted by the scholars. Council was receptive to this approach. It could open a door for CIAR to support the humanities, which, up to that time, had been largely ignored. More than that, some thought a program in understanding and values could also make important contributions to AIRS and some of the scientifically oriented program ideas. Council recommended a task force to explore the idea further.26 All of this raised another new question for Council. With several program ideas being considered, would each of them be in competition with the others for approval and funding? Mustard said no. He hoped to introduce a new research program each year for the immediate future and anticipated that funding would be available to do that. Besides, he added, some programs would be much less costly than others. AIRS and perhaps Space Science would require substantial infrastructure support and hardware, but Evolutionary Biology probably would not, and Understanding and Values certainly would not. In addition, Wilson and the board of directors were eager to have several program ideas developing and awaiting approval; they would then have ‘a number of “products” to sell’ to potential donors. As Mustard put it, ‘The Institute made its living by formulating convincing ideas for research.’ This, he concluded, ‘was healthy.’27 The final item on the February 1983 agenda was a list of nominations for new members for the research council. Brown’s committee had considered more than two dozen names, largely from Quebec, and a replacement for the economist Clarence Barber from Manitoba, who had had to retire from the council because of his commitments to the recently appointed Macdonald Royal Commission on the Economic Union and Development Prospects for Canada. Seven names were presented, along with brief outlines of their qualifications for membership. After considerable discussion, council advised Mustard to invite William Gauvin, scientific adviser to the director of research at the HydroQuébec research institute, Eva Kushner, professor of French literature at McGill, the philosopher Louise Lacoste from the Université de Montréal, and Arnold Naimark, president of the University of Manitoba, to join the research council.28




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43

It was just six months since the first meeting of the research council. At that time, CIAR had barely enough operating funds to carry on its administrative functions and support its fundraising activity. Now it planned an operating budget in excess of half a million dollars annually to support its goals. Now it had a research council that was melding together into a cohesive core unit of the institute. Its membership represented scholarly excellence across the disciplines and from universities, research institutes, and businesses across Canada. The council’s committees had worked enthusiastically to inaugurate CIAR’s first research program. Now it had a research program and a director to lead the program’s development. Wilson and Mustard had a product to sell. In the spring of 1983, the future of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research looked bright.

4 The AIRS Program

William Tatton was formally appointed a senior fellow of the institute for a five-year term beginning 1 July 1983.1 He was to pursue a research program in neuroscience within the framework of the Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Society (AIRS) Program. In addition, Tatton had a unique mandate. The institute’s research council had charged him with the task of developing and coordinating a multidisciplinary research program with members in several Canadian universities separated from one another by half a continent. As the director of AIRS, he was expected to carry out ‘the recruitment of candidates for appointment as Fellows; the preparation, as required, of reports on the AIRS program; assistance in the organization of workshops and seminars; and participation in public relations and fund-raising functions of the Institute.’ It was a daunting task. No one had ever done this before. There were no guidelines. Neither Tatton nor Mustard nor members of the research council had any examples to emulate in other research institutes around the world or in Canada’s research councils and networks. But Tatton, eager and confident, began with enthusiasm. To complement his own research and create an interdisciplinary program, Tatton was going to have to find a cadre of computer scientists, engineers, psychologists, social scientists, and humanists to fulfill the program’s objectives. More than that, he would have to persuade them that CIAR’s program was possible and was worth joining. He needed a partner in another discipline who shared his enthusiasm and could help in the development work. He chose Steven Zucker, a young electrical engineer at McGill who was working in robotics and quickly earning an international reputation for excellence in his research. Together, assisted by Peter Munsche and Mustard, they worked out a three-year

The AIRS Program 45

development budget that called for the appointment of two junior fellows and six associate fellows in 1983–84 and, by 1985–86, a core group of six senior fellows, ten junior fellows and twelve associate fellows. The budget, which included travel costs, administrative support, and funding for seminars and workshops, called for an expenditure of $400,000 in 1983–84, rising to $1.7 million in 1985–86.2 As the plan took shape, it became clear that there would be three centres, or nodes, of research. The emphasis would be on machine vision and control systems at McGill, on knowledge-based computing at Toronto, and on visual processing at the University of British Columbia, which was the acknowledged centre of artificial intelligence research in Canada at that time. Tatton and Zucker also visited UBC, Stanford, Carnegie-Mellon University in Pittsburgh, and MIT (the Massachusetts Institute of Technology) to explore the most recent research trends in the field and, if possible, to identify Canadian candidates who might be recruited into their program.3 On 17 May 1983, Spar Aerospace announced that it was committing $250,000 a year and specialist technical assistance to CIAR for three years to support the AIRS program. In addition, two of Spar’s own industrial researchers would work in Tatton’s laboratory for several months. The inclusion of industrial researchers, supported by their employer, called for another category of appointment, which Tatton suggested should be ‘industrial affiliate.’ When the research council met in Vancouver in November 1983, it agreed that affiliates could be appointed if they had the approval of the coordinator of the node to which they would be appointed, the chair of the fellowship committee, the president, and the executive committee.4 By early June, Mustard was ready to seek formal approval for the program from the board of directors. He outlined the development plan, which now included the two researchers from Spar, and briefed the members on the budgetary requirements of AIRS. Buoyantly, he concluded that ‘the AIRS program was a rocket about to take off.’5 The Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Society Program was officially launched at a press conference in Toronto on 12 October 1983. Mustard was joined by Tatton and the heads of the three universities participating in AIRS: David Johnston, principal of McGill, David Strangway, president of the University of Toronto, and George Pedersen, president of the University of British Columbia. Mustard briefly reviewed the origins of CIAR and emphasized the multidisciplinary character of the AIRS program, which, he said, would initially focus on sensory processing and response. He added that Spar Aerospace

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strongly supported AIRS and that two Spar researchers would be working in the program.6 The Toronto Star put the story on its front page, and the participants were interviewed by the English and French networks of the CBC.7 Mustard also told the press that a social sciences and humanities component in the program would study the relationship between technological change, the economy, and society. But it was ‘still in the planning stage.’8 In fact, that part of AIRS planning proceeded much more slowly and hesitantly. Neither Tatton nor Zucker was familiar with the social sciences and humanities communities in Canada, with how their members worked or what their main research interests were. One point was abundantly clear: the social implications of AIRS were not high-priority issues on the research agendas of Canada’s social scientists and humanists. In May, CIAR sought advice from an advisory panel of social scientists and humanists which met at institute headquarters.9 Mustard suggested that ‘the large question of the next two decades would be the abolition of most of the hazardous and distasteful jobs by advances in technology.’ Factories would be ‘computer-controlled’ and ‘the number of people working in the manufacturing sector would be sharply reduced. Given this, the system of wealth distribution would have to be changed as well.’10 Some people were sceptical that advances in artificial intelligence and robotics would have such sweeping implications, so quickly, for Canadian society or even if any technologies could be such decisive determinants of social activity. Other basic questions were raised. How would social scientists and humanists become familiar enough with the scientific and technical issues of the AIRS program to be useful to it, and what could they contribute to the program? While it seemed obvious that logicians and linguistic experts could play useful roles in the program, getting ‘the right kind of interaction might be difficult’ for other social scientists and humanists whose work was so clearly different from the interests of the program’s scientists. As the meeting drew to a close, it was decided that the ‘best way’ to begin the search for people was to find ‘one or two individuals’ in the humanities and social sciences to act as consultants to CIAR and to ask them to survey the disciplines and make recommendations of potential appointees to Mustard and Tatton.11 The tenuous and ambivalent character of the advisory panel’s discussion was not an encouraging start to stimulating interest in AIRS among Canada’s humanists and social scientists. Follow-up action by the institute and Tatton was skimpy in the weeks that followed. An evening meet-

The AIRS Program 47

ing of Tatton with Mustard, Lorna Marsden, and Terry Penelhum on 21 July 1983 produced a vague ‘general agreement’ that only ‘outstanding social scientists and humanists who might be interested’ in AIRS should be recruited. In contrast, the recruiting of scientists moved ahead quickly. Steven Zucker had been strongly recommended for appointment as a senior fellow in the AIRS program by the fellowship committee and the research council in June, and Mustard thought that as many as eight people in the scientific disciplines might be presented to the research council in September for consideration as fellows.12 That did not happen, because the fellowship committee was still assembling information and references for potential nominees when the council met on 29 September.13 In early November, nine people were considered by the fellowship committee. Two, Professors Anne Treisman, a psychologist, and Raymond Reiter, a computer scientist, both at the University of British Columbia, were recommended as senior fellows. Two others, Professors Eric Grimson and Ellen Hildreth, computer scientists at MIT, were recommended as junior fellows in the hope that they could be recruited back to Canada for appointments in the UBC node. The other nominees were not recommended for appointment.14 When the research council met on 25 November 1983 in Vancouver, it endorsed the recommendations of the fellowship committee.15 Mustard was concerned. Identifying and approving people for fellowship in the AIRS program had taken longer than anticipated. And only four of the nine nominees had been approved by the fellowship committee and the research council. The ‘difficulties,’ Mustard told Council, revealed that the process ‘needed improvement.’ John Leyerle observed that one reason for the awkward situation was that the mandate for appointments had shifted, in the interest of creating a multiinstitutional, multidisciplinary research program, from ‘the best’ to ‘the best in a given field.’ Bob Haynes added that CIAR was not ‘in the business of supporting projects’ and needed to appoint only fellows ‘who could make an impact.’16 The tension that had come to light much earlier between ‘theme’ and ‘people’ appointments was highlighted in CIAR’s first major effort to make appointments to a research program. Following the council meeting, Mustard went to UBC to explain the situation to some of the people who had been proposed for membership. It did not go well. Expectations had been raised that now seemed dashed, if only temporarily. And Mustard ‘realized the Institute had a real problem on its hands.’17 An urgent evening meeting of the research council was called for 14 December, where Leyerle observed that the

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institute had to ‘adopt a much more subtle approach to the construction of nodes.’ There followed a lengthy discussion in which it became clear to members that the computer scientist Alan Mackworth, ‘the acknowledged leader of the UBC group,’ should be recommended for appointment as a senior fellow in the AIRS program.18 Council also empowered the executive committee to act on other pending nominations at the Universities of Toronto and British Columbia. Early in January, the committee recommended that Hector Levesque at Fairchild Laboratories at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania and Robert Woodham at UBC be appointed junior fellows, and that John Mylopoulos at U of T be appointed a senior fellow. By February, the letters of appointment, effective on the first of July, were in the mail.19 The first crisis for the institute and its AIRS program had been narrowly averted. At UBC, four fellows were in place, and the intense wooing of Hildreth and Grimson from MIT was under way.20 At U of T, the appointment of John Mylopoulos ensured that senior leadership of the node was secure and recruiting Hector Levesque to Toronto could begin.21 And at McGill, Zucker was working with Tatton to bring forward additional nominees to work in the robotics area. To meet a more general concern of the research council that ‘theme’ research areas would always be prone to promote colleagues from within nodes, the executive committee proposed that task forces, which had been used to explore the feasibility of a research program, be given an enlarged mandate. Henceforth they would also identify the kind of organizational structure a research program should have and make recommendations to the research council of persons who might be the initial appointees to fellowship. To avoid bypassing the fellowship committee, members of a task force would be drawn from the fellowship committee’s membership, supplemented by other scientists and scholars from the component disciplines of the research area. How additional fellows might be proposed for appointment after a program was established was not considered.22 When the matter came before the research council on the last day of February 1984, it was part of a larger reorganization of the council’s committees and the administrative arrangements of the institute. Two of Steven Zucker’s colleagues in electrical engineering at McGill, Peter Caines and George Zames, both strongly recommended by the fellowship committee, were in turn recommended by Council at the February meeting. Mustard and Council also discussed a new category of ‘associate’ for appointments to research programs. Initial experience had demonstrated that the category of ‘associate fellow’ had not

The AIRS Program 49

attracted interest in the AIRS program. It assumed a stronger commitment to the program than some qualified people could manage. But an ‘associate’ could have a less formal association with the program activities of AIRS and might even pursue research interests relevant to AIRS. The idea was warmly received by the AIRS node coordinators in June, and by October, Mustard could report to Council that five associates had joined AIRS.23 In March and August 1984, the executive committee considered and then approved a recommendation that Martin Levine, another member of the robotics group in electrical engineering at McGill, be appointed a senior fellow; in October, the research council recommended the appointment of John Tsotsos as a junior fellow at U of T.24 But the effort to bring Hildreth and Grimson back to UBC had failed. They decided to stay at MIT.25 At the end of 1984, the AIRS program had twelve fellows and five associates on its roster. It had survived a significant crisis in the early relations between CIAR and the universities and major tension between the research council and its fellowship committee over the issue of fellowship appointments. As the program developed, the policy and procedures regarding appointments were continually reviewed by the president and the research council. Gradually the procedures for identifying and evaluating candidates for fellowship changed. In part, the change was driven by a growing realization that the formal, standard peer-review procedures of the fellowship committee did not fit the pressures of mounting an interdisciplinary, interuniversity research program quickly. More important, the president and the program director saw the need to establish nodes of specialized research with ‘teams’ of collaborators whose contributions could be measured by compatibility as well as by recognized research excellence. First the executive committee and then the task force took on the responsibilities that had originally been designated for the fellowship committee. At the October 1984 council meeting, Mustard noted that the responsibility for identifying and evaluating potential fellows for research programs had been assumed by the various program development task forces, but final decisions had to be made by the council. Hence it seemed ‘most efficient to take the Task Force’s recommendations directly’ to the council after the executive committee had ensured that Council had adequate documentation to make a decision. Council members agreed.26 After eighteen months of experimentation, circumstance and experience had stripped the fellowship committee of its mandate.

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Research on the social impact of artificial intelligence and robotics technologies had been at the heart of the planning for the AIRS program from its earliest days. A social science and humanities component had been highlighted in the work of the task force and strongly supported by the research council as a way to link those disciplines with scientific research in CIAR’s pilot research program. The first issue of the institute’s Report, an attractive publication designed to raise awareness of the work of CIAR, reported that the institute ‘is turning its attention to the effects AI will have on people’s lives. Along with the advent of “smart” robotics comes the need to examine the social, economic and cultural issues implicit in such transforming technology.’27 After the May 1983 meeting of the special advisory panel concluded indecisively, Tatton told the research council that AIRS should select ‘several outstanding social scientists and humanists’ who were interested in the social implications of AI and invite them to decide ‘the foci of research.’ That was much too vague for the council and the matter was referred back to the executive committee.28 In September, Tatton told the research council that he had invited a prominent humanist at the University of Toronto to a University of Toronto–University of Waterloo conference on information technology, hoping to ‘seduce’ that person into an interest in the social component of AIRS. Again the council was not satisfied and recommended a council symposium on the subject.29 Nothing happened that fall. In January 1984, the initial meeting of the node coordinators of AIRS expressed ‘reservations about trying to “convert”’ social scientists ‘who were unfamiliar with the field to work directed toward AI.’ Rather, they thought CIAR should look to computer scientists doing AI research who were ‘increasingly turning their interests to economic, social and humanistic issues.’30 Tatton was reluctant to follow that path; it would do the very thing Council was determined to avoid: exclude non-scientists from the program. Instead, he organized a ‘think-in’ in Toronto at the end of May 1984 for sixteen people interested in the social issues raised by AI. Those invited were Canadian and American sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, philosophers, and computer scientists working on social issues, together with representatives of the Science Council of Canada. Specific issues and research approaches dominated the discussion, and all the participants seemed eager to be involved in AIRS. Tatton was delighted, reporting that ‘in the course of twelve months we have witnessed a transition in the social

The AIRS Program 51

sciences community from polite disinterest to almost rabid interest.’ He urged the research council in June to establish a node of four or five social scientists working in different aspects of the social impact of AI. 31 There was little follow-up on the ‘rabid interest.’ Tatton’s recommendation of a special social science and humanities node of AIRS evoked some discussion. Mustard promised a report at the next research council meeting, in June.32 A few days later, Mustard told John Wilson that the ‘think-in’ had been a success and that at least one participant at an American university ‘would be willing to come to Canada to participate in the AIRS program.’33 But in August, Mustard told an informal meeting of research council members that he had asked Richard Simeon, a senior political scientist at Queen’s and a council member, to lead a task force on ‘intelligent technologies and society,’ suggesting that he and Tatton had decided that a social component to the AIRS program would not work after all. An executive committee agenda later that month signalled the change: the Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Society Program had become Artificial Intelligence and Robotics. In October, the research council learned that Mustard and Tatton ‘had come to the conclusion that it would be better to develop the “and Society” part [of AIRS] as a separate program. The opportunity to develop new knowledge in this area was immense.’34 Looking back, Arthur Bourns recalled that two of the four broad areas of research approved by the planning and priorities committee for AIRS in the social area ‘were never pursued.’ He was disappointed. ‘It seemed to me that there was an opportunity here to do something that could not be done in the existing university organization.’ But there were not enough outstanding people in Canada to take up the challenge, and ‘the technology side was easier to sell to sponsors in terms of fundraising.’35




The abandonment of ‘and Society’ in the AIR program was a significant change. Another, also announced at the October 1984 council meeting, was much more critical. Mustard reported that ‘Dr. Tatton was stepping down as coordinator of the program in order to devote more time to research.’36 The members were astounded. Tatton had devoted much of his work for two years to planning and developing the AIR program and had been the driving force in getting it launched. Now, just as research work in AIR was getting under way – the fellows had had their first scientific meeting in June – the program was suddenly without a director.

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Tatton’s appointment had specified that he would be expected to spend 40 per cent of his time on research, another 40 per cent on organization and leadership of AIR, and 20 per cent on ‘academic functions,’ including academic administration, at the University of Toronto and the Toronto Western Hospital.37 That appeared to have worked well, and his boundless energy and optimism characterized the initial development phase of AIR. But since his formal appointment to AIR, Tatton had also become associate dean for neuroscience development in the Faculty of Medicine; in mid-June 1984, he accepted the additional position of vice-president, research, at the Toronto Western Hospital. Together with his senior fellowship at CIAR, Tatton had assumed, as he told Fraser Fell, chair of the board at Toronto Western, ‘an enormous responsibility and an unparalleled opportunity.’38 Indeed he had. In August, he met with Mustard, Bourns, and Siminovitch to sort out his commitments to the three institutions. Tatton proposed spending a day a week at the Faculty of Medicine, a day and a half on the leadership of AIR, and the remainder of his workweek on research. ‘It was clear to everyone,’ Mustard recorded, ‘that the demands in each of these different areas will far exceed the time distribution that has been assigned, but on average, Bill felt this would be appropriate.’ Tatton also accepted Mustard’s suggestion that CIAR appoint an advisory committee for AIR. It would review the program’s objectives, advise on interaction between nodes and scientists in the program, monitor program activities, and advise the president on proposals from the program for development. Mustard also arranged that the dean of medicine at Toronto, Fred Lowy, would chair a group which would ‘meet as necessary to ensure that we are not “tripping over” each other in our demands on Bill.’ 39 Mustard had stepped in and rallied the three institutions to advise and support Tatton in his ambitious responsibilities. Tatton, in turn, had asked each of the AIR nodes to comment on the organization of the program and its research strategy. They responded with a host of suggestions for research initiatives and mixed answers to the organizational issue. Raymond Reiter at UBC wrote that the organizational structure ‘is fine. Reorganization so early in the program is unwarranted.’ John Mylopoulos at Toronto observed that it was unlikely that any person could be found to serve as ‘technical [i.e. scientific] leader for the project,’ and that the program director ‘should be a spokesperson for the programme who, among other things, maintains contact with the Institute’s Executive, the Advisory Committee and the Research Council.’ Steven Zucker at McGill commented that in the view of his group, ‘the AIRS program

The AIRS Program 53

has not yet formulated a clear scientific policy,’ and he called for a planning meeting of all of the program fellows. ‘With regard to the organizational side of the program,’ Zucker added, ‘we feel at this stage all one can say is that the role of [director] should be managerial rather than technical.’ In short, it was becoming clear that two of the three nodes had not accepted William Tatton as the scientific leader of the AIR program. Nor, for that matter, did they want anyone else in that role. They believed that the proper role of the program director was to be a manager and to serve as a spokesman who facilitated the work being done in the nodes – nothing more. At the same time, the September 1984 issue of the newsletter of the Canadian Society for Computational Studies of Intelligence featured a long note by the organization’s outgoing president, Professor Nick Cercone of Simon Fraser University. Cercone wrote that CSCSI had made repeated attempts to work with CIAR but had ‘met with deception, egomania, and interminable arguments in a frustrating attempt to get information from the CIAR on their AIRS project.’40 Tatton was stung by the explicit and implicit criticism of his leadership of AIR by program colleagues and by a temporary leader of the artificial intelligence community in Canada. ‘I now question my own ability to achieve any useful cooperation with the Canadian AI community,’ he told Mustard. Zucker and Mackworth, he added, did not agree with the attack by Cercone but did ‘consider Cercone’s attitude is representative’ of the Canadian artificial intelligence community. Beyond that, Tatton now contended that AIR had established only two ‘half-programs’, one in computational intelligence and the other in robotics. ‘Psychologists and Neurologists like Treisman, [Daniel] Kahneman and myself are not effectively involved in either,’ he wrote. Tatton urged Mustard to appoint another director who ‘is acceptable to the computational scientists and yet has some degree of lateral vision.’41 Mustard’s plan to enlist the university and the hospital to support Tatton in his several responsibilities was coming apart. He met with Tatton on 1 October and assured him that ‘his intellectual leadership was important at this critical time in the development of the AI project.’ Mustard flatly rejected the notion that the program’s director should be only a spokesman and manager; AIR was just beginning and needed strong, firm intellectual leadership. ‘You are one of the few people with the ability and breadth of vision to provide the kind of intellectual leadership the AIRS program requires,’ Mustard wrote the next day. ‘The opportunity and task before us is to take the vision (still valid) that you generated with your colleagues and implement it.’42

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It was not enough. A week later Tatton told Mustard that he had decided ‘to cease my formal responsibilities for the organization and development of the AIRS Program.’ While his formal appointment had given him significant ‘fiscal and decisional responsibilities’, Tatton now believed that ‘my role has, in fact, been that of an administrative assistant and spokesperson for the Program.’ ‘Tatton tried very hard,’ Arthur Bourns recalled. ‘And he was not successful in getting the cooperation from the fellows, and that, combined with the other things that he had taken on ... meant that the time came for him to go. I didn’t try very hard to dissuade him.’43 Tatton agreed to stay on as senior fellow in the program and to provide whatever assistance he could to Bourns and the advisory committee. Mustard told all the members of the program that the ‘task before all of us is to keep the momentum that has been built up over the past two years.’ He called for a meeting of fellows and associates before the end of 1984 and promised that ‘no AIRS decisions on future arrangements will be made until we have had a chance to discuss with all those in the program the best approach for the next stage in its evolution.’ ‘Starting new ventures, particularly in Canada,’ he concluded, ‘can be a lonely business. I consider that the Institute has been very lucky in finding individuals like you to help us in creating a unique and dynamic institution.’44 Finding a new program director suddenly became an urgent priority. Tatton told Mustard that Alan Mackworth at UBC thought Zenon Pylyshyn at the University of Western Ontario would be an excellent choice. Pylyshyn was a cognitive psychologist who was deeply involved in the artificial intelligence aspects of computer science and headed a consulting company made up of Canadian AI researchers. That training and work focused on several key elements in the AIR program, and Tatton believed he was ‘a good “synthesizer” of material from diverse fields.’45 Another possibility was Ray Perrault, who had been on the original AIRS task force in 1982 as a member of the Computer Science Department at U of T. Perrault had since moved to SRI International in Menlo Park, but some thought he could be lured back to Canada. Mustard and Bourns went to California to see him. ‘I think he was close to coming back because everyone wanted him at their university, in the program, and so on,’ Bourns later recalled. ‘He was highly respected.’46 Perrault visited Toronto in April 1985. Soon after, he told Mustard and Bourns that while he was interested in returning to Canada, he wanted to remain at SRI for a few years.47 In the meantime, the research council

The AIRS Program 55

reviewed a file of excellent recommendations for Pylyshyn in February and recommended him for a senior fellowship. In May, his fellowship and his appointment as director of the AIR program were approved by the board of directors.48 Zenon Pylyshyn began his leadership on 1 July 1985.49




When AIRS was launched in October 1983, there were two fellows assigned to the program. A month earlier, the board of directors had learned that CIAR planned to spend $863,200 in the 1983–84 fiscal year and had committed revenue of $537,500. There was a shortfall of just over $325,000, although Spar had promised a reserve commitment of another $250,000 if the funding could not be found elsewhere.50 In December, the uncertainties remained. At the board of directors’ meeting, St. Clair Balfour asked if the institute could pay the salaries of Tatton and Zucker as well as those of Reiter, Treisman, Hildreth, and Grimson, who were being proposed for fellowship. John Wilson acknowledged that the institute’s fiscal position was, ‘in one sense, precarious. A number of discussions, however, were proceeding which, if successful, would help to improve the Institute’s financial position substantially.’ ‘Proceeding was an act of faith,’ Wilson concluded, but he was ‘confident that the necessary support would be found.’51 A trip to Vancouver in April 1984 brought a commitment from the Vancouver Foundation to finance the appointments of the junior fellows at UBC if Hildreth and Grimson agreed to return from the United States.52 Support to cover the expenses of the 1983–84 fiscal year was coming into place, but a week later, in Montreal, Mustard told Charles Bronfman of the CRB Foundation that CIAR needed ‘a further $600,000 in order to survive 1984–85.’53 Fundraising had become the institute’s and Mustard’s ‘highest priority,’ and in June Mustard announced to the research council that Ruth Macdonald, a highly successful businesswoman in Toronto, had joined the institute as a volunteer to help Mustard with fundraising. They had met at a dinner party at a mutual friend’s home some months earlier. ‘This woman became interested in what I was doing,’ Mustard recalled. ‘I got a phone call sometime after this event that she’d like to come in and see if she could do something for the institute. So I met with her and she literally volunteered her services ... We would not have survived if she had not joined us. She brought in money. She brought in

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the federal government. Pretty good stuff! ... She was a very shrewd woman.’54 In addition, Pamela Cornell, from the University of Toronto, had come aboard to deal with communications and publicity, and Arthur Bourns would soon be available for part-time work on program development.55 In June 1984, the research council discussed several new potential research programs, leading John Wilson to express concern a week later that ‘all the intellectual excitement in the Research Council might be “forcing the pace”, with research programs being planned before the money is there.’ Mustard replied that program development was ‘taking place slowly and in a staged fashion.’ But Wilson had a point. That spring, the institute did not have the money to finance its activities in the coming fiscal year. There was a shortfall of $155,000 for running the institute; the AIR program needed a million dollars, and $165,000 was required for further program development.56 In August, Bette Stephenson told Mustard that the Ontario government would add support for an ‘Ontario Government Fellow’ to its $120,000 annual contribution for administration of CIAR. In October, Mustard reported that the J.P. Bickell Foundation and three corporations, Lumonics, MacDonald Dettwiler, and Dofasco, had joined the institute’s list of supporters.57 It still wasn’t enough – far from it. In October and November, Mustard went to see Alvin Lee at McMaster, David Johnston at McGill, David Strangway at UBC, and George Connell at Toronto to seek help. Connell’s notes of his meeting with Mustard indicate that while closing down was one option that CIAR had to consider, Mustard believed the longer-term prospects of adequate funding were good. The problem was the immediate future. CIAR had an inadequate capital base, a revenue shortfall for 1984–85 that had now risen to $745,000, and a serious cash-flow problem.58 In December, Mustard sent the university heads a copy of his report to the institute’s board of directors. It indicated that the institute could not pay its January 1985 quarterly bills for fellows’ salaries and expenses from the universities. Mustard told the board the institute had two choices: to inform the universities ‘of CIAR’s insolvency and take steps to shut down the Institute, or request the universities to delay invoicing for three months in expectation that additional funding becomes available.’ The presidents had been told that a request to delay billing might be forthcoming, and ‘each of them has indicated that it would be considered sympathetically.’59 Connell advised his vice-presidents that ‘it would be prudent in

The AIRS Program 57

our budget to anticipate the delay in funding and even the possible collapse of CIAR.’60 Mustard had also told his board that ‘if there had not been a significant improvement in the Institute’s financial picture in 3 months time, he would recommend that CIAR be closed down.’ For Fraser Mustard the comment showed a rare flash of doubt about the ability of the institute to survive. Larry Clarke would have none of it. The AIR program was ‘too important to fail,’ he countered, and he pledged Spar’s support while cautioning that his firm ‘was not able to carry the entire Institute.’ CIAR, he advised, ‘should batten down the hatches, watch its expenditure and keep its expectations within realistic limits.’ Nevertheless, the board went on to approve the appointment of eight new fellows in the AIR program.61 By the spring of 1985, the immediate fiscal crisis had passed. The universities had delayed their invoices. Stephenson was working to persuade the government of Ontario to increase its support by giving CIAR a substantial contribution to an endowment.62 Commitment of funds to maintain the core operation of the institute and the AIR program had improved, so much so that in May, Mustard told the board that as the third anniversary of CIAR approached, they might ‘celebrate that milestone with a positive balance sheet.’63 They did, and CIAR carried a $350,000 surplus forward to the next fiscal year beginning 1 July 1985.65 A year later, in May 1986, as the 1985–86 fiscal year was drawing to a close, Mustard told the research council that the institute would end the year with a surplus of almost $600,000.65 The turnaround in fiscal fortune was dramatic. It was the result of the relentless pursuit of financial support from one coast to the other by Mustard and Macdonald. They were a powerful team presenting the CIAR story to prospective donors. Ruth Macdonald had dozens of contacts across Canada to open doors, and Fraser Mustard was always the powerful, persuasive champion of the promise of the institute. By the time the AIR program finished its first five-year cycle, in 1988, the institute enjoyed significant corporate support from Petro-Canada and other companies as well as Spar, Lumonics, MacDonald Dettwiler, and Dofasco.66




Through all the trials of making appointments, program development, and the leadership and financial crises of AIR, the actual work of the fellows, associates, and industrial affiliates went forward. As early as Octo-

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ber 1983, Tatton and Zucker held a workshop on robotics for scientists in the Toronto area.67 In January, a meeting of the node coordinators with the program director in Vancouver launched a continuing series of coordinator meetings that lasted through the life of the program. Two months later, on 26 and 27 March 1984, nearly two hundred people attended an Ottawa conference, sponsored by CIAR and the Science Council of Canada, called ‘Machines That Think, Sense and Act and Their Applications.’68 By June 1984, three industrial affiliates from Spar Aerospace were at work with John Tsotsos at the University of Toronto, and in the same month, the first ‘scientific session’ of the AIR fellows and associates met in Vancouver to exchange information on visual processing and related issues in artificial intelligence. While in Vancouver, the node coordinators and Tatton reviewed the initial contacts being made by fellows working in different nodes. One of them, Zucker at McGill, had also begun a successful research collaboration in vision perception with Max Cynader, professor of psychology and physiology at Dalhousie University.69 Getting the fellows to interact between nodes and across disciplines was not easy. It was, Arthur Bourns told the research council in October 1984, a ‘challenge’ and ‘the principal problem’ in the developing AIR program. ‘The Fellows were highly individualistic and creative persons,’ Bourns explained, ‘and would resist any outside attempt to reorient their work, but if one could build an atmosphere of trust, the inhibitions would be overcome.’ A meeting of all the program members at L’Esterel, in the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal, had been scheduled to ‘identify the program’s objectives and the mechanisms needed to achieve them.’70 Years later, Bourns recalled the first meeting he had with the fellows as chair of the advisory committee. He told them that CIAR expected from the fellows ‘a real effort to develop not only strong interaction but actual collaboration in research, where each of the participants could bring their particular expertise and point of view that would be something different from what was possible in the conventional university setting. And this statement of mine was received very badly. The response really was, “Are you asking us to change the direction of our research? That isn’t why we became members of this program.”’71 Enthusiastic members of CIAR’s program though they were, the AIR Fellows remained cast in the moulds of their departmental and university-oriented experience. At L’Esterel in December 1984, the fellows and associates broke into three groups to discuss the research goals in perception, cognition, and

The AIRS Program 59

interactive machines. It was quickly evident that interaction, for many, meant little more than CIAR facilitating travel of members between nodes and workshops on a variety of subtopics.72 They also wanted support for their graduate students to travel between nodes and help from CIAR to attract postdoctoral students to work in the program. Collaborative research with other fellows in other places continued to be the exception on the fellows’ research agendas. Problems were also emerging with the industrial affiliates at both McGill and Toronto. Zucker complained that the affiliates came to the program with no background and that it took time to ‘teach them.’ Mylopoulos urged the adoption of strong guidelines, developed by the node coordinators, for making affiliate appointments. On the second day of the meeting, a general discussion among the attendees made it clear to Mustard, Bourns, and Pylyshyn that collaboration and group efforts such as workshops could not be forced by the advisory committee or the program director. If collaboration or group efforts were to occur, they could emerge only spontaneously from the fellows in the program.73 ‘It was hard to talk to each other initially,’ Alan Mackworth recalled years later.74 This was less than Mustard and Bourns might have hoped for. But it was a start and Bourns was optimistic. He told the research council in February 1985 that ‘the potential for interaction and collaboration had been recognized.’75 L’Esterel became the first of a continuing series of annual meetings of fellows and associates of the AIR program at various sites across Canada. Usually a number of guest speakers from Canada and the United States were invited to assist the program members in keeping abreast of the latest research developments in the field. The meeting at Mont-SainteMarie in October 1987, when John Hollerbach, a robotics specialist at MIT, made an especially impressive contribution, was, Mustard thought, ‘the best yet.’ ‘For the first time,’ he noted, ‘the control theorists and the knowledge representation group were talking to each other rather than past each other.’76 These and the periodic node coordinators’ meetings spurred the initiation of workshops on particular aspects of AI or robotics that were of interest to smaller groups of program members. In May 1987, largely at Pylyshyn’s initiative, a major conference for graduate students in various disciplines doing research on AI or robotics topics was held at York University.77 Bourns, Mustard, Pylyshyn, and some others were also concerned about the link to industries. Like the initial promise of research on the social and economic impact of AI and robotics, it had been a key aspect of the CIAR program. It was in industrial Canada, after all, that applica-

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tions of the knowledge gained in the research program would have their most significant impact. Spar Aerospace, of course, recognized the potential of AIR, and its support of the program was exemplary. By 1985–86, there were a few others giving generous help to CIAR, but getting the message to the broader spectrum of Canadian industry continued to be difficult. An occasion arose with the announcement by the United States in 1985 that it wanted partners to build a space station by 1992. Artificial intelligence and robotics would be important components of the station’s development, and Japan and the European Community quickly signed on to participate. Canada could also make a major contribution, through Spar and other corporations, and the government of Canada was exploring the extent to which it would commit resources to participation in the program. Some of the federal departments had been promoting particular kinds of technologies that would lead the Canadian contribution, and the topic had stimulated lively discussion at the AIR meeting at L’Esterel. Clarke and Wilson from the board of directors and Mustard, Bourns, and Pylyshyn all believed that CIAR should contribute to the debate about Canada’s role in the space station program. Mustard asked Jim Ham, recently retired from the presidency of the University of Toronto, to coordinate the production of a report by CIAR. In 1985, Ham and Mustard gathered a small number of industrial leaders from Canada’s ‘space industries’ and ‘terrestrial industries’ into two groups to investigate the development potential for their sectors that participation in the space station might trigger. They would report to Ham, who would prepare the final document.78 By the end of 1985, Ham’s report was finished and had been submitted to the minister of state for science and technology in Ottawa. On 12 December, Mustard, Ham, and Ruth Macdonald appeared before the House of Commons Standing Committee on External Affairs and Defence to discuss and answer questions about the report. Committee members were intrigued by the CIAR document. Mustard and Ham, responding to their interest, stressed the importance of artificial intelligence and robotics research not just for the space station project, where it would be vital, but also for both the economy and Canadian society, which would benefit from adaptations of the research. Ham’s committee argued that the technological pay-offs would be as significant for Canada’s terrestrial industrial sector as it would be for Canada’s space industries. Beyond that, the report urged the government of Canada to consolidate all of its space initiatives under one agency, rather than have

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them spread across a number of departments and agencies. The formation of the Canadian Space Agency was announced in the October 1986 Throne Speech, and the Canadian Space Agency Act was finally proclaimed in 1990.79 Ham’s most important recommendation was that Canada’s participation in the space station program should take the form of development of an integral component of the station, built by and controlled by Canada, which would be the station’s own ‘service station’ to test, service, and repair satellites and other spacecraft participating in the program. Simply contributing parts to a larger whole would not be good enough. ‘Do not go into the space station unless you negotiate a hard contract that gives you something important; do not touch it,’ Mustard told the Commons committee. ‘If the Americans are going to develop their own service station and ignore what you do, do not go into it; stay out of it.’80 In the end, the ‘service station’ concept had to be modified because the United States Congress passed legislation barring all foreign participants in the space station project from developing complete functional components of the station. A Canadian ‘service station’ to service satellites and other space structures as well as the space station evolved into a mobile servicing system, which would be a service facility for the space station alone. Its major component would be a much improved and highly automated second version of Spar’s Canadarm, which is an essential device in the construction and maintenance of the space station.81 Ham’s report also emphasized another issue that had become apparent as the AIR program’s ties to industry began to develop. His group realized there was a gap between the knowledge generated by AI and robotics research and the production of new technologies based on that research. As Mustard told the External Affairs and Defence Committee, ‘Canada does not have an applied research base in its industry of any significance.’82 Applied research transforms basic research results into operating technology. This missing link was also having an impact on the AIR program at CIAR. Ron McCullough, a member of the AIR advisory committee and Spar’s vice-president of the satellite and aerospace division, had a long discussion about the problem with Mustard as they walked at Maligne Lake during a meeting at Jasper Lodge late in 1985. ‘McCullough,’ Arthur Bourns recalled, ‘recognized that the AIRS program was not going to be the way to achieve the kind of interaction of scientists with engineers that was important to Spar and important to other companies.’83 It had become apparent that most industrial affiliates had gotten on

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well in the AIR program; but when they returned to their home companies, the long-term research perspectives they had adopted at AIR clashed with the immediate goals of product development in their own R & D laboratories. The problem was highlighted at a Vancouver meeting in January 1986. It had been called to stimulate strong interaction between the AIR group and industrial researchers. John Tsotsos from the Toronto node, who had had considerable experience of his own trying to work with industrial firms, told Mustard that he and his university colleagues came away from the meeting aware of several ‘mismatches.’ ‘The qualities that make a good [university] researcher,’ he wrote, ‘generally speaking, make one a poor choice for industrial interaction.... More than once, an industrial attendee claimed that universities should not be engaged in “sterile research”, or should find out what industry wants, or should be working on practical problems.’ ‘Canada needs a research-industry half-way house,’ he concluded. ‘There is no bridge between university research and industry in this country.’84 McCullough, Bourns, and the other advisory committee members joined Jim Ham to make two proposals. First, CIAR would create a new category of ‘AIR industrial fellow’ to place a select few highly qualified industry-based researchers at a university to work in the program alongside the program fellows. This idea was adopted by the research council in March in the hope that it would provide a better link to industry than the experiment with industrial affiliates. The other proposal was to try to create a network of industries interested in investing in pre-competitive applied research projects that would work on the model pioneered by CIAR’s basic research network.85 Bourns, Ham, McCullough, and Allan Crawford asked Gordon MacNabb, the recently retired president of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, to lead that project at a breakfast late in May 1986. ‘I thought it would take a lot of arm-twisting, but Gordon immediately saw the potential for the concept,’ Bourns recalled.86 MacNabb, Mustard, McCullough, Bourns, and Pierre Belanger, dean of engineering at McGill, spent some months consulting and working on the idea. In December 1986, Mustard told the board of directors that MacNabb had decided that a joint-venture, non-profit corporation should be the vehicle to create and oversee the applied research network. In January 1987, he and Crawford brought fifteen business leaders together at dinner at the University Club in Toronto and presented the idea to them. Twelve agreed in principle to support the idea, and each contributed $25,000 a year to establish a non-profit organization to be called Intelligent Systems

The AIRS Program 63

Incorporated. MacNabb then moved quickly to broaden the base of support among Canadian companies and create the corporation.87 By May, the consortium, rechristened Precarn (Pre-Competitive Applied Research Network), had twenty-two members from the manufacturing, mining, energy, and high-technology sectors. MacNabb had been selected as its president and CEO, and Crawford was chair of its board of directors.88 In October 1987, the Financial Post reported that MacNabb expected Precarn to be involved in more than $130 million of applied research projects in its first five years and that he anticipated its first research program would be launched in 1988. Like CIAR, Precarn would not do the research itself but would coordinate and support research done in its member companies, universities, and other laboratories. The consortium had asked the federal government for $10 million for start-up and operating costs several months earlier but had not had a response.89 ‘The common thread that brings and holds the diverse membership together,’ a brochure announced, ‘is an appreciation of the increasing importance of robotics and artificial intelligence technologies in a rapidly changing global economy. All member corporations, whether they be potential users or producers, recognize the increasing impact of these technologies on our collective ability to remain competitive as a trading nation. They see the need, therefore, to be actively aware of, and involved in, the total spectrum of research leading from fundamental knowledge to the completion of new product development.’90 The consortium, which now included thirty-six companies, received its federal charter early in 1988 and at the beginning of 1989 made its first call for research proposals.91




Peer evaluation of research programs by external experts had been advocated by CIAR as a necessary procedure from the earliest days of program planning. The process was long, work-intensive, and demanding, but the sustained credibility of the research programs in academic and scientific circles rested upon it. As the AIR program neared the end of its first five-year cycle, Mustard, Bourns, the advisory committee, Pylyshyn, and the program members gave more and more attention to organizing its first peer review. Pylyshyn had a draft mission statement ready for the advisory committee by late summer 1986. The four goals of the AIR program were ‘to support excellence; to develop centres of excel-

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lence; to develop interaction across disciplinary, institutional and regional boundaries; to facilitate the transfer of knowledge and the development of a strong applied research sector in industry.’92 By January 1987, an outline of the procedures and timing of the review, scheduled for early 1988, was in place. In May, Bourns told the research council that one of its members, John C. Madden of STC Enterprises, would chair the review panel. The other six members were Whitman Richards of the Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences at MIT, Boris Stoicheff of the Department of Physics at the University of Toronto, and four computer scientists, Michael Arbib of the University of Southern California, Woody Bledsoe of the University of Texas, Michael Brady of Oxford, and Allen Newell of Carnegie-Mellon University.93 By the spring of 1987, the AIR program had a much different shape and composition from the initial plan. The attempt to create a social science and humanities component had been abandoned. The early link to industry and industrial research establishments had been replaced, with the exception of the yet-to-be-tried experiment with industrial fellows, by an autonomous entity, Precarn. William Tatton had been succeeded by Zenon Pylyshyn as program director, and the program membership had continued to grow. The advisory committee, created just before the change in the directorship, was also changing. In February 1987, Arthur Bourns told Mustard that he wanted to step down from the chair. He recommended Barrie Frost, an eminent psychologist from Queen’s University and member of CIAR’s research council, as his replacement. Frost assumed the chairship of the advisory committee on 1 July 1987.94 There were other changes in the membership of the program. For the most part, the distinction between junior and senior fellows had vanished, and a new category of member, ‘institute scholar,’ had been approved in 1986 for ‘promising young researchers.’ The CRB Foundation of Montreal had agreed to donate $100,000 a year for three years to support them. Institute scholars would be encouraged to interact not just within the program to which they had been appointed but also with their counterparts in other CIAR programs as they were developed. The institute scholars, Mustard told the research council in January 1987, ‘would build a cadre of young Canadians with a broad vision of research.’ One of the AIR institute scholars was David Lowe, who had been recruited away from New York University to work in computational vision at UBC.95 Lowe joined Hector Levesque (U of T) and the senior fellows Geoffrey Hinton (U of T), who had come from Carnegie-Mellon, and Wolfgang

The AIRS Program 65

Bibel (UBC), from the Technical University of Munich, in the small but impressive group of AIR members attracted to placements in Canadian universities by the AIR program. In total, the AIR program had fourteen fellows, three institute scholars, thirteen associates at nine Canadian universities, and five associates at three institutions in the United States at the time of its first review.96 Early in 1988, the review panel members received two hefty volumes of documentation. In addition to information about CIAR and the evaluation criteria that the research council used in making fellowship and scholar appointments, they had curricula vitae and self-assessments of the program from each of the fellows and scholars and most of the associates, a scientific paper from each fellow and scholar, letters of reference for each fellow and scholar, and Pylyshyn’s mission statement and director’s report. In April, the group visited each of the three nodes, beginning with UBC, then McGill and eventually Toronto. At each site they reviewed the work of each of the fellows and scholars and met with several university officials. During the week-long review, the panel met with all the fellows and scholars, eleven of the thirteen Canadian associates, and one (John Hollerbach of MIT) of the foreign associates.97 The panel submitted two reports: a program report to the research council in June 1988 and a confidential assessment of the fellows in the program to the president in December 1988. The review panel concluded that CIAR had been ‘extraordinarily successful in promoting the development’ of AI laboratories in the three nodes. Each ranked in the top twenty to thirty in the world. More particularly, the work in computer vision and knowledge representation was ‘amongst the best ten or so internationally.’ ‘By any objective measure,’ the panel observed, ‘the AIR program must be rated an unequivocal success.’98 That recorded, it noted that the program ‘has not yet successfully made the transition from the initiation phase – when the impetus and direction emanated from the headquarters of CIAR – to being a semiautonomous, internally led cohesive program.’ Indeed, there was even debate within the program whether ‘an internally generated leadership is either desirable or feasible.’ The panel had no such equivocation: the fellows, scholars, and associates had to take much more responsibility for running the program. The advisory committee, which had been providing ‘the impetus and direction,’ had to step back. Its continuing task would be to ‘review program plans and consider recommendations for appointment.’ The advisory committee also had to be restructured to include among its members ‘eminent researchers from outside Canada

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working in the same fields as Institute Fellows’ as well as ‘generalists familiar with the Canadian research and industrial environment.’99 The review panel thought the selection of fellows and scholars was well done but recommended that both program members and the advisory committee develop a ‘more explicit program direction’ for AIR. It was also impressed by CIAR’s success in ‘re-patriating Canadian researchers and in attracting new, world-class researchers into the Canadian research community.’ But it was sharply critical of the associates’ relationship to the program. They appeared ‘to suffer a second class citizen status,’ did not have clear guidelines for their appointments, and were encouraged to take significant roles in the program without any of the benefits enjoyed by fellows and scholars and while having to carry normal teaching and administrative loads at their universities. This part of the program had to be reformed. Henceforth the criteria for associates would have to be much more stringent, including ‘only those who actually collaborate with fellows or scholars,’ and CIAR should consider giving these associates at least some released time from teaching.100 The robotics part of the program, centred at McGill, was not a ‘strong robotics activity’ and was not well coordinated with the other parts of AIR. It ‘should either be substantially strengthened or discontinued.’ Another area of unimpressive performance was interaction between researchers in differing disciplines and different locations. While there were notable exceptions, the fact was that the AIR interaction budget was ‘significantly underspent,’ ‘most fellows seemed to be unaware of the size of the budget,’ and CIAR had not been ‘successful in realizing its goal of co-operative research between Fellows, Scholars and Associates at different nodes.’ Nor had the goal of establishing strong links with industry been successful. The interaction ‘with industry and the transfer of knowledge to it appears to be minimal.’ The review panel hoped that Precarn, like the AIR program itself, ‘will provide a mechanism to forge stronger links between Canadian universities and industry.’101 In December 1988, Mustard received the review panel’s evaluation of the AIR program fellows. Each was rated on a scale from A’ to C in two criteria: quality of their work and relevance to the program. An A’ researcher was a person who had made an ‘outstanding contribution to his field and has actually been responsible for moving the direction of the field’; a C rating would represent ‘the ability of the average scientist in the field.’ Those in the B range were ‘solid individuals but not ones setting new directions for research.’ On the relevance scale, the fellow would be rated on participation and contributions to meetings and the

The AIRS Program 67

program in general and on his or her ‘collaborative research with other members of the Programme.’102 Several of the fellows were assessed as excellent, and all, in one way or another, had made notable contributions and shifted the direction of research in their fields. Fellows classified in the A range in the relevance category were noted mostly for their contributions to meetings and to the program itself. Some, but a lesser number, were remarkable for their successful collaborations with other people in the program. And one or two of the younger program members were recommended for three-year appointment renewals, with their work being reviewed again in the penultimate years of their appointments.103




The first phase of the AIR program was done. It had begun with grand, ambitious aspirations to change the way some of the most important basic research in Canada was done. The history of the first five years evolved as a story of trial, error, and accomplishment. Some of the initial goals had been abandoned; others had taken directions not foreseen in 1983. The review panel had recommended a new agenda of change and reform if the program was to be continued. And of the mission and work of the institute, the review panel had no doubts. CIAR, it said, ‘had been instrumental in establishing three excellent nodes of Artificial Intelligence research in Canada. Without the intervention of the CIAR, the committee did not believe that there would have been any worldclass centres in this discipline in Canada.’ The panel concluded that the ‘Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Program should be continued for at least another five years.’104

5 Expansion of the Mandate

On 15 September 1983, Fraser Mustard reported to the board of directors on the first year of operation of CIAR. Much had been accomplished. A broadly representative research council had been established. It had initiated the development of the institute’s first research program, and other program areas were being studied. The institute was beginning to build a national profile and forge links with research partners in the private sector. ‘It is quite clear that Canada needs this Institute,’ Mustard asserted. ‘It will overcome some of the barriers which now block the full use of this country’s intellectual resources.’ The barriers, he explained, ‘are not only economic. They are also geographic: in many areas the primary intellectual thrust is north-south, rather than east-west. This drains us of new ideas and talented people. Equally high are the disciplinary barriers, which prevent researchers from working on mutual problems simply because they are not in the same academic department. This is enormously wasteful, since it is clear that the real challenges in research today reside at the interface between disciplines.’1 The institute had shown that it could break down those barriers, plan and develop a research program which was attracting excellent researchers, and gain the support and cooperation of the universities where those researchers worked. ‘We can do it,’ Mustard continued. ‘The question before us now is whether we can build a financial and organizational structure which can support the development of not only the AIRS program but of other programs in the coming year.’2 Four years later, in June 1987, the board met again to mark the fifth anniversary of CIAR. By then, more than forty Canadians had served on the institute’s research council. Each program they had considered had

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been studied by task forces of twelve to eighteen people from Canada, the United States, and the United Kingdom. In all, nearly a hundred people, in addition to some of the board members themselves, had voluntarily contributed to the development of four research programs, and another four programs were at various stages of consideration. On 1 July 1987, CIAR would be supporting thirty fellows, four scholars, and thirty associates in the four programs. They were based in thirteen Canadian universities, the National Research Council, at Cambridge, Tel Aviv, and nine American universities.3 ‘By far the most demanding task,’ Mustard reflected, was financing CIAR’s operations and programs. In 1982–83, CIAR had spent $187,700; in 1986–87, it was spending $2,688,000. In 1982–83, it raised $269,200; in 1986–87, it raised $3,218,000. Of the total of $8.5 million that CIAR had raised over the previous five years, 67 per cent had come from the private sector, of which more than half was from corporations and 46 per cent from foundations. But there was ‘a lot more still to do.’ More money had to be found. The work of CIAR had just begun; its objectives and its ambitions remained unfulfilled. The goal of having major programs in the social sciences and humanities remained elusive that summer. The institute’s current programs had to be maintained and, in some cases, enlarged. And there were other programs in the sciences to be considered and developed.4




CIAR’s first five years paralleled the development of its program in artificial intelligence and robotics. Exploration, experimentation, change, correction, and adaptation characterized both. Even as Mustard, Bourns, CIAR’s tiny staff, Bill Tatton, and Zenon Pylyshyn had built the AIR program, task forces and the research council were at work trying to identify other programs. Population health had been on the agenda from the earliest days of CIAR’s ad hoc advisory committee, and as the initial five-year period was coming to a close, it was the focus of the last of the programs authorized for development.5 In February 1983, when the research council approved the AIRS program, it also authorized a task force on population health. Chaired by Jim Till of the University of Toronto, the task force reported in May. The raison d’être of a program in population health, it observed, was to bring together the insights of disciplines across the range of life, natural, and social sciences and the humanities

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in the study of the determinants of human health in a given population. There were three essential requirements for such a program: research strength in the many disciplines involved, the ability to have cross-disciplinary interaction among the disciplines, and strong leadership. The task force believed that the research strength was present in Canada but scattered across its university system. Because of that, and because of the internal barriers between university departments, the mechanisms to encourage interaction between researchers did not exist. With regard to leadership, ‘no single university in Canada is likely to have either the resources or the will to provide that leadership,’ but CIAR ‘has a unique capability to provide the leadership needed to build a program.’ Till’s group concluded that a program should be developed in stages, beginning with appointment of a fellow to lead its development. The fellow, much on the model of Tatton in AIRS, would assess the people and areas of research strength, organize a workshop or seminar on the topic, and identify potential colleagues to work in the program.6 The research council was not impressed. Several members at its June meeting thought the report was ‘vague,’ others believed it emphasized health issues at the expense of the population studies that would be essential to any successful program, and still others doubted that there actually were people of research strength in Canada to contribute to the program. An extended and confused discussion ended with a decision to hold a symposium on population health at a future meeting. The task force report was referred back to the executive committee.7 A day-long symposium took place on 28 September 1983 at the University Club in Toronto. Thomas McKeown from the University of Birmingham, author of The Role of Medicine: Dream, Mirage or Nemesis and The Modern Rise of Population, addressed the various large categories of disease and the factors which influenced them. Evan Stark from Yale surveyed the social, class, and gender relationships which influenced the incidence of disease in populations. John Cairns from Harvard’s School of Public Health sketched the role of science and scientists in public health. And Peter Tugwell from McMaster outlined the role that ‘measurement and analysis’ could play in identifying the causes of health problems. The following day, the research council’s response was again mixed and cautious. But it did agree to recommend to the board of directors that population health ‘be adopted as a program area of the Institute’ and instructed the executive and planning and priorities committees to come back later with a plan of implementation.8 The more CIAR explored the prospects for a program in population

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health, the clearer it became that there was no apparent leader like Tatton to sort out the many issues to be addressed in program development. Grasping at straws, the planning and priorities committee recommended that Mustard himself take on the task, ‘at least temporarily,’ but the president declined. He was becoming convinced, he replied, that a social scientist should lead the program. But he, too, was grasping, hoping that somehow population health, where epidemiological studies were central, might be linked to a program in law and society that was also under consideration. Both could rest on the measurement and analysis of databases and might attract funding from the Donner Canadian Foundation. Beyond that, Mustard thought that a small group of junior fellows, perhaps assisted by visiting fellows, might initiate development of the program.9 Over the next three years, the population health proposal appeared occasionally in the president’s reports to the executive committee and the research council, then escaped notice for long periods of time. A task force had reportedly been formed but issued no report; then an advisory committee was appointed to develop a plan. At last, in January 1987, Mustard told the research council that funding from a major company had been raised to support program development for five years, and the advisory committee would bring forward recommendations at the next meeting.10 In May 1987, Martin Wilk of Statistics Canada, a member of the research council and the advisory committee, and Robert Evans, professor of economics at the University of British Columbia, Theodore Marmor, chair of the Center for Health Studies at Yale, and Gregory Stoddart, professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at McMaster, outlined a framework for a program in population health. Evans, Marmor, and Stoddart were all recognized leaders in their disciplines as they related to issues of public health. After a brief discussion, all three were recommended for appointment as fellows to develop the program. Their appointments were approved by the board of directors on 23 June 1987, a week before the first five years of CIAR came to an end.11 Population Health became the institute’s fifth research program.




Fraser Mustard’s interest in space science as the subject of a research program began at a visit with Howard Petch, president of the University of Victoria, in May 1982. Petch was a physicist who was involved in Canada’s proposal to build a long-range array for radio astronomy, and his

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university had strong links with the neighbouring Dominion Astrophysical Observatory on Vancouver Island. Petch told Mustard that Canada had world-class facilities in space science but was ‘in danger of becoming “equipment rich and people poor.”’12 He thought that CIAR could develop a program that would attract ‘some of the best people.’ When Mustard returned to Toronto, he consulted with Peter Martin of the Astronomy Department at the University of Toronto, who expressed an interest in participating in a CIAR program. Arthur Bourns also saw the potential, especially in theoretical astrophysics. ‘I was on NSERC [the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council] at the time, and I became very impressed by the strength we seemed to have in a number of centres in the area of theoretical astrophysics,’ he recalled. ‘And I came back to Fraser and I said, I think there’s the makings of a program here.’ In February 1983, the research council agreed to establish a task force on space science.13 Another person interested in space science was Bill Unruh, a talented young physicist at UBC. Unruh had done his first degree at Manitoba and his PhD at Princeton. While there, he had met another Canadian, James Peebles, a theoretical cosmologist who had spent his sabbatical year in 1982 at the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory. While at the observatory, Peebles and Unruh saw each other several times, and Unruh became interested in trying to get Peebles to come back to Canada. Unruh then met Allan Crawford at a research gathering at UBC, and Crawford told him he should talk to Mustard. Later, in 1983, Unruh had an early breakfast ‘at an absolutely ungodly time’ with Mustard, who talked about his emerging interest in space science. By August 1983, Unruh and Petch, who had become a member of the research council, were organizing a symposium on space science for the council.14 It took place at the University Club in Vancouver on 24 November 1983. Unruh, Peebles, William Fairbank from Stanford, and Sidney Van Den Berg, director of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, were the main speakers; guests included Peter Martin and Richard Henriksen from Queen’s University. ‘At that point I had the idea that perhaps one could have cosmology, gravity, gravity waves as part of the program,’ Unruh later recalled.15 The next day, the research council recommended that ‘cosmology’ be adopted as a program area. Arthur Bourns thought this was an opportunity for CIAR to bring together the three leading cosmology groups in Canada: at the Université de Montréal, at U of T, and on the West Coast at UBC and the University of Victoria.16 Mustard agreed. He thought Unruh had the leadership potential to

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bring the groups together and overcome the friction that existed between the scientists at Toronto and the stellar astrophysicists at Montreal. An ideal ‘cluster,’ he told a staff meeting in May 1984, might be nine people, adding that ‘this program could run itself.’ Shortly after that, Unruh, Peter Martin, and George Michaud of the Université de Montréal formed the previously authorized task force to prepare a plan for a program in cosmology.17 The plan was presented to a research council meeting at McGill in October 1984. Unruh began with a discussion of the current state of knowledge of the origins of the universe, sketching its development from 10–44 years after the Big Bang and for the next thousand years. He followed with a description of the state of contemporary Canadian research and its potential for development. CIAR had an ‘opportunity’ to capitalize on the excellence of Canada’s research in cosmology. The task force suggested that six senior fellows be appointed in three areas – astrophysics, gravitation, and elementary particle physics – three of whom would be from Canada and the others, Canadians to be recruited back to Canada from abroad.18 A five-year term would be essential to let the program develop and have an impact on the field. Beyond that, the task force had determined that the Université de Montréal group in stellar astrophysics would not be ‘directly involved.’ ‘We had a problem,’ Unruh recalled. ‘In order that you have people who could talk to each other, one would have to narrow down the focus of the program.’ Unruh was convinced that a program in cosmology and gravitation could work. Michaud and his group of stellar astrophysicists were interested in ‘white dwarfs’ and other aspects of astrophysics but not in Unruh’s plan. ‘In our case, the thing they wanted to concentrate on and the thing I wanted to concentrate on were different.’ Michaud ‘basically withdrew.’19 The Toronto and British Columbia cosmologists remained with Unruh’s ‘focused’ program, and Council directed Mustard to proceed with program development.20 Just at this time, in late 1984 and early 1985, CIAR was going through the financial crisis related to funding the AIR program. In January 1985, Peter Munsche told council members that ‘it is unlikely that the Institute will have the resources within the next year or so to mount a fullfledged program in [cosmology].’ Instead, Unruh and Martin had come up with an idea that might be a ‘significant beginning’ at ‘relatively low cost.’ They proposed that CIAR appoint a group of associates who, ‘during the first year or two, would be expected ... to answer the key question as to whether the interaction of persons having different disci-

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plinary backgrounds but interested in the same general problem area, will be effective. Will sparks fly and will the group move into new areas?’21 Six Canadians were identified: Unruh, Peebles, Werner Israel, an expert in quantum physics at the University of Alberta, Mark Wise, a particle physicist at the California Institute of Technology, Richard Bond at Stanford, another particle physicist, and Ian Affleck, a young field theorist at Princeton. Unruh and Martin hoped that Bond, Affleck, and Peebles could all be recruited back to Canada and believed that a CIAR program would be especially attractive to them.22 The ‘scaleddown version’ of the cosmology program, as Arthur Bourns put it, was estimated to cost $70,000 per year for meetings, workshops, and other interaction. The research council approved the plan in February 1985, and in June the six associates met at Massey College in an initial organizational session.23 By then Bond had joined the newly formed Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics at the University of Toronto. Unruh, Bond, and their colleagues planned a working session for December and a twoweek ‘summer school’ in cosmology to be held at Pearson College on Vancouver Island in the summer of 1986.24 In the fall of 1985, Lac Minerals gave CIAR just over $1 million for a five-year period to support the cosmology program. It was, Mustard later recalled, ‘a stunning contribution, because that was the single biggest private-sector donation to the institute.’25 When Council met in November, it quickly recommended that Bill Unruh, Werner Israel, Richard Bond, and Ian Affleck be appointed fellows and that Unruh be appointed program director.26 ‘The probability that we will come up with new ideas of how the universe formed,’ Unruh told the Vancouver Sun in January 1986, ‘is very high.’27




In 1983, DNA research was flourishing and biological scientists could see that discovering the structure of the gene would open new perspectives on evolutionary biology.28 In July, the executive committee tentatively scheduled a symposium on evolutionary theory for a research council meeting the following June.29 In November 1983, Bob Haynes, who was doing the initial exploration of the program with Lou Siminovitch, recommended to the planning and priorities committee that some young Canadian scientists such as Ford Doolittle of Dalhousie be invited to the symposium. A research program, Haynes speculated,

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would not need any ‘day-to-day interaction’ among program scientists, but a ‘real network’ could be created. ‘The first step,’ Siminovitch added, ‘was to get these people talking to one another; the pattern of interaction would emerge from this.’30 The symposium took place in Toronto on 12 June 1984. Highlights of the meeting, members of the research council thought, were talks by Lynn Margulis, an evolutionary biologist from the University of Massachusetts, and Mark Adams, a historian of biology at the University of Pennsylvania. Both remarked on the strong potential for doing fundamental research in evolutionary biology in Canada. The following day, after a brief discussion, the research council adopted ‘evolution, genetics, and society,’ a much larger and more complex proposal than ‘evolutionary theory,’ as a potential program area and recommended the establishment of a task force.31 At its next meeting in October, Mustard told the council that he had met with Siminovitch, Haynes, and John R. Evans, the former president of the University of Toronto and a long-time colleague and friend, to discuss the program’s potential. There was a huge problem. To create a ‘concentration of internationally competitive researchers in molecular biology and genetics’ in Canada would cost ‘a minimum of $15 million’ because, as Mustard put it, ‘at the moment Canada did not have the people to be competitive in this area.’ To get the people was far too big a task for CIAR. Further study of program options was necessary.32 In February 1985, Mustard again reported to Council. The problem with the proposed program idea, he believed, was ‘a Canadian weakness in basic biological research’ necessary to carry it out. But he did see a more focused possibility. Margulis had talked about ‘ancient bugs,’ and Mustard now wanted a small task force to follow up on that idea.33 By November 1985, Mustard, Siminovitch, and Haynes had found a ‘Canadian “niche.”’ A workshop in September and an October meeting in Toronto of Bob Haynes, Doolittle, and a few other members of the task force had explored the potential of a program in evolutionary biology sponsored by CIAR and carried out by Canadian biological scientists.34 They focused on archaebacteria, ‘a field whose importance was just beginning to be recognized, and Canada had a number of strong researchers in it.’ Because of the ability of archaebacteria to live in hostile environments, the field had strong potential for linking to applied research and thus making the program attractive to corporate sponsors.35 Doolittle, whom Siminovitch described as ‘a giant’ in the field, led another group of biologists who reported to the research council in

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March 1986.36 Council welcomed their report, which had ‘carved out a “niche” and set priorities.’ It concluded that a CIAR program in evolutionary biology ‘could effect a qualitative change in biology in Canada’ and quickly recommended that Doolittle be appointed a fellow and program director. With help from some associates, he would develop a plan and report back to Council in a year.37 In January 1987, Siminovitch, who headed the advisory committee for evolutionary biology, reported that work was already under way and that Patrick Dennis of UBC, whose research focused on archaebacteria, and a colleague of Doolittle’s at Dalhousie, Michael Gray, who worked on the evolution of mitochondria, were collaborating with Doolittle. Council recommended that both Dennis and Gray be appointed fellows. Siminovitch added that he expected several additional appointments at Dalhousie, UBC, and the Université de Montréal so that, when the program was fully developed, there might be nine fellows in evolutionary biology.38




A research program in ‘understanding and values’ was intended to be the keystone of CIAR’s commitment to research in the humanities. Like the other ideas discussed in this chapter, it was introduced at the February 1983 research council meeting. ‘The aim,’ Terry Penelhum of the University of Calgary explained, ‘was to create a framework which might attract support but would not scare off humanists wary of “group activity.”’ Keenly aware of the individualistic attributes of humanities research and the gulf that separated humanist approaches from those of the sciences, Penelhum told the council that his idea was to have a program in which ‘the research and scholarship would generally be done by individuals rather than groups, [but] they would meet periodically to discuss common problems and issues.’ Other council members noted that humanists might also bring a different perspective to CIAR’s other proposed research programs, such as AIRS and Population Health, and suggested that the humanists organize a seminar for Council. It was agreed that a task force would be formed, and if it deemed a seminar advisable, one would be organized.39 Several weeks later, Mustard underlined the commitment to humanities and social sciences in a meeting of the executive committee. Now that the planning of AIRS was getting under way, it was time to turn to these disciplines, which ‘needed a “free-standing” program.’ Lorna

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Marsden and John Leyerle agreed. Merely adding humanities and social science dimensions to scientific research programs, Marsden thought, ‘would put the humanities and social scientists in the position of being in-house apologists for the scientists.’ For Leyerle, the credibility of CIAR at this crucial early stage was at stake. It had to have fellows in these disciplines, and ‘it must treat them as more than “handmaidens” to the sciences.’ There was another positive and very practical advantage to humanities and social science programs. They would, Mustard observed, ‘be considerably less expensive to support than one in the sciences.’40 Penelhum added that the concept of understanding and values presented a real intellectual challenge: to identify ‘the bases for human values and the processes by which they were transformed.’ A research program would involve both humanities and social science disciplines and create a framework for research ‘without interfering with the essentially individualistic nature of humanistic scholarship.’ While Penelhum’s initial thoughts centred on a philosophical-ethical approach to the topic, Leyerle suggested another, a linguistic-psychological aspect that explored how ideas and information about understanding and values became ‘meaningful.’ From that perspective, semiotics, an area in which the Graduate School at the University of Toronto was increasingly interested, could make an important contribution to the research program. The executive committee set Penelhum and Leyerle to work organizing a symposium on understanding and values. But a month later, when the committee met again, Leyerle was hesitant about organizing the symposium, which was being scheduled for the February 1984 research council meeting. He and Penelhum, in fact, had two different and not reconcilable ideas about how to proceed. By November 1983, when the council met, the plan to have the two men work together had collapsed. Penelhum sketched out plans for a symposium on understanding and values, while Leyerle introduced a description of another proposal for research on ‘information, signs and meaning.’ The idea, he said, could be developed by Paul Bouissac, a semiotician and professor of French at Toronto.41 For the moment, Bouissac would prepare a paper. Penelhum’s symposium was presented to the research council on 28 February 1984 and discussed the next day. While most council members had found the symposium speakers interesting, some were disappointed that they focused on their own fields – philosophy, psychology, and history, for example – rather than on the general topic. Eberhard Zeidler, a

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noted Toronto architect, was especially concerned about the symposium: ‘The speakers had not probed deeply enough into the field: it had not addressed the really fundamental questions about values.’ Malcolm Ross, professor of English at Dalhousie, thought that while an understanding and values component to programs like AIRS and Population Health could be valuable, a ‘free-standing’ program was unnecessary. The work, unlike that being planned for AIRS and Population Health, could just as easily be done within existing university structures. In sum, council members seemed to say that the symposium did not reveal a compelling case for a research program. Instead, to many members it had demonstrated that linkages between philosophy and fields like artificial intelligence and cosmology could be exciting. Mustard added that he liked ‘the stress which Council was placing on breaking down the “solitudes” of disciplines.’42 But Penelhum was ‘troubled.’ While the research council had no difficulty in agreeing that the other ideas it had investigated warranted a research program, it did not believe that was true of understanding and values. Council, he noted sharply, ‘seemed to believe that philosophy could only be useful if it commented on what people in other disciplines were doing.’ Council had a misperception of the nature of philosophy. ‘It was a “reactive” discipline, but nevertheless required special skills and Council would have to accept that or else there was no basis for proceeding with Understanding and Values.’ Ernest McCulloch and Bob Bell objected. McCulloch did not question the skills required of a philosopher; he was concerned that philosophers were so specialized that they ‘would not be willing to talk to scientists.’43 A serious problem had emerged from the symposium and follow-up discussion. There truly was a decisive gap of understanding – and perhaps values – between most of the scientists on the council and Penelhum and other non-scientists. As the meeting broke up, Mustard sought a way out. He tentatively convinced Penelhum, one of the most thoughtful and dedicated members of the research council, that he should head a task force which would present specific program ideas to Council in June or September. But when Penelhum returned to Calgary, he drew back. ‘I don’t think this is the way to proceed,’ he bluntly told Mustard. At the same research council meeting, it had been established that task forces would be set up after a program idea had been approved in principle. ‘We do not have such approval in principle for Understanding and Values and neither you nor I saw any chance of the last Council meeting producing it. To go forward now with a task force that is to look

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into details is to circumvent our own agreed procedure,’ Penelhum told Mustard. ‘I think progress on this area of research is only possible if and when our colleagues’ perception of its central disciplines changes,’ he continued. He did not believe that this would happen soon. ‘In particular, it can’t be dealt with either by an attempt to get approval in principle at the next Council meeting, or the end-run method of proceeding with a task force without such approval. Lapse of time can only do good.’44 Mustard was not persuaded. From the earliest days, he had talked about understanding and values in his promotions of the institute and had found interest among some donors. At the least, he wanted a concise description of a possible program, and in March, he assigned the task to Peter Munsche.45 By June, Penelhum had relented and told the council that he was working on a rationale for establishing a program on understanding and values. He presented his ideas to Council in October 1984. The institute, he said, should establish a task force to develop recommendations for a program on ‘moral values and Canadian culture.’ It would have four areas of inquiry: the fundamentals of ethics and the theory of action; moral values and ethnicity in Canadian culture; human rights in the Canadian setting; and biomedical ethics in Canadian society. Penelhum’s task force would recommend how the four areas of inquiry might interact with one another.46 On this occasion council members from all discipline areas were impressed. Penelhum’s proposal was solidly rooted in the humanities but subtly included something for almost everyone in every discipline area. Council quickly approved the appointment of a task force.47 Finding members for a task force which linked so many disciplinary groups was difficult.48 In June 1985, Peter Munsche reported that Harold Coward, the director of the Calgary Institute for the Humanities, had agreed to chair the group and hoped to report in a year’s time. Coward’s group met several times in 1985 and 1986, including a threeday meeting with consultants at Banff in January 1986.49 An interim report in March 1986 announced two objectives: developing interdisciplinary research on moral values and Canadian society, and identifying and addressing the issues that especially confronted Canadians in these areas. The work would include research on the relationship between values and society. The task force proposed several conferences to identify potential fellows and, eventually, the formation of two groups of fellows, one focusing on moral values and the other on Canadian society. These groups, it was hoped, would interact.50 Now council members in the social sciences as well as the sciences

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were sceptical. The task force had asserted the necessity of interdisciplinary work but did not say how it might be done. The report struck some as ‘cosmic’ in scope, others as much too narrow, and Mustard was concerned that there still was no strong focus. The challenge for the task force in its final report, he said, ‘was to find a focus that would allow people to surmount their disciplinary barriers.’51 Coward’s group returned in September 1986. Each member addressed the theme from his or her disciplinary perspective, and Coward emphasized that values were the foundation of many different disciplinary approaches. Each discipline had many theoretical and applied issues, and the way they had to be resolved was through research in an ‘inter-disciplinary setting.’ A CIAR program addressing these issues would increase knowledge about values and be of benefit to both Canada and the world. Still more scepticism ensued. Eva Kushner, professor of comparative literature at McGill, argued that the proposed work could be done in universities; it did not need CIAR. Coward replied that CIAR would be able to stimulate interaction and interdisciplinary work. Blair Neatby, professor of history at Carleton, asked just how this could be done and Penelhum acknowledged the challenge. ‘In this area prima donnas reign unchecked,’ he quipped. The program would need strong incentives, perhaps even enforcing interaction among the prospective program’s fellows.52 Following the presentation by the task force, Council engaged in a lengthy discussion of the proposal. Members were still concerned that it lacked a workable focus, to say nothing of who might provide leadership. Mustard observed that ‘programs in the human sciences involved a considerable degree of risk’; several others suggested further study of the issue. But the proposal, in one form or another, had been before the research council for nearly four years and remained laced with intangibles. Council concluded that Mustard should again take the problem back to the executive committee to deal with.53 In January 1987, Mustard reported that the executive committee had had a wide-ranging discussion of the moral values and Canadian society concept and, more generally, the whole issue of CIAR’s approach to research programs in the humanities and social sciences. It had decided to postpone any decision on moral values and Canadian society and to establish another task force to devise a strategy for program development in the humanities and social sciences. CIAR’s non-science agenda for research programs was not working out as had been expected. So the executive committee turned to a former member of Council, the

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historian Craig Brown of the University of Toronto, to chair the new task force on the institute’s role in the humanities and social sciences.54 Brown’s group had its first meeting on 20 May, and two days later Mustard informed the council that it would be reporting at the fall meeting.55 In the meantime, understanding and values, after four years of study, had failed to win enthusiastic support from the research council. The goal of establishing a strong research program centred on the humanities seemed much farther away in May 1987 than it had in February 1983.




The institute’s first research initiative in social science originated in a conversation Mustard had with John R. Evans in the fall of 1983. They believed measurement and analysis of social factors influencing health and of effective health-care delivery had to be the basis of a population health research program. Evans suggested that law faced similar issues: how could the effectiveness of law and legal services in a given society be measured and analyzed? Broad-range databases – and how to interpret and understand them – seemed important to both programs. From that perspective, law might well be added as a component of a population health program. Mustard, intrigued by this perspective, took the idea to Donald Rickerd, director of the Donner Canadian Foundation. Rickerd was enthusiastic and urged further exploration to see if a law component could be integrated into research on population health.56 In June 1984, Mustard proposed that a task force be set up to identify a focus for a population health/law and society research program. Council members were wary: How could such a program work? How could these two disparate fields be integrated into one program? Lou Siminovitch, who had been a central figure in the preliminary discussions of the idea, did not expect the two fields to be integrated; ‘rather they would operate separately but have a common resource base in measurement and analysis.’ While that seemed possible to many members, Michael Trebilcock, a professor of law at the University of Toronto, was not convinced. He agreed that the kind of work being proposed needed to be done, especially in law, ‘but the talent was thin on the ground and care should be taken not to lead [potential program members] on a wild goose chase.’57 Shortly after the council meeting, Mustard met with Rob Prichard, dean of Toronto’s Faculty of Law. Prichard and John Hagan, professor of sociology and law at U of T, agreed to set up a task

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force of Canadian professors and deans of law to study the feasibility of a separate research program in law and society. It would report the following February and include recommendations on how research in the field might proceed, as well as potential appointment of one or two fellows who would be responsible for developing the initial phase of a research program.58 Prichard and Hagan’s group presented a symposium to the research council during its meeting at McGill in October 1984. Two law professors from Yale, George Priest and Stanton Wheeler, presented ‘exciting challenges’ to the council, but the remaining speakers from the working group inspired little enthusiasm. Council members thought that they got ‘bogged down in mechanics’ and that their talks were ‘exclusively legal’ with no sense of ‘a broader, more imaginative approach.’ Some doubted if the Canadian law schools could provide personnel for a broader approach to the relationship between law and society. ‘What we need,’ one observed, ‘is research about the law, not necessarily research in the law.’ Council instructed Mustard to convey its reaction to Prichard. 59 In February 1985, Prichard, Hagan, and Martin Friedland, professor of law at U of T, together with Donald Rickerd and Gerald Wright from the Donner Canadian Foundation, presented an interim report to the research council. Prichard described the aim of a research program as interdisciplinary, empirically oriented legal scholarship that was methodologically and analytically sophisticated and focused on projects which bore ‘directly on major theoretical problems.’ The organizing principle for the program should be ‘sanctions and rewards,’ and the program should include both French-Canadian and English-Canadian scholarship. Friedland pointed out that such a program would need contributions from several social sciences, and Hagan added that it ‘would result in greater knowledge about both law and society.’ A brief discussion by Council concluded with Mustard expressing the hope that the task force’s final report would be more specific about what a research program would do and how it would do it.60 The final report in June 1985 was still vague: ‘A detailed plan necessarily will be contingent upon a host of considerations, many of which at this point lie well beyond the scope of our deliberations,’ it said, adding, ‘Further work needs to be done to define the intellectual challenges presented by the proposed research and to synthesize and evaluate the knowledge base in this area.’ It emphasized appointing talented individuals, but none were named, although, as Prichard explained, the group ‘favoured a people-over-projects’ approach. When asked if the work

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would be collaborative, Friedland replied, ‘Not necessarily.’ Asked if the group had identified the requisite skills for the project and then identified people to do the work, Friedland replied that it was ‘premature at this point to list just what skills would be needed. That needed further investigation.’61 Most task force reports had come to Council with specific program and potential appointment recommendations. The law and society group had laboured to arrive at conclusions that elaborated on the general goals of the institute, and nothing more. A council member observed that important questions and issues were not addressed; instead, the group had ‘told the Council what it [thought it] wanted to hear.’ The specifics, the task force urged, should be the work of a new implementation group. Council, eager to see a social science initiative, accepted the recommendation.62 Instead of appointing yet another group, Mustard asked Martin Friedland to work on development of a research program. Friedland met with Council in November 1985 and sketched out a three-stage proposal, beginning with an interdisciplinary symposium on sanctions and rewards. From this he expected a series of studies in selected areas of law would emerge. These, in turn, would set the stage for a major empirically based study of the relationship between law and society. A possible focus of empirical analysis, Friedland suggested, was traffic. It covered both the criminal and civil branches of law and touched all levels of society. Council members liked the general approach but were hesitant about traffic: it was like ‘swatting at mosquitoes instead of studying malaria,’ one observed. Friedland countered that traffic accounted for huge public expenditures annually on health care, public policy, prisons, highways, the courts, and so on. More than that, an empirical analysis of traffic law and its effectiveness and impact on society, Friedland said, had to include research by a variety of social science disciplines as well as professors of law.63 In March 1986, Mustard recommended that Friedland be appointed a fellow of the institute so that he would have time freed from his university duties to develop a law and society program.64 By May, Friedland’s conference on sanctions and rewards had taken place and its proceedings were to be published. Friedland had also assembled seven research teams of legal and social science scholars to begin quantitative studies of legal sanctions in different areas of law. Later in the year, Friedland agreed to have an advisory committee appointed to assist him with program development.65

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Mustard reported in May 1987 that David Johnston, principal of McGill University, had become chair of the advisory committee on law and society. Mustard also anticipated that the research teams would complete their formal reports by September. Guy Rocher of the Faculty of Law at the Université de Montréal, a member of the research council and the advisory committee, expressed some concern that there was no real connection or collaboration between the various teams. He and Arthur Bourns suggested that the advisory committee do a ‘mini-review’ of progress in the program. At the same council meeting, John Hagan was recommended for a three-year fellowship, which would be supported jointly by Statistics Canada and the University of Toronto. Hagan could supplement Friedland’s expertise in law with his own in sociology, and Hagan’s familiarity with use and management of the social databases would be required in the next phase of the program.66 The research council met again on 22 September; it was five years since its inaugural meeting. Rocher reported that he and David Trubek, another advisory committee member who was a professor of law at the University of Wisconsin, had attended a working session of the law and society groups earlier in the month. They were impressed by what they saw and heard. The program was providing ‘an important meeting place’ between legal and social science scholars, and each of Friedland’s seven projects was going to be a good, publishable piece of work. In short, what had been accomplished in a short time by Friedland was ‘a real achievement.’ Still, there was a problem with the conceptual framework for the research program; the topic of sanctions and rewards had helped bring people together but was ‘too restrictive to serve as a basis for a program.’ The advisory committee recommended that the program’s focus be redefined to a broader perspective: how does the law really work and how do legal controls interact with other social controls? The committee would meet again soon because the third stage of program development, the empirically based study of law and society, was about to begin.67




At the September 1987 council meeting, Fraser Mustard reminded members that three other research areas were being considered: semiotics; technology, change, and society; and materials science. Semiotics had first been suggested as an alternative approach to research on understanding and values; Paul Bouissac, a U of T semiotician, had

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written a paper on information, signs, and meaning. In January 1985, Bouissac organized an informal workshop, which Mustard and several Council members attended. Mustard then asked Bouissac to prepare a formal symposium for the whole research council at its November meeting.68 The symposium did not go as well as Bouissac and his colleagues had hoped. Attendance was slight and Bouissac ‘was unhappy.’ But the council members who had attended were impressed, and Bouissac was asked to return at a later date with a definite research proposal that focused on a particular field of semiotics.69 He and colleagues from Toronto, Laval, and the Université de Montréal next came to Council at its May 1986 meeting in Halifax. There Bouissac explained that semiotics was ‘not an established discipline’ but included, among others, anthropology, linguistics, mathematics, and neuroscience. It was a new approach, a new way of thinking in these disciplines. It raised important questions and provided ‘new perspectives on a vital part of human behavior.’70 Bouissac recommended three nodes of activity. At the University of Toronto, mathematicians and linguists would survey existing literature in semiotics, formulate a ‘metalanguage,’ and develop a theory which could be used in future inquiries. A group at Université Laval, led by Pierre Maranda, an anthropologist and council member, was already working in ‘semiography,’ an operational description of the structure of meaning. And at the Université de Montréal, the work centred on the neural substrata of semiotic behaviour.71 While some council members were struck by the vagueness of the proposal and the field itself, and others worried about the intellectual impact of the work proposed for Toronto’s node, still others were impressed by the presentation and especially by the description of the work being done at U de M. It, and the work at Laval, had an added appeal: this could be a program with its bases in Quebec universities and in the French language – filling a gap in the institute’s programs that diminished the institute’s claims to national significance. After considerable discussion, council members agreed that semiotics should be identified as a program area and that the president ‘should propose a strategy to develop it.’72 In January 1987, the research council heard a reworked proposal presented by Maranda. Now concentrated in linguistic approaches, the proposed program would attempt to develop a metalanguage or ‘culturefree’ language that might serve the same function in the study of society that the notation system used in chemistry did in that science. In Montreal and at Laval, the work would be in psycholinguistics and linguistics.

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The Toronto node would be the ‘conceptual broker, testing empirically the validity of the draft notation and grammar.’ The working language for the research project would be French. Again there was a mixed reception and questions about whether the proposal was an intellectual or a technical challenge. Richard Lipsey, a council member and senior economic adviser at the C.D. Howe Institute, wondered ‘whether this was a hard piece of research with a good chance of pay-off.’ Lacking an answer to his concerns, he and others argued for an external review of the proposal and the recommended participants. If that was favourable, council members agreed, Mustard should take the proposal to the board of directors for approval.73 In May, Mustard reported that a number of appraisals had been solicited and were being considered by the executive committee. He would give a full report in September. But when Council reconvened on its fifth anniversary, semiotics was not on the agenda.74 The proposal for a program in technology, change, and society paralleled discussions of semiotics at the institute. When interest in the social sciences and humanities components of the artificial intelligence program collapsed in 1984, Fraser Mustard had asked Richard Simeon to organize a task force on intelligent technologies and society. Simeon had asked the anthropologist Brenda Beck of UBC to prepare a background paper on the subject for the January 1985 council meeting. It was clear, he told Council, that ‘there were no real models for development’ in the area, and mounting a program would be difficult. Simeon recommended that a working group be appointed to study and report on the prospects.75 In May 1985, Mustard reiterated that the program idea was ‘difficult to develop’ and proposed appointing an advisory committee to organize workshops that might identify a focus for a research program.76 In November, after Mustard had returned from a trip to Sweden where he had met several government officials working in the area of technological change and society, he was ‘even more convinced that the Institute should develop a program.’ To get it under way, he suggested to Council that the institute should organize a series of conferences to survey the issues in the area. By January 1986, the idea had evolved into a proposal for a series of seminars organized by an institute task force.77 During 1986, Mustard consulted with several people including Daniel Bell, a Harvard sociologist, and Carl Kaysen, director of the Science, Technology and Society Program at MIT and former director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. There was general acknowl-

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edgment that a research program in technology, change, and society was needed. How to do it and who might participate remained nagging questions. Even so, as Mustard travelled from city to city promoting the institute and seeking funding support, he found growing interest in the idea. By January 1987, a plan had crystallized. The CRB Foundation in Montreal and the Royal Bank of Canada were keenly interested in supporting the development of a research program. And after consultations with the Banff Centre, Mustard announced that the institute and the Banff Centre would jointly sponsor a series of week-long seminars on technology, change, and society. The aim would be to identify research foci for the program and, if possible, potential fellows to work in it. The first would be held in Montreal in the summer of 1987, and subsequent seminars, over the next two years, would take place periodically at the Banff Centre. A strong advisory committee would oversee the seminar program.78 The summer seminar in Montreal was a success. As the institute began its second five-year cycle, a plan for more seminars in Banff was being developed. The final research proposal explored in the first five years of the institute was in materials science. As with artificial intelligence, scientific investigation in materials science, the study of metallic and non-metallic materials and how they can be adapted and fabricated for modern technologies, was a rapidly developing field in the 1980s. The development of semiconductors for the electronics industry, begun in the 1960s, had renewed interest in materials science, particularly in ceramics and other non-metallic materials. By the late 1980s, this work would open new paths of exploration in superconductivity, which is the property of certain materials to conduct electric currents with no resistance. Superconductivity was attracting great interest in the physical sciences. Arthur Bourns presented a proposal to establish a task force on materials science in November 1985. Bourns had initially thought that research in the field could be done within Canada’s universities. But scientists in the field had sought his help in seeing if the field would interest the institute. The task force, headed by Willard S. Boyle, senior partner in Atlantic Research Associates in Nova Scotia and a former senior scientist at Bell Laboratories, who had just joined the research council, worked on the proposal during 1986. In January 1987, a workshop called ‘Dynamics at Interfaces,’ organized by Peter Norton, a chemist at the University of Western Ontario, and Jürgen Kreuzer, a physicist at Dalhousie, was held in Toronto. Biologists, geologists, physicists, and chemists working in

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the area attended. The group was persuaded that Canada ‘had the talent to take a leading role’ in materials science research.79 Norton reported in May, recommending that CIAR establish a program in materials science focused on ‘interfaces and the dynamics which occurred at them.’ It was estimated that Canada had a real talent in the area, and the interaction that CIAR could provide was needed. A council member claimed that there were at least a dozen physical scientists and a halfdozen biological scientists of fellow calibre in Canada who might work in the program. Council declared materials science, centred on interfaces and their dynamics, an institute area of interest and directed the president to form an advisory committee to develop a program plan.80 At its September 1987 meeting, the council learned that Robin Armstrong, dean of arts and science at the University of Toronto, was chair of the advisory committee. The committee had had an initial meeting and, at the urging of John Berlinsky, a materials scientist, and Jules Carbotte, a physicist, both at McMaster, had explored the institute’s potential for working in an area of superconductivity. There had been, Berlinsky explained, ‘an “explosion” of activity in [this] previously quiet field.’ Canada had strength in both the theoretical and experimental areas of the field but lacked the resources of a ‘national program to draw this talent together.’ Council accepted an advisory committee recommendation that the institute appoint a number of associates in the field to develop a network of interactivity in superconductivity. It would work within the context of program development in materials science.81




The experimentation, adaptation, and change that characterized the development of research programs mirrored changes in the administration of the institute during its first five years. With Peter Munsche always in the background providing administrative support and advice to the president, it seemed that Mustard was expected to do everything: lead existing programs, develop new ones, and, above all, be the institute’s chief salesman and fundraiser. That did not change from 1982 to 1987. But Mustard and Munsche, with one or two administrative assistants, could not do it all by themselves. Fraser Mustard was the public face of the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research, and every year, he spent more days away from headquarters, going from city to city across Canada in search of support for the institute. He needed help. As early as February 1984, he told the research council that he needed assistance in

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program development and management. He suggested that he might have two vice-presidents, one of them francophone, to lend a hand. That did not happen. Instead, in October 1984, Arthur Bourns joined the institute part-time to assist in program development and management and to chair the AIR advisory committee. A year later, Jim Ham joined, also part-time, to work on the space station project and Precarn and to provide more administrative support to the institute. New members were added to the board of directors to increase its national representation. An early addition in 1984 was Peter Allen of Lac Minerals. In 1985, he was joined by Alastair H. Ross, president of Allaro Resources of Calgary, and John Aird, who had recently stepped down as lieutenant-governor of Ontario. Gerald Heffernan, president of Co-Steel International of Whitby, Ontario, Ralph M. Barford, president of Valleydene Corporation of Toronto, and Pierre Lortie, chair and chief executive officer of Provigo of Saint-Laurent, Quebec, all joined the board in 1986. The following year, board representation from eastern Canada was increased when Brian Flemming, a Halifax lawyer, joined. In May 1985, John Wilson, the founding chair, stepped down from that post. In November, Peter Allen became the new chair of the board, and Allan Crawford became vice-chair.82 The principal role of board members was to assist Mustard in fundraising. Frequently, when Mustard was travelling to other cities, a board member had done preliminary work to open doors to potential donors. Another scheme to increase awareness and support was suggested in a meeting of the research council’s executive committee in August 1984. A new category of affiliation, ‘member of the institute,’ would be created. Membership would be limited to 100 selected individuals across Canada who would be chosen by the board of directors and invited to become ‘members’ for three-year terms. Each would be expected to contribute $1,000 a year to the institute during that term, and the institute would hold a major seminar annually for members in one of the regions of Canada. Some members might also be asked to serve on one of the institute’s program advisory committees.83 When John Aird joined the board a year later, he agreed to head the drive for members of the institute. In June 1986, Aird reported that forty members had been appointed.84 While board members searched for new opportunities to increase financial support, the executive committee explored ways to reduce administrative expenses. The institute’s administrative staff was very modest in size. From its earliest days, CIAR had had the benefit of many

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hours of volunteer time from members of its board, research council, task forces, and advisory committees. But the institute’s administrative process was costly. The board, the council, the task forces, the advisory committees, the program meetings, and the annual meetings all had participants from across Canada and abroad. Every time a group gathered, the institute paid travel and accommodation expenses. The research council’s planning and priorities committee was an early casualty in the elaborate consultative process that was at the heart of CIAR administration. The fellowship committee soon followed, as the council tried to reduce costs and increase the efficiency of the institute’s work. On one occasion, in August 1984, the executive committee went even further and proposed a major reform of the research council itself. Over a three-year period, the council would be reduced from twentyseven members to twelve and recast as an ‘executive council’ of the institute. Half of the members would be the chairpersons of CIAR’s projected six research programs’ advisory committees. The other six would be chosen to ensure a disciplinary mix.85 That idea was much too extreme. Apart from the leadership of the president, the research council was CIAR’s primary force in developing and maintaining its research programs. The research council was also the only representative body that linked CIAR to the Canadian universities where its researchers worked. Its size might be modified, but only slightly. Another change, first recommended in Craig Brown’s 1983 report on membership rotation, did begin to alter the composition and representative character of the research council. Brown’s rotation scheme was introduced to Council in June 1985. One-third of the membership would step down every year, though each retiring member could be reappointed for a final three-year term. The aim of the plan was to enhance regional and disciplinary distribution, to reduce the number of members from Toronto, and to increase the number of representatives of non-academic organizations. Each council member was asked to indicate whether he or she wished to retire in 1986, 1987, or 1988, and to suggest possible new members.86 The first rotation took place in September 1986, with Bob Bell, Jean Briggs, Malcolm Ross, Richard Simeon, Michael Trebilcock, John Whalley, and Fred Wien leaving the Council. They were replaced by Michael Dempster, School of Business, Dalhousie; Barrie Frost, psychology, Queen’s University; Henry Kreisel, comparative literature, Alberta; Richard Lipsey, economics, C.D. Howe Institute; Blair Neatby, history, Carleton; Denis Stairs, political science, Dalhousie; Paul Wieler, Faculty of Law, Harvard; and Martin Wilk, Statis-

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tics Canada.87 A second round took place in September 1987 when the new council members were Patricia Baird, medical genetics, UBC; Gordon Maclachlan, vice-principal, research, McGill; Digby McLaren, president of the Royal Society of Canada; and David Strong, vice-president, academic, at Memorial University.88 The central problem for CIAR has always been how and where to find the money to finance its research programs. No other issue, including program development, occupied more of Fraser Mustard’s time and attention. The Ontario government, largely though the efforts of Minister Bette Stephenson, had supported the institute from the beginning, as had Larry Clarke of Spar Aerospace and Allan Crawford, Mustard’s primary contact in British Columbia. Gradually the circle of private businesses and foundations supporting the institute and its programs widened and CIAR managed, with very generous support from its university partners, to overcome its first fiscal crisis in 1984–85. But every new program – indeed, every new fellow, associate, scholar, or affiliate – added an additional charge to the institute’s budget. Some sectors of the private economy, like the banks and other financial institutions, remained sturdily aloof from all appeals for support, as did several provincial governments. In June 1984, Mustard, Ruth Macdonald, and Munsche began planning a strategy to seek support from the government of Canada.89 A follow-up session in August in Montreal with David Johnston, principal of McGill, and a few senior federal officials discussed approaches for a matching grant fund and for funding to cover long term core expenses of the institute.90 In October, Mustard told the research council that an initial grant from the federal Centres of Specialization Fund of $200,000 had been received, and he ‘hoped to build upon this.’91 For the next year and a half, Mustard, Macdonald, and Peter Allen had increasingly frequent and intensive meetings with federal officials as they pressed for support from Ottawa. On 13 August 1986, the Ottawa Citizen announced, ‘Government earmarks $7M for research group.’ Beginning in 1987, and for four years, the government would provide a total of $7 million in matching funds to CIAR through the Ministry of Science and Technology. ‘The institute has earned our respect with their impressive initiative,’ Frank Oberle, the minister, told the Citizen. Reassuring the paper’s readers, Oberle added that his ministry would review the CIAR’s work annually to ‘see if their work is going in accordance with our objectives.’ ‘We would hope,’ he added, ‘they don’t go flying off in the wild blue yonder.’92

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Fraser Mustard believed that CIAR would not have received the government of Canada matching grant without the skill and persuasiveness of Ruth Macdonald.93 She had known the people to approach, the doors to open, the story to be told. The matching grant was the largest donation Macdonald had secured for the institute, but it was only one of a growing number that accounted for the surpluses CIAR reported in 1986 and 1987. Then, suddenly, on 6 March 1987, Ruth Macdonald was dead. It was a terrible, almost crippling blow to all the people associated with CIAR and especially to Mustard, Munsche, and the institute staff.94 Mustard told the board in June that Macdonald’s death would result in a reorganization of the work at headquarters; in September he announced to the research council that Barbara Track had been appointed as the institute’s new director of development.95 Mustard, the board of directors, and the staff would face an even greater challenge in the next five years than Mustard, Munsche, and the initial board members had faced in 1982. When CIAR closed its books on the first five-year cycle in June 1987, the institute had a small surplus. But it now also had four programs in place, Population Health in a startup phase, and three others in development. It had a promise of $7 million from the government of Canada, but only if it raised an equal amount in the next four years from the private sector. And the outlook was not good. Based on its current commitments, the institute would have a shortfall of just under $1 million in the next fiscal year and of $4 million in the next two fiscal years. There was work to be done.

6 Origins: The Universe and the Tree of Life

CIAR’s first research program, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, was a product of the rapidly developing digital technology of computers in the last decades of the twentieth century. That same technology opened new opportunities to explore classic questions that had preoccupied scientists in cosmology and biology for centuries. Space science, linked to powerful computers that could quickly evaluate the results of the exploration of space, prompted new questions and new approaches to the discovery of the origins of the universe. The discovery of DNA and the use of supercomputers to explore and analyze its genetic components paved the way to understanding the origins of life. Bill Unruh, the cosmologist at the University of British Columbia, and Ford Doolittle, the biologist at Dalhousie, each asked the same fundamental question. As Unruh put it to the research council in 1984, ‘Where did we come from?’1 By January 1987, both young scientists were leading research teams sponsored by the institute to explore the origins of the universe and of life on planet Earth.




Modern cosmology, Bill Unruh explained, began ‘when it was realized that Einstein’s theory of gravity implied that our universe must have a finite lifetime. It received its impetus from Hubble’s observations [1929] that the distance between galaxies is increasing, just as predicted. These events then raised the question as to what the very earliest stages in the life of the universe must have been like, and how one could test one’s theories of those early stages.’2 The members of the CIAR program were all theorists. That, its leader believed, ‘was where the most intense

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excitement was.’ More pragmatically, theoretical cosmology was a field where CIAR, and Canada, could make the most impact in scientific investigation. Neither the institute nor the nation had the resources to compete across the board in both theory and observation with other leading centres in cosmology. But in theory, concentrating on explaining the earliest stages of the origins of the universe, Mustard and Unruh believed that CIAR’s program could become a pacesetter.3 By the beginning of 1987, the Cosmology Program was well under way. A major donation from Peter Allen of Lac Minerals had made it possible to appoint Unruh and Werner Israel at the University of Alberta as fellows rather than associates. As in the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Program, fellowship appointments would be held by scientists based at Canadian institutions. Unlike AIR, where associate membership was generally used for persons both in Canada and abroad who could not make a fulltime commitment to the program, the Cosmology Program reserved associate appointments exclusively to bring leading foreign scientists such as Jim Peebles, Mark Wise, Ian Affleck, and Richard Bond into the program. In December 1985, the six members and several other cosmologists, including Nick Kaiser from Cambridge, who would soon be appointed an associate, met at Banff to plot the work of the program. In 1986, after some anxious times when funding was in question,4 NATO and CIAR sponsored a summer school in cosmology at Pearson College, a few kilometres outside Victoria on Vancouver Island. Unruh knew that NATO, as part of its non-military mandate, awarded grants for summer schools on scientific subjects to applicants in member nations. Initially the NATO officials wanted the summer school to be held in Europe, but Unruh persuaded them to sponsor the meeting in Canada along with the institute.5 Unruh recalled that the setting was ideal: it ‘turned out to be actually a brilliant thing to do because it was far enough out of the city that it was hard to get into the city, and yet, if you had to, you could. And so the students and the lecturers basically were all together there, and they talked to each other and they got on really well with each other.’6 All the program members except Affleck, who was being vigorously recruited for appointment at UBC, were there.7 Joined by other cosmologists from the United States and Canada, graduate students, and postdoctoral students, they spent two weeks discussing the new opportunities for research in cosmology. Mustard observed that ‘strong enthusiasm and interest was instilled.’ Unruh recalled years later that the first Pearson College summer school was ‘when the program really got started.’8

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In the fall of 1986, the program’s advisory committee was set up. René Racine of the Physics Department at the Université de Montréal was appointed chair. The other members were Robin Armstrong, dean of arts and science at U of T, David Hartwick from the Astronomy Department at the University of Victoria, Donald Morton, director of the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics at the National Research Council, David Strangway, president of the University of British Columbia, and John Wheeler of the Physics Department at the University of Texas, Austin.9 Its first meeting was in January 1987 in Toronto. Unruh sketched the background of the program and highlighted a recent accomplishment, the appointment of Richard Bond, who had been recruited from Stanford, to the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics program at U of T as a fellow. More than that, Bond’s fellowship had allowed the university to use his salary in CITA to fund three visitors to CITA who would contribute to the Cosmology Program. In addition, Unruh and Israel were using CIAR interactivity funds to begin a long and successful research collaboration in the program. But, Unruh noted, the program was still understaffed. With only three fellows it had not yet reached ‘critical mass,’ and he strongly advocated the appointment of at least three more fellows and two junior fellows, who, in the Cosmology Program, would essentially be members with long-term appointments of a postdoctoral fellow program. (When the advisory committee met again in June 1987, the category of junior fellows had been redefined as the institute scholar category, for younger scientists. Albert Stebbins, who worked in cosmic string theory at Fermilab near Chicago, joined the program as its first scholar, in 1988.10) The final issue Unruh touched on at the first advisory committee meeting was whether observational astronomers should be brought into the program to work with the theorists. It would come up many times in the years ahead, but at that time Unruh thought the notion premature: ‘It is certainly my feeling that as long as the program is restricted to its current small size (6 fellows maximum) that branching out into the observational area would be a mistake.’11 Also in January 1987, the program had an important week-long meeting at Banff. The members were joined by three guests, two cosmologists from the Soviet Union and Donald Page from Penn State University. It was here, as Unruh later reported, that ‘working discussions and collaborations between the participants’ really began.12 By mid-year, Affleck had left Princeton to become a fellow at UBC, and George Efstathiou of Cambridge, Robert Wald of the University of Chicago, and Page had

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joined the program as associates. Unruh and his colleagues were also planning for the next meeting of all program members, to be held at UBC in January 1988.13 It was designed to build on the momentum of collaboration that had begun at Banff. The fellows and associates, and Wojciech Zurek from the California Institute of Technology’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, who had worked with Unruh for some time and would soon join the program as an associate, spent two weeks in formal morning sessions. Afternoons were left free for members to work in individual collaborations.14 A mode of operation had been established in Cosmology that ‘served to gel us into a cohesive whole,’ Unruh wrote. ‘We all felt ... that we were a part not only of our own universities, but also of a larger intellectual effort in the country. We became colleagues, not necessarily because we were actively collaborating on some research project, but because we had developed an active interest in the research others were doing. They helped to broaden our interests, and we made our appreciation of the world of science deeper and richer.’ 15 Having found a vehicle for collaboration, the fellows and associates broadened the base by having two-day workshops that brought them together with the CITA members and visitors to deal with specific topics: cosmic microwave background in May 1988 and numerical cosmology in May 1989 in Toronto, and a range of topics at Vancouver in May 1990. As the workshops developed, they attracted more people. About seventy people attended each of these meetings, affording the Cosmology Program members excellent opportunities to interact with a large group of scientists and senior graduate students. Still other collaborations involved visits by members to other institutions associated with the program. One of these was Page’s year-long sojourn to work with Israel in Edmonton in 1989–90. Others included extended visits of non-program members to CITA or other institutions where members worked. ‘For all of us,’ Unruh noted, ‘those interactions have created a whole that is much bigger than the parts. It has given us friends and colleagues whom we would not otherwise have had, and it has done so across thousands of miles. We each now have people from across the country who understand us, with whom we can discuss and argue about a broad range of scientific topics and ideas.’16 The institute’s hopes that its funds and promotion would stimulate extensive interaction among members of the Cosmology Program were realized during the first five years of activity. But CIAR’s expectation that its university partners would use the funds freed up by fellowship appointments to enhance work in cosmology was only partially

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achieved. The University of Toronto came closest to meeting the institute’s objectives. There the institute provided the salaries and benefits of two fellows at CITA and a portion of Stebbins’s salary and benefits as a scholar. In return, the university freed up the equivalent of one fellow’s salary at CITA to fund long-term visitors and to offer postdoctoral fellowships. But at the University of Alberta, none of the funds freed by Werner Israel’s fellowship were returned to his department until 1989– 90, when a portion of the funds helped to bring Page from Pennsylvania for the year. And at UBC, the funds freed by Unruh’s and Affleck’s fellowships were retained by their department, but only a portion was used to pay half of a postdoctoral fellow’s salary for Unruh and Affleck.17 Another issue in the institute’s relations with its university partners that proved difficult to resolve was the tendency of the university partners to ignore the role CIAR played in the accomplishments of their CIAR program members. At the University of Toronto in particular, the achievements of Bond, Kaiser, and Stebbins were widely acknowledged, but seldom was their affiliation with CIAR noted.18 In another area, there was excellent cooperation between CIAR, CITA, and the University of Toronto. It arose out of the repression of dissent by the government of the People’s Republic of China at Tiananmen Square in Beijing in June 1989. A leading dissident was Professor Fang Li Zhi of the Beijing Astronomical Observatory. Fang, an outstanding cosmologist, had been labelled by Premier Deng Xiaoping as a major instigator of the student protests that led to the repression at Tiananmen Square and had taken refuge in the United States embassy in Beijing. Unruh, Mustard, Scott Tremaine, the director of CITA, and President George Connell of the University of Toronto worked closely to seek the assistance of Canada’s Department of External Affairs and to quickly fund a visiting appointment at CITA for Fang. External Affairs, working with the U.S. State Department, conveyed an invitation to Fang. In July 1989, Fang acknowledged its receipt with great pleasure to Tremaine and Unruh. In the end, Fang was able to visit the University of Toronto for only a brief time before taking up a visiting appointment in England. But the incident did illustrate how a university and CIAR could quickly organize to seize an opportunity to enhance research when one arose.19 By the fall of 1989, the advisory committee, assisted by Unruh, Israel, and Kaiser, was well advanced in planning for the first program review for Cosmology, scheduled for the spring of 1990. An evaluation of the quality of the work by the program members was the central question,

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but it was also important that the review panel assess the impact the program had had on graduate and postdoctoral work in Canada and what the program had contributed to enhancing cosmology research in Canada and abroad. It would also be vitally important to note the close collaboration between CIAR and CITA at the University of Toronto. The review panel noted that ‘the two institutions are tightly correlated and have strengthened one another to form a synergistic relationship.’20 A member of CIAR’s research council, Arnold Naimark, president of the University of Manitoba, agreed to chair the panel. Names of prominent people in the field from North America and the United Kingdom were assembled as potential panel members.21 Six scientists accepted invitations to work on the review. James Hartle was a specialist in quantum gravity from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Nathan Isgur worked in particle physics at the University of Toronto. The two theoretical cosmologists were David Schramm of the University of Chicago and Joseph Silk from the University of California at Berkeley. Two experimental cosmologists rounded out the panel: Anthony Tyson and David Wilkinson from Princeton.22 A detailed summary of the program by Unruh headed a long list of documents reviewed by the panel. Included was a description of future plans developed by the program members. The first priority was to recruit Don Page to a fellowship at the University of Alberta to work with Israel. The members also wanted a fellow in the area of particle astrophysics to supplement the work being done by Affleck and by Mark Wise, whom the institute had tried and failed to bring back to Canada from his position at California Institute of Technology. Adding a fellow specializing in ‘intermediate structural formation,’ the formation of dwarf galaxies and star clusters, would be helpful. And, Unruh noted, the ‘addition to the program of fellows in the observational or experimental aspects of cosmology would be a natural direction of growth.’ But the members recognized that it would be an expensive venture because they recommended ‘at least three people to ensure that the fellows in this area did not become isolated in the present theoreticallydominated program.’ Members also suggested adding a specific budget item of $50,000 a year to fund visitors to the CITA, Alberta, or British Columbia nodes, to write a book covering most aspects of cosmology, and to continue the summer school project for graduate students.23 The review panel met for three days in Vancouver in May 1990. It had two lengthy sessions with Unruh as program director and interviews with the other fellows, Stebbins and Don Page. Robin Armstrong from

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the advisory committee outlined the relationship between the university’s CITA and CIAR and reviewed the work of the advisory committee for the panel. The panel submitted its report to Mustard in August 1990. It began by strongly echoing Unruh’s assessment that the ‘key accomplishment’ of the Cosmology Program was the recruitment of three top researchers into Canadian university posts. ‘Without the presence of CIAR, of the money it provided for salaries and interaction costs, and of the atmosphere of high intellectual expectations it has created, Bond, Kaiser and Affleck would not now be in Canada.’24 The panel went on: ‘The overall strength of the Program Participants is outstanding in that they have not only advanced the field of cosmology generally but they have also opened new lines of inquiry. As a group they have fully met the criteria of CIAR with respect to quality as judged by international standards. We found no evidence that there has been anything but a continued strengthening of the work of individual participants both in terms of quality and scope during their tenure as Fellows and Scholar.’25 Recognizing the distinctive foci of research at U of T in the eastern node and at UBC and the University of Alberta in the western node, the panel found the degree of interaction ‘reasonable.’ Unruh was providing ‘highly capable’ management to the program, and the panel was generally satisfied with the matching funding support for the program, through CITA, at Toronto. Overall, however, it concluded that ‘the level of matching university support remains unsatisfactory.’ Nor was the degree of recognition given by any of the partner universities to the program adequate.26 Finally, the panel’s assessment of the research of the individual fellows and scholar was glowing. All were rated ‘outstanding,’ and the panel strongly endorsed recruiting Page back to Canada as a fellow.27 The panel recommended that the Cosmology Program be continued for another five-year period. The ‘most urgent areas’ for development, it added, were particle and experimental cosmology. In particle cosmology, the ideal would be the appointment of one new fellow at the University of Toronto and another at UBC. For experimental cosmology, it recommended using the associate category of membership rather than adding, as the members had suggested, three more fellows. The panel thought the program’s use of the associate category only for foreign scientists reflected much ‘too narrow a view of the utility of this category.’ It noted that ‘Canadian expertise in experimental cosmology is world class’ and that using the associate category to bring Canadian experi-

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mentalists into the program would ‘make a valuable contribution to the Program by broadening the expertise involved at a modest cost.’28 The review panel had two final recommendations. First, it called for the formation of a program executive committee, consisting of the director and a representative of each of the other two nodes, to plan events and develop priorities for use of the programs interaction funds and to convene a business meeting of all members at the annual members’ meeting. And it strongly recommended that CIAR and its partner universities negotiate clear and explicit guidelines for the use of university funds released by fellowship and scholarship appointments, for the teaching loads of program fellows, and for the forms of recognition to be given to the program’s fellows and scholars by their universities.29 The panel’s report was received by the research council in September 1990. The council quickly recommended continuing the Cosmology Program. By then, there had been a dramatic shift in CIAR’s partnership with the University of Alberta. With continued support for Werner Israel’s fellowship from the government of Alberta, the university had agreed to use the freed-up funds to bring Page back to Alberta. Council therefore quickly passed a recommendation by Armstrong that Page be appointed to a Cosmology fellowship. Both recommendations were endorsed by the institute’s board of directors in November.30 The Cosmology Program began its second five-year cycle with an exceptionally strong review report, improving relations with its university partners, and a new fellow at the University of Alberta.




In the spring of 1999, Ford Doolittle described the work of himself and his colleagues in the Evolutionary Biology Program as a chapter in a ‘book in progress.’ Though speculation on the origins of life reached back through the ages, the science of evolutionary biology began with Charles Darwin. His famous trip to the Galapagos Islands on HMS Beagle, 1831–36, had suggested to him that the origins of life would be found not in creationism but in evolution. After nearly three decades of further study, his revolutionary book, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, was published in 1859. Doolittle wrote that Darwin revealed ‘how the patterns of similarity and difference we see in nature could be explained by the assumption that living species comprise the twigs at the end of the branches of a single evolutionary tree of life.’31 Explanations of the origins of life at the biological level of organisms

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and populations were explored and refined from Darwin’s paradigm over the next century. That was the first chapter in the evolutionary biology book in progress. The second began in 1953 when James Watson and Francis Crick produced their model for DNA, the genetic code. Exploration of the origins of life shifted from the evolution of organisms to the level of molecules. Biological scientists could now learn what ‘mutations actually are and how their effects are expressed in the biochemistry, physiology, anatomy and behaviour of organisms.’ ‘We also learned,’ Doolittle reported, ‘how to isolate genes and reproduce them in test tubes, and read their sequences ourselves.’32 The third chapter began just twelve years later when Emile Zuckerkandl and Linus Pauling suggested that the understanding of the evolution of life could be based on the structure of genes. Doolittle and his colleagues were contributing to that chapter. They and other late-twentieth-century biological scientists understood that certain genes and the proteins they produce are common to all living organisms. By comparing those genes found in different organisms on different branches of the tree of life, CIAR’s biologists were leading contributors to the reconstruction of the tree from its earliest manifestations some 3.8 billion years ago.33 The Evolutionary Biology Program held its first annual meeting in Nova Scotia in September 1987. By then, Doolittle, Patrick Dennis, and Michael Gray had been joined as fellows by Robert Cedergren and David Sankoff of the Université de Montréal. Cedergren was a biochemist who had been a member of the original task force and worked on phylogenetic reconstruction using RNA; Sankoff was a mathematical linguist who had had a long collaboration with Cedergren in his work. Brian Golding, a young population geneticist at York University, was a program scholar who worked with Bob Haynes and Barry Glickman, associates in the program. The other early associates were Donn Kushner at Toronto, Moshe Mevarech at Tel Aviv, Michael Waterman at Southern California, and Carl Woese at Illinois.34 The meeting established the focus for the research program, particularly its emphasis on sequence-based evolutionary tree construction and the promotion of genomics – the study of the genetic material of an organism. It also started a ‘group spirit of which we remain proud,’ and it established a number of precedents for future meetings. As in the other CIAR programs, ‘outsiders’ contributed to the ambitious threeday schedule of papers and discussions. The sessions themselves were informal, lively, and ‘highly interactive.’ And, as Doolittle and Mustard

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had hoped, the meeting and the others that followed triggered new collaborative ties that would develop as the program continued.35 Mustard, who was at the meeting when most of the presentations were made, was excited. ‘A remarkable meeting,’ he wrote, ‘from what I saw and listened to in the discussions ... We had put together a very remarkable program. We have brought together strengths in the biological sciences in Canada that would never have come together without our efforts which is truly outstanding.’36 The annual program meetings, often held together with meetings of the program’s advisory committee, stimulated strong, continuing interaction among the program members. Siminovitch reported in December 1989 that the Evolutionary Biology sessions included ‘a high level of input from the Associates.’ Each was well organized and marked by strong representation of participants from outside the country, giving the program a ‘tremendous profile’ among international scientists. Each meeting had a focus on an aspect of the research program. In Nova Scotia in 1987, it was prokaryotic genomics; in 1988 at Sainte-Marguerite, Quebec, molecular phylogeny. When the program members gathered at Victoria in 1989, the subject was molecular genetics. By now, ‘outsiders’ in biology from Canada and abroad were earnestly seeking invitations to attend the annual meetings. In 1990, at Chaffeys Locks, Ontario, the subject would be population genetics, and the 1991 meeting, scheduled for Quebec City, would concentrate on organelle evolution. For each meeting, Doolittle and his colleagues took pains to reserve places for graduate students and postdoctoral students who were working with program members at neighbouring institutions.37 As a bonus, the meetings also served as a recruiting device for new program members. Between 1987 and 1989, thirty-one visitors participated in the annual meetings. As the Cosmology group had found, the Evolutionary Biology members could use the meetings to attract potential colleagues. Claude Lemieux at Laval, Michael Zuker at the National Research Council, Franz Lang of the Université de Montréal, and Thomas Cavalier-Smith, who was recruited from King’s College, London, to UBC, all presented papers at these meetings before becoming fellows in the program. Lemieux began his work in the program as a scholar after presenting a paper at the first meeting. Seven other visitors became program associates in 1988–89. In all, nineteen scientists, more than half of the visitors attending the first three annual meetings, became program members by December 1989. Two other scholars were recruited not from program meetings but in open competitions for two funded junior

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appointments at Dalhousie and British Columbia. Paul Liu joined the Dalhousie group from Duke University, and Rosemary Redfield left Johns Hopkins for the UBC appointment.38 The program was organized into four research nodes. In earlier programs, AIR and Cosmology, each node had a geographic identification and, generally, a specific research agenda. Doolittle and his colleagues adopted a variant, defining each node by its subject of research concentration and having its members distributed at the different universities where they held regular appointments. Therefore, at most geographic locations, program members from different research nodes would be working together. Doolittle outlined the work of the four nodes in his 1989 annual report to the advisory committee and the research council. One, which included Doolittle at Dalhousie, Dennis at UBC, and associates at Illinois, Toronto, and Tel Aviv, worked with archaebacteria, which ‘represent “living fossils”, being the third evolutionary lineage which diverged from the common ancestral stock 3.5 or more billion years ago.’ Another group focused on organelle evolution, studying mitochondria and choloplasts that retained vestiges of their original chromosomes. Doolittle’s Dalhousie colleague Michael Gray, Lemieux at Laval, and associates at Guelph, Ottawa, McGill, Laval, and Dalhousie were in this group. The third group did analysis of sequence data and included a biologist, Michael Zuker at the National Research Council, a biochemist, Bob Cedergren at the Université de Montréal, and a mathematician, David Sankoff at U de M, as fellows. They worked with the associates Michael Waterman, a mathematician at Southern California, William Day, a computer scientist at Dalhousie, and Carl Woese of Illinois, who was the discoverer of archaebacteria (1977) and the leading scientist in experimental molecular phylogeny. The final group on genetic mechanisms concentrated on mechanisms of DNA sequence change within biological populations. Donal Hickey, a fellow at the University of Ottawa, Brian Golding, a scholar at York, and Bob Haynes and Barry Glickman, associates at York, were in this group.39 Through Woese in the sequence data analysis group, the Evolutionary Biology Program and CIAR established an important link to the University of Illinois, where the United States National Science Foundation had established a national centre for supercomputer applications in genome analysis. That association, in turn, had led Doolittle, working with the advisory committee members Siminovitch and Michael Smith at UBC, to try to establish a genome sequencing project in Canada using the Evolutionary Biology Program group.40

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The key to all the work of the program was the collaboration among program members that was stimulated by CIAR. Doolittle had two measures of the extent of interactivity during the initial five years of the program. Using information supplied by the fellows, scholars, and associates, he calculated that there had been more than sixty visits by one member to another member’s laboratory for periods ranging from one day to several months. These visits and continuous exchanges of data and ideas also resulted in at least thirty-nine jointly authored scientific papers in professional journals over the same period. As the program gained recognition – and it did so very quickly – its members also participated in an increasing number of international meetings. Contacts made at the program’s 1987 meeting led to an invitation to the program to organize a full-scale conference on molecular evolution at Taos, New Mexico, in early 1991. Donal Hickey, a fellow at Ottawa, did the organization, and speakers from the program included Cavalier-Smith, Richard Collins from Toronto, Cedergren, Zuker, and Doolittle. Earlier, in the summer of 1988, Patrick Dennis at UBC and Alastair Matheson, an associate at the University of Victoria, organized a CIAR-sponsored conference at Pearson College. Michael Smith reported to Mustard at its conclusion: ‘The conference was attended by most of the major figures in the field from around the world ... The science was first-rate ... I thought that the science presented by the Canadian groups ... always stood up well alongside that of other investigators and in a number of cases was clearly leading. Finally, the meeting provided a perfect opportunity for young Canadian scientists to meet one another, and to meet the other leading scientists in the field from around the world.’41 The experience of the Evolutionary Biology Program with the Canadian universities where members worked paralleled that of the AIR and Cosmology programs. Some of the universities responded to CIAR by using funds released by their fellow and scholar appointments to enhance program activities. Dalhousie and UBC were more supportive than some other institutions in assisting some of the program members; support for students to work with program members also varied. From Doolittle’s perspective, the varying responses were a cause of concern. ‘CIAR support,’ he wrote, ‘can be seen as seed money, for the development of perennial programs in evolution and molecular biology. Some institutions have indeed planted CIAR seeds, and begun to harvest fruit. Others, pigeon-like, have simply eaten the seeds.’42 The institute-university relationship was an important item on the agenda of concerns that members expressed to Doolittle as he finished

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his report for the five-year review panel in 1991. Many members thought CIAR could increase its leverage with their universities by harder bargaining when it came time to make program membership appointments. Another issue echoed those in earlier programs: some members seemed unaware of how associates were chosen or what role the associates were supposed to play, other than attending the annual program meeting. Some members also thought that the annual meetings themselves were just ‘too busy.’ And several members asked that CIAR expand its support to include directly or indirectly funded CIAR-designated postdoctoral students to work in their laboratories.43 The five-year review of Evolutionary Biology took place in June 1991, beginning at Dalhousie and then going on to the Université de Montréal and the University of British Columbia. David Strong, president of the University of Victoria and a member of the research council, chaired the panel. The other members were Maurice L’Abbé, a mathematician at U de M, Albert Dahlberg, a biochemist at Brown University, Nicholas Gillham, a zoologist at Duke, Benjamin Hall, a University of Washington geneticist, Wen-Hsiung Li, a population geneticist from the University of Texas, Houston, and Piotr Slonimski, a molecular geneticist at the Centre national de recherche scientifique in Gif-sur-Yvette, France.44 The panel reported quickly. It was unanimous in agreement that the program ‘fulfilled the standards and goals’ set by CIAR, that it ‘has had a tremendous impact on work in evolutionary biology and has developed an outstanding reputation in the international community.’ The program’s strength, the panel said, ‘lies in the coherent team effort in building and supporting the program, made possible by CIAR. ‘The main achievement of the Program has been in providing a new pioneering rational framework within which to view cellular evolution, resulting in important new insights ... CIAR provides a mechanism to mobilize talented individuals and ... help advance science in the longerterm. It demonstrates what can be done for research and for the individual in the larger community.’ With ‘resounding unanimous’ agreement, the review panel recommended the program be continued for another five years.45 It went on to recommend changes to the program, however. First, it urged Mustard to attempt to standardize procedures for how university funds released by CIAR appointments were spent at the different universities. Second, it recommended that all members’ appointments should be restarted at the beginning of each new program cycle, with

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fellow and scholar appointments for five years and associate appointments for three years. Appointments to the program’s advisory committee should be staggered and for fixed terms of three years. In program development, the panel recommended that the mechanism node be strengthened, that CIAR consider sponsoring Canadian scientists training outside Canada, that the genomic sequences developed by the program be delivered to an international database in a timely fashion, and that the institute add junior fellow to its categories of fully funded appointments. It recommended that a new appointment be made in population genetics to work with the molecular biologists and that another appointment slot be created ‘to take advantage of unforeseen opportunities to bring in a particularly outstanding person.’ Finally, it suggested that the program might tentatively link to industrial and commercial interests by appointing industrial associates ‘who could relate to and interact with Program members.’ The research council considered the report at its 15 October 1991 meeting. David Strong, speaking for the panel, told the council that his colleagues were ‘overwhelmed by the success of the program and the quality of the players.’ Council endorsed the recommendation that all program participants should ‘start from zero at the beginning of the second term of the program’ but did not comment on the recommendation that associate appointments be limited to three years. Nor did it react to the recommendation that advisory committee appointments be staggered and fixed for three years. Regarding the mechanism node, the research council acknowledged that it was understaffed and added that its mandate was too broad and not sufficiently focused. No particular remedy was specified, but Siminovitch observed that the mechanism functions were important for the whole program and could be handled in the other three nodes, implying that the mechanism node itself could be closed down. The other issues raised by the panel, including the institute’s relationship with its partner universities and the use of released funds, were ‘generally discussed’ before Strong moved that the Evolutionary Biology Program be continued for another five years. The motion passed unanimously and was endorsed by the board of directors on 4 December 1991.46




Looking back, it seems clear that the outstanding success of the first cycles of the ‘origins’ programs benefited from the experience CIAR

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gained in developing the AIR program. The record indicates that the frequently stormy passage of AIR was in sharp contrast to the smooth voyages of Cosmology and Evolutionary Biology. AIR was quickly adopted because, in large part, CIAR had to have a research program to sell to potential donors. In comparison, the ‘origins’ programs went through rather lengthy planning phases before launch. AIR was a research program in an area that was not yet recognized as an independent scientific field and an area where a multiplicity of disciplines unaccustomed to working together tried to forge a common endeavour. Cosmology and Evolutionary Biology, by contrast, were deeply rooted in scientific inquiries that stretched back through the ages, though both had been given new direction, as it happened, by the same rapid developments in digital technology that had triggered the AIR program. Cosmologists worked together and understood each other, as did evolutionary biologists; they had a common language and understanding that was missing in the AIR program. More than that, each of the ‘origins’ programs had, in comparison with AIR, a tight, focused research agenda: Cosmology in theory with a hint of experimentalism, and Evolutionary Biology in experimentalism with a dash of theory. The leadership of AIR was not stable: its first director soon left, and its second struggled throughout the first cycle with programmatic rivalries between its nodes. Both review panels commented on the impressive leadership skills of the directors of the ‘origins’ programs. Unruh and Doolittle were strong, excellent team leaders who had a vision of the goals to be achieved and of the ways to encourage team members to achieve them. Behind both scientists were highly experienced advisory committees and an institute research council that was learning quickly how to avoid the pitfalls that the first CIAR research program endured in its initial cycle. In the end, of course, all three programs had earned high commendation and strong recommendations for renewal from their review panels. That in itself was peer endorsement that CIAR was fulfilling its mandate.

7 Population Health

In the spring of 1983, Bob Evans attended one of the meetings of Jim Till’s group preparing a report on population health for the research council. Evans was well known for his work on the economic behaviour of the health-care industry. For several years he had tried ‘to understand the forces controlling resource allocation, output distribution, and price and income determination’ in the health-care sector of the economy.1 Evans recalled, ‘I can’t say that I was terribly excited’ about the meeting with the Till group. ‘I had the feeling that they were looking for Leonardo da Vinci to run this program and he was probably otherwise engaged ... I felt too that it sounded awfully like preventive medicine [and] I was not terribly excited about preventive medicine ... I didn’t at that stage have a sense of what the real thrust of the program was ... and I don’t think anybody else did either.’2 Over the next few years, Evans did not pay much attention to the onagain, off-again deliberations of CIAR committees and the research council about population health. From time to time he saw Mustard, whom he had met at McMaster many years earlier, when Mustard was in Vancouver. But his own research and the writing of a major textbook on health economics occupied his attention while the institute struggled to find a way to explore population health and a leader to establish a research program. But by the spring of 1987, Evans recalled, he was ‘starting to feel a bit flat.’ He was looking for new challenges and ‘much more open to the sort of messianic message that Fraser was bringing’ about the importance of a research program in population health.3 Evans agreed to join Martin Wilk of Statistics Canada, Ted Marmor from Yale, and his long-time friend at McMaster Greg Stoddart on the team that finally made a persuasive presentation to the research council. That

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done, Evans accepted appointment as a fellow and director of the program in May 1987. Health care, and the health-care industry, Evans observed shortly afterwards, were not synonymous with population health. ‘First, and most obviously, a lot of what goes on in health care does not seem to contribute to health ... Second ... there is also a good deal of other human activity, or circumstances, which bear powerfully on health, and which are not encompassed in the health care system.’ Economic status, social customs, and environmental factors were but three of a legion of circumstances and activities that had long been recognized as influencing the health of a community. But to what extent? With what degree of impact? Over what time period? Upon what portion or portions of a community’s population? These questions had not been explored systematically by researchers. ‘If the objective of a society is in fact to improve the health of its members,’ Evans observed, ‘then there are many other strategies [than analyzing the health-care industry] which deserve consideration.’4 It was the ‘many other strategies’ that Evans and his colleagues set out to understand in the Population Health Program. The first task was to assemble a team of people to work with Evans, Stoddart, and Marmor. Working with its advisory committee, the program grew from three to fifteen members during its first year. Michael Wolfson, a talented statistician at Statistics Canada, was appointed a fellow to lead the work in data collection and analysis. At the University of British Columbia, the geneticist Patricia Baird and the economist Morris Barer joined as associates, and Clyde Hertzman, a young epidemiologist at the Medical School, was appointed a scholar. Noralou Roos and her husband, Leslie, community health scientists at the University of Manitoba, were assembling data linking health information of the population to the province’s health-care industry records. They were appointed associates. Jonathan Lomas, a community health scientist at McMaster, André-Pierre Contandriopoulos, an economist at the Université de Montréal, Marc Renaud, a sociologist at U de M, and Barry Pless, a social pediatrician at McGill, were also appointed Canadian associates; Michael Marmot, an epidemiologist at the University of London, became a foreign associate. John Frank of the University of Toronto, another epidemiologist, joined Hertzman as a scholar in the program.5 By October 1988, Evans could report that assembling the team was ‘now largely complete, although we need to selectively appoint additional members in key areas.’6 Unlike the Cosmology or Evolutionary Biology program, and in some

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respects like Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, the Population Health group drew together people from many disciplines. Most of these life and social scientists were not accustomed to close collaboration with people in other, seemingly unrelated disciplines. Evans’s challenge was to get them to know one another, to learn from one another, and to work together as a team towards common goals. To some members of the advisory committee, it seemed a daunting task, one made more so by having a social scientist leading a research program in health. Wilk, a very influential member of the committee, once asked Evans, only half in jest, ‘How the hell can you have a Population Health Program run by three economists?’ But Evans, already thoroughly familiar with the ways of health-care administrators and practitioners, was convinced that a social scientist was the right kind of person to lead the program. ‘That’s exactly what you do want!’ Evans recalled years later. He believed that Mustard’s early decision that the program should be led by a social scientist was ‘a critical moment’ in defining the program. The problem with leadership by health scientists, he argued, was that they ‘think they already know the answers’ to the problems of community health. But social scientists like Evans, Stoddart, and Marmor had a different perspective. ‘As soon as they focus on what they are trying to do, they realize their own inadequacies, and you know you need people from a number of other disciplines to help you ... So you have a dynamic built into it that will force you to become cross-disciplinary in a very real sense.’7 The other key to establishing a working network of researchers was to create the circumstances and an environment for developing strong personal relationships among the program members. Evans did that by having and carefully guiding frequent meetings of the program members. As Evans put it, ‘Don’t get people and bring them together and wait for them to glue. Find people who are already glued together and add on. And I think that that worked.’8 In the early years, most of the meetings included a guest expert who introduced an aspect of population health for the members to discuss and debate. The meetings focused on developing a set of program objectives, setting target dates for completion of tasks, and assigning responsibilities to program members. As Hertzman later recalled, the central idea of the program was ‘when you partition [society] by socio-economic status, you see this gradient: difference in health status, now let’s use that as our primary intellectual concept.’ There were lively debates in the meetings about whether the gradient was real.9 ‘Most of the accomplishments have been

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in the formulation of concepts and the preparation of documents that articulate these concepts,’ Mustard noted in June 1990.10 An initial meeting of the three founding fellows and Michael Wolfson at an Adirondacks lodge in the fall of 1987 was followed by the first full meeting, later in the fall, in Quebec City and three other meetings in 1988, five in 1989, three in 1990, and two in 1991. They were scattered across the country: Vancouver, Winnipeg, Banff, Saint-Marc-sur-Richelieu, and Toronto in 1989, for example. Later in the program, each meeting had a defined agenda of reports on and discussion about the various research assignments being pursued by the membership. In Vancouver in March 1990, the topics included a report on the Quebec members’ presentation on population health to the Quebec legislature’s Commission on Health; information about Michael Marmot’s database on the health of British civil servants; a report on the development of the Ontario Workers’ Compensation Institute, which was directed by John Frank; and another report on linkage of the Canadian census material to health databases being assembled in some of the provinces.11 Four general areas of work were outlined. The first was a series of papers and a monograph on specific areas of program research ‘to serve as a base upon which future studies are based.’ Next was developing linked data sets from the national and provincial governments to connect the nation’s administrative records on health care with other information such as socio-economic status, living conditions, and other nonmedical factors which were considered determinants of health. From these the group could identify special data sets or special populations and exploit them to get more particular information about the determinants of health. The final task would be a review and assessment of the descriptive literature on social structures, human behaviour, and health outcomes to correlate with the outcomes of examination of the data sets.12 By February 1990, the group had fixed on three main goals. 1 To enhance our understanding of the factors (social, economic, cultural, genetic and health care) determining the health status and function of individuals, how these interact with each other and their relative importance. 2 To develop an epidemiological approach and a system of health statistics that allows a continuing analysis of the changes in health status and function of a population and of the relative importance of the factors conditioning or influencing these changes.

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3 To examine the barriers to the use of knowledge that could improve the health status and function of populations and, in circumstances where measures are introduced, to examine their effectiveness and the efficiency with which they are applied.13 Evans and his colleagues realized that these were long-term goals that would not be accomplished in the first cycle of the program. But they did have five ‘reasonable targets’ for the first cycle. The first was moulding the fellows, associates, and scholars into a compatible working group committed to the program’s objectives. Together they would review the existing knowledge on the subject to develop a common understanding of systemic relationships that determined the health status and function of individuals. In addition, the program would construct an array of indicators of health status and functions for individuals and populations, and Michael Wolfson worked on developing a system of health statistics suitable for use at institutional, local, provincial, and national levels to assist in developing health policies. Finally, program meetings would yield periodic publication of reports on the program and its specific research projects and would coordinate the preparation and publishing of a book defining issues and specific aspects of population health.14 The book project quickly became a priority objective of the program.15 From the summer of 1990 until the end of the first program cycle in 1992, every meeting had significant time set aside to deal with its progress.16 When the group met in the Adirondacks in September 1990, five chapters were presented for general discussion. The chapters were then transcribed and distributed to all program members for comment. Mustard was pleased with the work: he noted that ‘basic dynamics among the group were good.’17 A year later, after a program meeting in Winnipeg, Mustard recorded that ‘they seem to have it [the book] in hand and a schedule for getting it done.’18 Deadlines for completion of chapters had been set. And an editorial committee had sent out guidelines for textual presentation and other ways to shape the contributions from different authors with differing writing styles and approaches into a coherent monograph. The goal was to publish a book that would be a major contribution to public understanding of key issues in population health. But it had another impact: it was an important catalyst in tying the group together. ‘It was a common project which forced us to [work together],’ Evans remarked years later. ‘The book enabled us to kind of partition responsibilities within a common framework.’ ‘The book disci-

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plined our work, forced us to communicate with each other and with ourselves to figure out what we really thought,’he added. ‘The program created the book, but the book also created the program.’19 Why Are Some People Healthy and Others Not? was published in 1994.




The book defined the Population Health Program. It provided the rationale for the work of the program members and set the research goals of the program. But the concepts about the health of communities traced in the book demanded verification by empirical evidence. That, after all, was what was going to distinguish the CIAR program from all other research efforts. At first sight, the task of acquiring the data seemed obvious: the need was to acquire administrative databases on health-care utilization in the Canadian provinces and link them with the socio-economic data on Canadians contained in the census. But while understanding what was needed was easy, getting it done was not. ‘This raised difficult questions of both technical feasibility and protection of privacy,’ Evans recalled, ‘but also promised a resource unique in the world.’20 The work began in 1989. The key figures, Noralou and Leslie Roos in Manitoba and Michael Wolfson at Statistics Canada in Ottawa, were in place. In Winnipeg the Rooses had access to Manitoba’s health-care administrative database. They worked with Wolfson in Ottawa on an April presentation to the advisory committee of Statistics Canada, proposing a linkage with census data for the province.21 But the Rooses also needed support for the analysis of their database. Mustard arranged a meeting of the Rooses, Evans, and Ted Marmor with Manitoba’s minister and deputy minister of health on 29 September 1989. The provincial officials were very impressed, and a second meeting took place with the provincial cabinet. Further work with the head of the ministry’s Community Health Services Branch over the next year resulted in a major provincial commitment to the program: $3.5 million over three years for the establishment of the Manitoba Centre for Health Policy and Evaluation.22 It was the Rooses’ membership in the Population Health Program, where they were collaborating with an international group of experts in the field, that triggered the major provincial commitment to population health. That commitment, in turn, was the keystone in CIAR’s access to population health databases. In Ottawa, Wolfson was laying the groundwork for access to census

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data. In October 1989, Evans, Mustard, and some other program members had their first meeting with the federal deputy minister of health. The reception in Ottawa was in sharp contrast to that in Winnipeg. Leslie Roos told the program meeting in December that the proposed linkage of Manitoba health statistics and Canadian census data had been vetoed by the federal minister of health, Benôit Bouchard. The problem was privacy: the understanding that Statistics Canada had with Canadians that their census information would always be private. Though the department recognized the potential benefits of assembling a reliable base of data on the health of the nation’s population, Bouchard, Roos reported, was ‘concerned that the downside of the proposal outweighs any public interest benefits.’23 Getting access to the census material was going to take much more time and many more meetings between the institute’s program people and the senior personnel in Health Canada. And there was also much to do at Statistics Canada. Wolfson started by developing a ‘think piece’ on a system of health statistics. It was quickly accepted by the department’s advisory committee. ‘All sorts of practical questions had to be confronted,’ Wolfson later wrote. ‘We began by assembling a small team to build a prototype of the hardest part of the proposed statistical system, a microdata foundation for a summary index of population health – POHEM for Population Health Model.’24 Wolfson and his Statistics Canada colleagues were acutely aware of the privacy issue that so worried the people at Health Canada. ‘Record linkage such as this can be perceived as a serious invasion of privacy,’ he observed. But it also ‘offers the possibility of significant research findings from data which would otherwise be very expensive to collect, findings which in turn could contribute to health.’25 The census data that the Rooses and Wolfson’s team proposed for the linkage were a subset of the Manitoba statistics from the 1986 census. Late in October 1990, Mustard, Reva Gerstein, the chair of the board of directors, and Bette Stephenson met with the new federal minister of health, Perrin Beatty, and his senior officials. They reviewed the Population Health Program and other CIAR initiatives. The minister, Mustard noted, ‘indicated that he was impressed with what had been accomplished and engaged in an extended discussion about a variety of matters in terms of public policy, etc. in relation to the determinants of health.’26 But as late as October 1991, Mustard had to report to the research council that the institute could not get approval from the government of Canada for access to the census data.27 That same month,

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however, the conference of the provincial and territorial ministers of health endorsed the Manitoba–Statistics Canada record linkage project to study the relationship between biomedical data and socio-economic status in the determinants of health.28 That, in turn, finally precipitated federal approval. Evans observed that ‘it will open up a unique research opportunity which can be “mined” for years, with major publication implications.’29 The Manitoba initiative also inspired efforts in some other provinces. In British Columbia, Evans, Barer, Baird, and Hertzman, at UBC’s Centre for Health Services and Policy Research, worked on a feasibility study for linking health information databases. By 1991, it was completed, and funding had been obtained from the provincial Ministry of Health to begin ‘back-linking’ the provincial data to 1985. The group also explored incorporating data from the Workers’ Compensation Board, data on alcohol and drug use, and auto insurance accident data into its database and eventually linking its information with Manitoba’s to create the capability to compare the determinants of health in the two provinces.30 In Ontario, Greg Stoddart and Jonathan Lomas at McMaster had lodged their participation in the program in the university’s Centre for Health Economics and Policy Analysis. CIAR’s fellowship support for Stoddart enabled the centre to recruit Stephen Birch, a health economist from the United Kingdom who worked on population-based health issues. They and their centre colleagues started two new areas of work at the centre. The first explored inequalities in health as they were distributed through population groups; the second concentrated on how determinants of health influenced the health status of population groups and their significance for health policy.31 The CIAR program also worked closely with the Ontario government. In November 1988, Evans, Mustard, and others met with the minister and the deputy minister of health. In 1989, the program made presentations to the Premier’s Council on Health Strategy in February and again in March. The council had a subcommittee on healthy public policy chaired by Gerstein; she arranged a three-day retreat in September 1989 for senior civil servants from Health and several other departments, where Evans and Marmor gave full-day briefings on issues in population health.32 The most significant outcome of the program’s work in Ontario was the creation of the Ontario Workers’ Compensation Institute (now called the Institute for Work and Health) by the province’s Workers’ Compensation Board. Mustard became the chair of its board of direc-

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tors, Michael Marmot chaired its research advisory committee, and Hertzman, Renaud, and Wolfson were committee members. The OWCI had a triple mandate: to conduct research in causes, prevention, and treatment/rehabilitation of work-related disabilities; to develop programs to promote networks of community clinics and regional evaluation centres in Ontario; and to develop educational opportunities for the enhancement of medical rehabilitation programs. In the fall of 1991, John Frank, who had been ‘promoted’ to fellowship in the program, was appointed director of research for the OWCI.33 Working with Marmot in London, Frank began assembling data on work-related health issues that could be linked to Marmot’s health database for British civil servants. The work with these three provinces was responsible for the creation of a number of databases to empirically explore issues in population health. In Quebec, the influence of the program was more diffuse. There, Renaud and Contandriopoulos at the Université de Montréal and Ellen Corin and Barry Pless at McGill had less direct impact on the province’s health initiatives. In October 1989, the associate deputy minister of health and social services, Paul Lamarche, had the first of a series of meetings to discuss health issues with the Quebec program members. Together with Mustard and Evans, the Quebec group made a presentation in March, 1990, on reforms in the health-care sector to the Parliamentary Commission on Social Affairs at the National Assembly in Quebec City. The minister and the leader of the opposition were reported to be deeply impressed, and the group’s paper was distributed throughout the government and published in the influential daily Le Devoir. Of long-term significance, Renaud and Contandriopoulos began a graduate student seminar on population health at their university in January 1991, and one of Renaud’s doctoral candidates went on to do postdoctoral studies with Corin at neighbouring McGill. While the members of the Quebec node worked to develop contacts with their provincial government, they also played an important role within the program. Renaud and his colleagues, by their participation in the program meetings and their work on the book, introduced the members in English-speaking Canada to, as Renaud put it, ‘a non Anglo-Saxon perspective’ on health care and population health in Canada.34 But for Renaud there was more. As a member of the program and the research council, he would write in 1999, ‘CIAR has completely changed my outlook on things.’ The institute ‘metamorphosed my intellectual life, as well as my view of research and “so-called” Canadian institutions. Indeed

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my links with CIAR have provided me with some of the most happy and most productive moments of the last eight years.’35

Population Health was a program unlike the others the institute sponsored. Like the others, it drew together highly talented scientists and scholars to work on a common goal. And like the others, it held networked research as its raison d’être. But unlike AIR, Cosmology, or Evolutionary Biology, Population Health made public policy an essential aspect of its mandate. It was as dependent on its missionary endeavour as it was on the book it was creating or the databases it was assembling. The program’s success required tying old, long-accepted knowledge that non-medical factors played fundamental roles in the health of a community to new empirical information from its databases. But the program also had to sell its message to public and private sources to finance its work and to persuade public institutions and governments to allow access to their record systems. To do that, it had to break down public perceptions and barriers that stood in its way. Donors and sponsors, private and public, had to become convinced that the health of Canada’s people was not simply an issue to be resolved by the nation’s health-care professionals. Public officials had to be converted to the notion that breaking the code of absolute privacy surrounding the census and other highly confidential record sets would serve the greater public good. Many of these people were not, as Evans put it, ‘interested in research for its own sake.’ Obtaining continued access to and serious attention by the ‘highest policy levels’ was always a work in progress, a task aimed at convincing them that ‘health policy, and not just health care policy, needs to be re-thought and re-developed.’36 As the first cycle of the Population Health Program drew to a close, Evans could check off a list of collaborations and projects that had resulted from the work of the program’s chief missionaries, Mustard and himself. In 1990, the federal, provincial, and territorial deputy ministers had commissioned Morris Barer and Greg Stoddart to do a review and analysis of all the various government policies that affected the production and utilization of health services across Canada. A year later, their report was endorsed by the nation’s health ministers at their September meeting. In British Columbia, Evans and Hertzman, among other program members, played important roles on the province’s Royal Commission on Health Care in the early 1990s. In May 1990, the

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governments of Canada formed the National Task Force on Health Information and asked Martin Wilk of Statistics Canada, a key member of the program’s advisory committee, to lead it. He enlisted the support of John Coombs, another advisory committee member, and Wolfson, who led two project teams for the task force. That same month, Evans, Marmor, and Barer went to Houston to participate in the International Summit on the Economic Impact of Health Care Systems, with representatives from the United States, Japan, France, Italy, the United Kingdom, and Germany. In 1992, Hertzman and others became academic advisers to the Federal, Provincial, and Territorial Advisory Committee on Population Health, which became an ‘important vehicle for spreading Population Health thinking across the country.’37 Finally, in the institute itself, the program’s examination of socio-economic determinants of health led to exploration of another related issue. With financial backing from the Royal Bank of Canada, the institute had appointed a new task force to explore the feasibility of a research program in human development. Marmot, Hertzman, Frank, Wolfson, and Evans joined the task force to develop a research program on how early childhood development influenced adult health and behaviour.38 The program’s missionary enterprise consumed huge amounts of time for Mustard and the program members. In his report for the 1992 review panel, Evans remarked that ‘there is no denying that there has been some slackening of effort on the central projects of the program.’ But the activity also highlighted both ‘the quality of the program membership and ... the significance of their work’ and presented ‘opportunities to apply and to communicate the ideas developed in the intense discussions among program members’ at their various meetings. In short, there was a symbiotic relationship between the internal and external activities of the Population Health Program, and both enhanced and enriched the program’s missionary message. As the first cycle of Population Health drew to a close, Evans was pleased with the work of the first five years. ‘These people are really interesting, and this program is fun,’ he concluded. ‘We have got to keep it that way.’




The review panel agreed. The panel began its site visits in June 1992 in Vancouver and then travelled to Winnipeg, Toronto, and Montreal. At all the sites, it interviewed program members, university officials, and people in the private

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and public sectors. For example, in Vancouver, it met with Otto Forgacs, senior vice-president of research at MacMillan Bloedel; in Winnipeg, the minister and the deputy minister of health talked to the panel; in Toronto, members of the advisory committee, government officials, and David Mackenzie of the United Steelworkers of America met the group; and in Montreal, the review panel interviewed, among others, Claude Forget, the president of the Laurentian Group insurance company.39 The panel concluded that the program had ‘assembled a brilliant group of people’ and had achieved the central goal of the institute by creating ‘a real network’ which had ‘synthesized existing knowledge.’ What’s more, the members had ‘created and organized a conceptual framework which will lead to further advances in research and the creation of new knowledge.’ The program had had a significant impact upon the universities where the members were located, and it had ‘exerted a remarkable influence on policy formation and policy making in population health in Canada.’ Its conceptual framework ‘actually constitutes the best synthesis there is which integrates all the factors that can be considered as determinants of human health.’ During the first five-year cycle, the program’s major contribution to knowledge and policy was that it shifted ‘the focus away from medical care or health care, to health, thereby broadening the determinants of health to include such factors as poverty, the physical environment, social class and socio-economic status, work conditions and unemployment. It also broadens the time span by emphasizing the relationship between childhood experiences and early childhood development to the status of health in later life.’ The panel concluded that the Population Health Program had made ‘remarkable achievements’ and ‘should be continued for a second five-year term.’40 The review panel went on to outline the program’s impact in various areas. In research, it believed that the program’s ‘remarkable set of data bases’ – the Manitoba–Statistics Canada record linkage project was the most impressive breakthrough in this area – ‘would never have been used and developed without this group of players.’ In the university sector, the work of Renaud and Contandriopoulos at the Université de Montréal had ‘built one of the strongest graduate programs which embraces the framework of the determinants of health.’ And in the area of public policy advocacy and development, the panel remarked that ‘it is hard to find or imagine a research program of this nature which has been so rapidly and so efficiently successful at bringing to light new perspectives on the public scene.’41

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Looking ahead, the review panel identified ‘elements of “fragility” which must be addressed.’ The first of these was the need to influence the development of a cadre of younger scholars to work in the various areas of population health. It also needed to review its administrative arrangements. Evans’s intellectual leadership had been very positively endorsed by all program members, but more administrative work was needed to maintain and enhance the unity of the group. Because the program had so many related but different responsibilities, the balance among research, the dissemination of knowledge, and involvement in policy formation needed regular attention and revision by the program’s leadership and members. And, as had been true in all the other institute programs, the relationship between the institute program and the host universities needed more definition and careful attention. Program members believed, and the review panel concurred, that university support for the Population Health Program varied from one host institution to another and that for most, the university support left much to be desired.42 Among a long list of recommendations, the panel urged more attention to both childhood development and aging and its coping skills, early completion and publication of the book, the development of new data links, regeneration of the program by integrating young faculty and postdoctoral students into its work, developing strong ties to emerging institute programs in economic growth and human development, and the addition of ‘carefully selected’ new fellows, scholars and associates in population health. Finally, all the present members of the program were evaluated and strongly recommended for reappointment.43 The report of the review panel was presented to the research council on 27 October 1992. A long discussion followed about both the program’s strengths and achievements and its ‘fragilities.’ Council members agreed that the institute needed to do more work to clarify and strengthen its partnership with the universities hosting its programs, that younger people needed to be integrated into the program, and that the administrative leadership of the program needed to be addressed. It also endorsed Mustard’s belief that the membership of the advisory committee needed to be reviewed, with some members to be replaced by new people who were better acquainted with the work that would be done in the second five-year cycle. With that, the council recommended that the Population Health Program be renewed for another five years.44

8 Superconductivity

In the 1970s, superconductivity was regarded as one of the best-understood phenomena in physics. It had been discovered in 1911 by a Dutch physicist, Heike Kamerlingh Onnes, after he used liquid helium to cool materials down to close to absolute zero at 4 degrees Kelvin. At that temperature, electrical resistance in mercury drops almost to zero, and a current can flow through the metal without dissipation into heat. Later, Walther Meissner discovered another property: a superconductor material at critical temperature is a diamagnet, meaning that when a bar magnet is brought to the surface of a superconductor, its mirror image is induced in the superconductor, the bar magnet and superconductor repel each other, and the bar magnet will float or ‘levitate.’ In 1957, three scientists, John Bardeen, Leon Cooper, and Robert Schrieffer, developed a theory which sought to explain the phenomenon. This led to the discovery of yet more properties of superconductors and the beginnings of their commercial applications. In the 1970s, supermagnets were being manufactured and used in magnetic resonance imagers in hospitals, levitated trains, particle accelerators, and other devices. Short electric transmission lines were being built and tested in anticipation that one day a superconductor material would be found that could be used to construct long-distance transmission lines with little or no resistance and heat loss. Still, the great barrier to extensive commercialization and to more extensive exploration of the physical properties of superconductors was cost. Using liquid helium to lower the temperature of these materials to critical temperatures near absolute zero was very expensive and very inefficient.1 In 1986, as Willard Boyle’s task force on materials science was working on a proposal for the research council, scientists at IBM Zurich, and later

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at the University of Tokyo, reported that they had found superconductivity in certain ceramic materials at significantly higher critical temperatures. What was especially significant was that the refrigerant was liquid nitrogen, which was vastly cheaper (‘cheaper than American beer’) than liquid helium. This opened the door to finding more new materials which would become superconductors at even higher – and more efficient – critical temperatures. That, in turn, might lead to potentially huge prospects for commercial utilization. The prospect triggered a worldwide renewal of interest and exploration in the phenomenon. The research council had followed up on Boyle’s task force report by establishing an advisory committee chaired by Robin Armstrong, then dean of arts and science at the University of Toronto, to oversee developing a program proposal in materials science. In September 1987, Armstrong reported that John Berlinsky and Jules Carbotte from McMaster, strongly supported by Arthur Bourns,2 had persuaded the committee that there was great potential for a strong research program in superconductivity. Most council members were keenly aware of the growing excitement about new prospects in superconductivity in both the scientific and the popular press. Enthusiasts were seized by a sense of urgency: a worldwide race was on to discover new commercially exploitable superconductors, and Canada had a significant number of widely recognized scientists in the field. They were scattered in university laboratories across the country. CIAR, using its unique capability of creating a national network of scientists in the field, had the opportunity to put Canadian superconductivity research on the map. Council responded and took the unusual step of authorizing a research program in superconductivity without a long period of program exploration and detailed planning. Carbotte, a leading theorist in the field, was named program director. He and Armstrong’s advisory committee gathered together an initial group of seven scientists for the start-up phase of the program. Jess Brewer from the University of British Columbia and the TRIUMF cyclotron facility in Vancouver and Walter Hardy of UBC were joined by John Greedan and Thomas Timusk, experimentalists at McMaster, AndréMarie Tremblay, a solid-state theoretician at the Université de Sherbrooke, Denis Jérome at the Université Paris-Sud in Orsay, France, and Robert Dynes from AT&T Bell Laboratories in New Jersey.3 All program members, because of CIAR’s cost restraints, were appointed as associates, and a slim budget was provided for interaction and network expenses only.

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The first meeting of scientific sessions for members and other scientists took place at McMaster on 30 January 1988. At the end of the day, the program members had an organizational meeting. They unanimously recommended that Ross McKinnon from the National Research Council at Ottawa be appointed an associate. He would add experience working with high-critical-temperature oxide materials. He had strong connections with researchers in the United States and would bring access to the extensive facilities of the NRC to the other program members. McKinnon’s appointment as an associate was approved by the advisory committee at an April 1988 meeting.4 Carbotte noted there that ‘the most important single idea’ to emerge from the organizational meeting was that the members would work as a single group. The laboratories of all the members, including the foreign associates in France and the United States, would be open to all other members, their postdoctoral fellows, and their students. As a result, the potential working group of the Superconductivity Program would be nearly fifty people. The members also decided to advertise for future students and postdoctoral fellows as a single group, emphasizing the availability of access to all the participating laboratories and members of the program. The program members themselves were already in collaborative projects with other scientists in Canada or abroad, and some were already working together on program projects when the committee met in April. With the support of CIAR, and the agreement on working as a single group, Carbotte looked forward to greatly enhancing the collaborative work in superconductivity in Canada. The program members also agreed that with the exception of Carbotte, who was appointed a CIAR fellow at the June 1988 research council meeting, all would remain associates. But they did want more support than the interaction funding normally provided to associates in other institute programs. They strongly urged that CIAR provide them with funding to purchase released time from teaching at their respective universities. Their recommendation was accepted at the June 1988 meeting of the research council.5 In many laboratories in Japan, the United States, and Europe, superconductivity research focused on trying to discover new materials with even higher critical temperatures by substituting one element for another in known ceramic superconductor compounds. The CIAR program chose a different approach. Instead of trying to find new compounds, it wanted to develop the capability to test and measure the properties of new compounds when they were announced by other lab-

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oratories. This was a more fundamental kind of work that would lead to understanding the microscopic structure of these new compounds and the mechanism which caused their superconductor properties. That, in turn, would provide important clues to where to look for yet other new materials with more desirable properties for commercial exploitation. The existing group of ceramic compounds was promising but, by their very nature, the compounds were inflexible and brittle, limiting their adaptation to commercial use. The key to doing the CIAR group’s work was the ability of the members to produce high-quality crystals of the new compounds that could then be distributed to the program laboratories for testing. The test results, it was hoped, would be the base for a theory of electron behaviour in the new compounds.6 In January 1989, Carbotte reported to the advisory committee that he was having only limited success promoting the movement of program members and the postdoctoral fellows and students they supported from one laboratory to another. It was a problem familiar to the institute. As in the early phase of work in other programs, many members were hesitant to commit themselves and their resources to a kind of interactivity to which they were not accustomed. Nor did the programwide advertisement for scholars – new postdoctoral fellows – work as well as Carbotte and his colleagues anticipated. There had been plenty of applications, thirty-two in all, and several of the foreign applicants were excellent. ‘But none of the seven Canadian applicants were appropriate.’ Carbotte was disappointed, but Mustard urged him and his colleagues to adopt a more flexible approach. Scholar positions, Mustard said, could be used to attract first-class non-Canadian applicants to Canada or to allow these applicants to take up such appointments in their native country. There was more encouraging news on another issue. Sajeev John, a talented young condensed-matter physicist at Princeton, was being recruited by the University of Toronto, and Carbotte and his colleagues recommended that he be given a three-year appointment as a program associate. Yet another apparently promising development at the beginning of 1989 was a proposal by Superconductivity Program members for a National Centre of Excellence. If it was funded by the federal government, the CIAR program members would have had greatly enhanced research support and would play leadership roles in the centre.7 Later that spring, the group had a successful program meeting in Vancouver at the TRIUMF lab. Mustard challenged them to ‘be at the top of the field three years from now’ and suggested that reaching that goal

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might require some new appointments. Several weeks later, in May, the advisory committee quickly approved the appointments of Ian Affleck at UBC and Toshimitsu Yamazaki at the University of Tokyo as program associates. Affleck was also a CIAR fellow in the Cosmology Program, but his expertise and his research concentration in condensed-matter physics made him an obvious choice to contribute to the Superconductivity Program. Yamazaki was already publishing with several members of the program and a frequent visitor to TRIUMF, the facility which Robin Armstrong described as ‘one of the quickest and definitive ways of finding if a compound is a superconductor.’8 At the University of Tokyo, he was the director of its Institute for Nuclear Study, and his influence in Japan, where much of the best superconductivity research was taking place, would be important to the CIAR program.9 In 1990, Armstrong reported that the program was going well. The search for new scholar appointees had yet to yield results, but collaboration among program members was increasing and interactivity was under way. At the annual meeting in Sherbrooke late in the year, Mustard noted that Carbotte and his colleagues were beginning to break down reluctance to participate among postdoctoral fellows and graduate students. The method was as simple as it would be rewarding to the young researchers. They were invited to Sherbrooke to give short talks, which were followed by ample time for discussion and interaction among themselves and with program members. It worked well. ‘The presentations were of high quality and the speakers were well prepared,’ Carbotte recorded. ‘I am confident,’ he added, ‘that a lot of important information was exchanged and that several of us went away with new ideas for future research.’10 As the year progressed, the early excitement about finding quick payoffs with new superconducting materials began to dissipate and the frantic pace of research slowed. ‘For two years developments were phenomenal,’ Armstrong told the research council in March 1991, ‘but since then things have slowed down to the normal pace at which science moves.’11 Mustard became concerned about the state of the field of high-critical-temperature research and the role of CIAR’s program. But Carbotte was reassuring. Although no new ‘dramatic applications’ for superconductors had been identified yet, a large consensus of ‘material scientists throughout the world’ remained confident that ‘important new applications will come in time as the properties of these materials improve.’12 Identifying the properties of superconductors that could be improved

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and developing an understanding of the fundamental mechanism responsible for superconductivity were the mandates of the CIAR program. The work of program members was being recognized. In 1990– 91, both Hardy at UBC and Timusk at McMaster had been awarded very large ‘strategic’ grants – $250,000 a year for four years – by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council to continue their work in superconductivity. ‘The CIAR group remains viable in size and internationally competitive. Its existence helps keep its members committed to this area of research and is a source of inspiration to push ahead,’ Carbotte told Mustard. ‘It provides the leadership, drive, and focus for a large community of first-rate scientists within this country.’13 One example was Hardy’s work. His group at UBC had developed a method of producing crystals of ceramic superconductors of exceptional quality and was sharing their use not just within the CIAR program but with other university scientists across Canada.14 In October 1991, Mustard reminded the research council that the Superconductivity Program was scheduled to have its five-year review in 1992. Because of its structure, with only one fellow and all other members associates, many of whom were on released-time arrangements funded by the institute, it was a low-cost program. But, unlike the other programs, it had yet to attract the support of a major private donor. Moreover, when it was launched, it had been anticipated that the program would achieve its goals within a five-year period and terminate. That had not happened, and the review panel would have to consider whether ‘a second term is justified.’ The evidence suggested that it was. The work being done was of high quality. And it was attracting attention from young scientists abroad. The program had been an important factor in Sajeev John’s recruitment at U of T, and another young scientist, Louis Taillefer, in Grenoble, France, was coming to McGill in January 1992 as an associate in the program.15 Taillefer arrived just in time to attend the 1992 members’ meeting at the TRIUMF lab. Two other new associates, Robert Kiefl, a young experimentalist and university research fellow at UBC, and Andrei Ruckenstein, a senior theorist at Rutgers University in New Jersey, also attended. The agenda was dominated by discussion of preparations for the forthcoming review. Mustard advised that the state of the program and its contribution to the field as well as where the field itself was going would be key points to be covered in the review. Another was what new appointments would be required if the program was continued. Equally important was documentation on interactions within the group and

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among group members and other Canadian scientists, as well as the interaction of UBC members with Yamazaki and of Sherbrooke members with Jérome in France.16 As Carbotte prepared his report that spring, he concentrated on the collaborative efforts initiated by the program, especially those between UBC and McMaster and between Sherbrooke and Jérome’s laboratory. He outlined the research funding attracted by program members and noted that Hardy’s and Timusk’s new strategic grants would supplement the individual members’ operating grants from NSERC. Altogether the group had adequate funding ‘well beyond the present five year mandate’ of the program. ‘On the whole, the financial support is good,’ he continued. ‘I do not think our achievements are presently limited in any serious fashion by lack of funds. We can proceed with confidence and the morale in the group is excellent.’17 Noting that the ‘problem’ of understanding the mechanisms of high-temperature superconductivity ‘is far from solved,’ Carbotte observed that ‘the Program remains as vigorous as ever and our enthusiasm is high. We see a renewed mandate from CIAR as critical if we are to keep the momentum built up over the past four years going and to assure a continued Canadian presence in this most exciting, promising and fundamental area of investigation.’18 The Superconductivity review panel was chaired by Kenneth Hare, the chancellor of Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. William Buyers of Atomic Energy of Canada at Chalk River, Ontario, Victor Emery of Brookhaven Laboratory in New York, Arthur MacDonald of the Physics Department at Queen’s University, Joseph Orenstein of the Physics Department at the University of California, Berkeley, and Maurice Rice, a distinguished physicist from Zurich, were the other members. They met with program members in September 1992 and quickly concluded that the program’s experimental work was ‘flourishing’ and there were already ‘impressive achievements on the theoretical side.’ Together ‘the work being undertaken is indeed competitive with the best work in other countries.’ The panel was also impressed with the program’s success in attracting to Canada talented young scientists like Taillefer and Thomas Mason, who was being recruited by U of T from AT&T Bell Laboratories as the review was taking place.19 The panel noted that the CIAR program had ‘contributed to the world-wide effort at a level that exceeds that of groups of far larger size’ and listed the program’s highlights. Foremost was the work of Hardy’s group in growing crystals ‘of the highest quality to date’ and the experiments that revealed the electromagnetic properties of high-temperature

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superconductors. The program had also developed a ‘crucial test for the proposal of an exotic superconducting state in the cuprate superconductors’ and determined the structure of high-temperature superconductors and ‘the consequences of elemental substitutions.’ It was also developing theories of impurity models, quantum magnets, and exchange mechanisms of superconductivity.20 The ‘greatest impact’ of the program, the panel reported, was to help ‘elucidate the electromagnetic properties of high temperature superconductors.’ Combining the resources of the TRIUMF facility – ‘the world’s best facility for condensed matter research using muon spin resonance’ – with Hardy’s microwave laboratory at UBC and Timusk’s optical laboratory at McMaster, the program had produced results which ‘appear to point towards an unconventional symmetry of the superconducting state.’ If this was confirmed, it ‘would truly revolutionize our understanding of high temperature superconductors.’21 The panel’s evaluation of the effectiveness of networking in the program noted remarkable success in collaboration by team members at UBC and McMaster and between UBC and TRIUMF. The collaboration between McMaster and the British Columbia units was good and improving, and between Sherbrooke and the Université Paris-Sud, it was ‘excellent.’ But between Sherbrooke and other Canadian universities, it was poor. So, too, was the ‘effectiveness’ of the foreign associates: ‘Little of their work is a result of stimulation by or collaboration with CIAR.’ The panel recommended that the link with foreign associates be reviewed; ‘they should not be selected for the purposes of window dressing the Program.’ Another network issue was the distribution of crystals from the UBC and McMaster facilities, which worked well with many other universities but was not working with Sherbrooke. The panel did not explain the nature of the problem other than to suggest that Hardy’s group was reluctant to share its resources with the Sherbrooke people because they did not have the same experimental goals as the other program members. But until the issue was resolved, it could ‘inhibit free research in Canada, a result at odds with CIAR’s goal of forming networks.’ Finally, as useful as the annual members’ meetings were to the program, they were ‘not sufficient for good exchange of information that will lead to working partnerships.’ Meetings of subgroups of the members at a particular site to work for a period of time on a particular topic would ‘add to real new collaboration and coauthorship of papers.’22 The panel ‘strongly’ recommended that the program be continued.

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Its crystal growing capacity at UBC and McMaster should continue to be emphasized, and distribution, especially to Sherbrooke, should be improved. Reviewing the relationship with foreign associates was important, and CIAR needed to find ways to bring them into ‘active partnerships’ with the Canadian members that would include having the foreign associates spend extended periods in Canada. The panel’s report concluded by noting that the program could be strengthened by new fellow and scholar appointments but recognized that ‘this could only be done if an adequate funding base could be met, and if this did not distort the existing strength of the program.’23 Robin Armstrong reported to the research council in late October 1992 on the panel’s general recommendation to continue the program. At the time, the panel’s detailed report had not been received by CIAR. Armstrong also informed the council that the materials science advisory committee, which had served both the Superconductivity Program and a potential program in soft surface interfaces, needed to be restructured, establishing separate advisory committees for each. He explained that the existing committee ‘has not been as helpful to the [superconductivity] program as it could have been, nor has it been able to actively move the program forward.’24 Mustard met with the program members at their January 1993 annual meeting to report on the positive review. Two months later, the research council gave general approval to continuation of the program and waited for more specific recommendations from the reformed advisory committee.25 The new advisory committee for the Superconductivity Program met on 27 August 1993. Armstrong continued as chair and Carbotte represented the program. Alain Caillé from the Physics Department at Sherbrooke and David Litster, vice-president and dean of research at MIT, stayed on from the former materials science committee. Victor Emery and Joseph Orenstein from the review panel were new members, as was Julian Cave of the materials technology branch of Hydro-Québec. Armstrong told the committee that there had been a substantial improvement in interaction since the review a year earlier. Carbotte reported that Hardy’s group had begun sending crystals to the Sherbrooke group, that it had increased its interaction with Jérome’s group in Orsay, and that it had started interaction with another group in Grenoble. In addition, Louis Taillefer at McGill was beginning to collaborate with the people at Sherbrooke and had established links with another group in Europe. Looking ahead, the committee recognized that the issue of released

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time was fundamental to the continuing success of the program, but without new resources it might be necessary to rearrange the allocation of released time among the program associates. Or the program might bring in new associates who did not work full-time on superconductivity research. These could participate in use of the interaction budget but would not have released-time funding. The advisory committee foresaw that program members would continue to concentrate largely on basic research. But members could also pursue exploration in applied areas of superconductivity and potential relationships with industrial concerns. Claude Bourbonnais of Sherbrooke, who was already collaborating with Jérome in France, and Douglas Bonn, who had been a postdoctoral fellow for Hardy at UBC, were approved for appointment as associates without released time until more funding became available. If more support was found, Bourbonnais might be given released-time funding, and Bonn would be recommended for appointment as the program’s first scholar.26

John Leyerle, dean of the School of Graduate Studies, University of Toronto, 1979–1984 (School of Graduate Studies, University of Toronto)

Fraser Mustard, first president of CIAR (CIAR)

James Ham, president of the University of Toronto, 1978–1983 (CIAR)

John Wilson, chairman of the Board of Directors, CIAR, 1981–1981 (CIAR)

Ian Hunter, McGill University, member of the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Program (CIAR)

Peter Allen, second chairman of the Board of Directors (standing left) accepting presentation from Bill Unruh, director of the Cosmology Program (standing right) (CIAR)

Hon. Harvie Andre, minister of Industry, Science and Technology (centre), signing an agreement to support PRECARN for five years, June 28 1989, with Gordon MacNabb, president of PRECARN (left), and Ron McCulloch, Spar Aerospace (right) (CIAR)

Bob Evans, University of British Columbia, director of the Population Health Program (CIAR)

Louis Taillefer, University of Sherbrook, member of the Superconductivity Program (CIAR)

Members of the Economic Growth and Policy Program visiting Masada, 3 November 1993, during a program meeting in Tel Aviv (Dorothy McKinnon)

Gerald Hatch, Board of Directors (left), with Jan Veizer, director of the Earth Systems Evolution Program (right) (CIAR)

Stefan Dupré, president of CIAR, 1996–1999 (CIAR)

Martin Moskovits, University of Toronto, director of the Nanoelectronics Program (CIAR)

Chaviva HoŠek, president of CIAR, accepting the Royal Bank award for Canadian Achievement, December 2000. The first time the award was given to an institution rather than an individual (CIAR)

‘Cache Creek Group.’ Members of the Earth Systems Evolution Program in British Columbia, June 2002 (CIAR)

Gerry Mitrovica, University of Toronto (left), speaking at a Young Scientists panel at the 20*20 Vision Congress, Victoria, British Columbia, June 2002 (CIAR)

Graduate students between program sessions at the 20*20 Congress (CIAR)

The three presidents, (l-r) Stephan Dupré, Chaviva Ho’ek, and Fraser Mustard, celebrating the 20th anniversary of CIAR at the 20*20 Congress (CIAR)

9 Years of Testing

CIAR had begun its second five-year cycle in the fall of 1987 facing major challenges. Five ambitious research programs were under way. The initial program, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, was preparing for its first review in 1988. Cosmology had had its first program meeting and had persuaded the institute to create the scholar category of membership for bright young scientists. Evolutionary Biology also held its first program meeting in Halifax early in the fall of 1987. Bob Evans, Greg Stoddart, and Ted Marmor held the first meeting of the Population Health program and planned a rapid expansion that would add twelve new members by the end of its first year of operation. And Superconductivity was just being approved and getting launched as the cycle began. There was a common feature to all CIAR’s early programs: they depended on new computer technologies to address research issues and challenges. There were differences, too. Three of the programs assembled talented scientists who shared common disciplinary experiences: that was true of the theoreticians in Cosmology and Evolutionary Biology and the physicists in Superconductivity. By contrast, the members of the Population Health Program brought vastly different perspectives from the social and life sciences to their work, and the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics members – computer scientists, engineers, and mathematicians – were trying to address issues in pure and applied science that might eventually coalesce into a new, distinct discipline of its own. The institute had had to adapt and modify some of its plans and approaches as it guided the development of the five programs. An example was the way in which the various programs used the associate category

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of membership. The original idea had been to use it for program members who were equal in stature and accomplishment to program fellows but who could not make the full commitment to the program expected of fellows. Their support from the institute would cover meeting and travel costs and some other items, but associates would not have funding to release them from their teaching and administrative responsibilities at their universities. That was generally the pattern followed in the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Program, which had eighteen associates, thirteen in Canada and five in the United States, as it prepared for its first review. But AIR program members fretted over the utility of the category and struggled to find ways to successfully engage the program associates in the work of the program. Bill Unruh, director of the Cosmology Program, used the category differently. He reserved associate membership for program participants in foreign countries who were expected to participate in the program’s activities alongside the Canadian fellows and scholars. In Evolutionary Biology, Ford Doolittle adopted yet another approach, using associate status for both Canadian and foreign members, frequently as a stepping stone to fellowship status. In the Population Health Program, under Bob Evans’s direction, several Canadian members, such as Patricia Baird and Noralou and Leslie Roos, were major contributors but never became fellows. But, unlike other programs in the initial cycle, Population Health also had a foreign fellow, Ted Marmor at Yale. Finally, when Superconductivity was launched, all its members, for fiscal reasons, were associates. Its director, Jules Carbotte, soon became a fellow, but all others remained associates. These, again, were associates with a difference. The associate members in Superconductivity, unlike others, were partially funded to purchase released time from some teaching responsibilities in their universities. As the programs had developed and grown in the second cycle, the associate category became a growing concern. Some associates saw themselves as second-class citizens within their programs. Some fellows found it difficult to integrate the associates into the work of their programs. Some associates were receiving infrastructure support and nothing more, while others also had released-time funding. Should the growing variety of practices regarding associates continue to evolve? Or should they all be expected to have a common set of qualifications and responsibilities with a common support system? The issue would have to be addressed. A more important issue was funding. CIAR had finished its first cycle with a small surplus. But it was projecting a major shortfall for fiscal

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1987–88 and a much larger one in 1988–89. Looking back in 1992, as the second cycle closed, Fraser Mustard noted that these had been difficult years. The institute was committed to building its programs and establishing others. But all of that cost money, more than the institute could see forthcoming in the fall and winter of 1987–88. It was necessary, Mustard wrote, ‘to evolve a new strategy for building support from the private sector and governments.’ And there had been still more on the institute’s agenda in its second cycle. It had to develop ‘a Board [of Directors] and infrastructure suitable for the kind of Institute that was becoming established.’1




The first step in meeting the challenges of the second cycle was to secure Fraser Mustard’s continued service as president. His initial appointment came to an end in the fall of 1987, and the board of directors immediately renewed his appointment for another five years.2 In the months that followed, Mustard began a reorganization of the administration of the institute. Recognizing the gravity of the funding issue, and that the institute’s only super-salesman was its president, the board asked Mustard to take the chair of the board’s fundraising committee, and he agreed. Joan Rogers was brought in to assist him in this aspect of his work. Jim Ham, who had been so helpful to Mustard in a variety of tasks after his retirement from the presidency of the University of Toronto, took on a new formal position as adviser to the president in the early spring of 1988. Another new appointee was Stuart Taylor, who became director of program coordination. Kathryn Hough became office manager of the institute, and Dorothy McKinnon, as Mustard’s executive assistant, had the daunting task of coordinating all of his work in program development, fundraising, and a host of other responsibilities. All of this was necessary, and in some ways just a start at reorganization, to take control of the increasing work the institute was assuming. It also reflected a major change. Peter Munsche, who had been with Mustard as his executive director since the earliest days and who had assisted Mustard time and again through one difficult issue after another, was leaving CIAR at the end of June 1988 to work in research administration at the University of Toronto.3 In June 1989, after four years of service, Peter Allen stepped down as chair of the board of directors. John Aird, former lieutenant-governor of Ontario, was his successor, and he and Mustard oversaw a major reor-

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ganization of the board. Seven long-time members retired. John Wilson, John Leyerle, and St. Clair Balfour, who were founding members, became ‘founding directors’ of the institute. The other four, Joseph Peller, Allan Crawford, Larry Clarke, and Gerald Hobbs, were designated ‘directors emeritus.’ That left a board of directors with thirteen members: Aird and Mustard, Peter Allen, Ralph Barford, Brian Flemming, Gerald Heffernan, William McLean, Philippe Casgrain, Fraser Fell, Hugh Hallward, Pierre Lortie, Alastair Ross, and Charles Williams. Together they agreed to a membership rotation system similar to the one Craig Brown had introduced for the research council in 1985. Beginning in 1990, four members would retire, three in 1991, and four in 1992, although all would be eligible for one renewed term of three years of service.4 In 1990, Reva Gerstein, a member of the advisory committee for the Population Health Program and accomplished fundraiser, Bette Stephenson, former Ontario cabinet minister, and Peter Farwell of Ernst & Young joined the board. Fred Pomeroy, executive vice-president of the Communications and Electrical Workers of Canada, William Blundell, former CEO of General Electric Canada, and Claude Forget of Ganesh Corporation (later with Laurentian Group) became board members in 1991.5 By 1989, both Barbara Track and Stuart Taylor had left the institute, and Kathryn Hough had taken Taylor’s responsibilities as director of program coordination, a post she held with flair and distinction until 2002. Christopher Paterson joined the institute to manage the accounts, and Anna Prodanou joined in 1990 to look after publications. As 1990 drew to a close, Aird had to give up his post as chair because of his health. He was succeeded by Gerstein as chair and Gerald Heffernan as vice-chair. Mustard also persuaded Patricia Baird in Vancouver and Marc Renaud in Montreal, both members of the Population Health Program, and Leonard Bolger in Calgary, former senior executive of Shell Canada, to become regional vice-presidents of CIAR to assist him in fundraising in their respective areas.6 As the second cycle was coming to a close, in the spring of 1992, John Godfrey, former editor of the Financial Post and a strong advocate for CIAR, became the fourth institute vice-president.7




A major responsibility of the regional vice-presidents and Godfrey was to assist Mustard with fundraising. They and several members of the board

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of directors took active roles in the second cycle in keeping the institute’s financial head above water. It was a huge task. The institute was spending over $400,000 a month in 1988–89. That rose to $550,000 at the end of the cycle in 1991–92. Between 77 and 78 per cent of the expenditure was on programs in each year of the cycle. The most expensive program was AIR, at $1.8 million in 1991–92. Evolutionary Biology grew fastest and was the second most costly program in the second cycle, growing from $757,000 in 1988–89 to $1.13 million in 1991–92. Program development and evaluation, the heart of the institute’s functions, took up 10.6 per cent of its revenues in 1988–89 but, because of the increasingly dismal financial prospects as the cycle continued, declined to just 6 per cent in 1991–92. As in the first cycle, administrative costs remained a small fraction of the cost of running CIAR: 4.8 per cent early in the cycle and 5.6 per cent at its end.8 Finding private-sector support for the institute was a constant struggle, but there were some outstanding accomplishments. By the end of the second cycle, ten corporations were committed to giving $100,000 a year to support the AIR and Population Health programs and a new program under development in economic growth and policy.9 And another twenty-four private businesses gave the institute lesser support for programs. Some targeted their donations to specific programs: Hydro-Québec, Ontario Hydro, Valleydene, and CAE to AIR, and CIBC to Population Health. Mustard and his colleagues also, after several years of effort, broke through the resistance of Canadian foundations to supporting the institute. By 1992, six had committed funds to CIAR, led by the CRB Foundation, which had given $300,000 to support the appointment of scholars. From its earliest days, the government of Ontario had been a generous supporter of the institute, and that continued in the second cycle with annual commitments of $1.25 million. The governments of Alberta and British Columbia each agreed to fund a fellow for five years at $100,000 a year. And in April 1987, the government of Canada, through the Ministry of State for Science and Technology, began a matching grants program that contributed more than $5.5 million to the institute during the second cycle.10 One funding initiative was led by Charles Williams. Widely respected in the business community, he started the CIAR Club of 200, designed to gain support from small and medium-size businesses with annual revenues from $20 million to $200 million. He hoped to raise $1 million in contributions of $5,000 per annum for five years from these businesses. By the end of the cycle, there were twenty-five members and four associ-

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ate members of the club. In June 1990, Gerstein assumed leadership of another campaign for ‘members of the institute’ which, she hoped, would attract one thousand members giving $1,000 a year for five years. To attract membership, the institute launched several ‘open house’ meetings each year at program sites. People were invited to a luncheon or evening meeting to listen to a talk on one of the institute’s programs and mingle with board or research council members who would seek their support for the institute. Gerstein recognized that success in the campaign would take time and established an initial target of twenty to twenty-five members. When the cycle closed two years later, thirty-two people had become members of the institute.11 The most disappointing initiative occurred during John Aird’s brief chairship of the board of directors. Aird had access to political circles that had not been open to Mustard and his colleagues since the death of Ruth Macdonald. In 1989, Aird and Mustard asked Prime Minister Brian Mulroney to join Aird in heading a major capital endowment campaign for CIAR. The goal of the campaign was to raise $100 million, with half coming from Canadian industry and half from the federal government. Aird’s principal task was to direct the industry campaign. After two meetings with Aird and Mustard in May 1989, Mulroney agreed to lend his support to Aird’s task by telephoning several key industrial leaders. David Crane, business editor of the Toronto Star and a strong advocate of the institute, broke the story in an October 1989 column headed ‘Here come the R & D crusaders.’12 But in mid-May 1990, Crane filed another story: ‘Mulroney fails to keep promise to help with R & D fund-raising.’ According to Crane, Mulroney had promised Aird that he would make ‘personal phone calls to the country’s richest pools of capital,’ but the prime minister, a year later, ‘has still to make a phone call.’13 A few days later, Aird told the Board that he had been asked to disavow Crane’s article and refused. And while Aird and Mustard did send a letter to the prime minister assuring him of their support in his effort to keep Canada united, despite months more of meetings and negotiations with federal government officials, the capital campaign had achieved no success by the time the institute’s second cycle came to a close. From 1987 to 1992, there were several alarms that caused Mustard and his colleagues to consider closing CIAR. In December 1988, halfway through the first budget year of the cycle, Peter Allen, chair of the board, reported that CIAR had had to curtail development of new programs and was discussing reductions or farming out of existing programs. There was the possibility that CIAR would have to close as early

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as the end of February 1989. The problem had been brought on by failure to secure $2 million in funds from the private sector. But Jerry Hobbs and Allan Crawford were adamantly opposed to closing or even to a reduction in programs. They argued that ‘if there was now a reduction in programs, we would never be able to rebuild an institute of the same diversity and calibre as the current one.’ Hobbs added that CIAR had always been ‘a financial gamble (“a floating crap game”),’ and CIAR had to carry on with its commitments. If it did not, both Hobbs and Crawford threatened to withdraw their personal support for the institute. They were supported by Gerald Heffernan. With a restructured budget for the remainder of the fiscal year, the institute soldiered on. In February 1989, the crisis was resolved when Mustard persuaded the Ontario government to convert its annual contribution to a capital fund for CIAR into a grant to sustain operations.14 This infusion of money allowed the institute to begin the 1989–90 fiscal year with $1 million in available funds and a $700,000 target for donations from the private sector to complete the year with a balanced budget. In February 1990, Chris Paterson warned that CIAR still needed $500,000 from the private sector plus matching funds from the federal government to meet the year’s fiscal obligations. A month later, Mustard told an official in the Prime Minister’s Office that if the prime minister did not make his promised telephone calls so that CIAR could raise the half-million, ‘we would in all likelihood have to close the Institute on April 3rd.’15 This time, the problem was resolved when Science Minister William Winegard arranged for nearly $700,000 in federal funds that had been allocated to match private donations to be released immediately to the institute.16 The federal government’s matching funds grant was scheduled to end in the spring of 1991; amid frantic negotiations about renewal, the fiscal year ended with a deficit of $318,000.17 In September, Stephenson, who had been working with the federal officials and Minister Winegard’s office, reported that Winegard’s department had made a verbal commitment of $2.25 million in matching funds and an additional $1.5 million for one year, but the agreement had not been completed.18 In October, Mustard told the research council that the federal government had renewed its matching funds agreement at $2 million a year for five years and had contributed an additional $1.5 million for 1991–92. This, Mustard said, ‘will allow the Institute to administer all its current programs and to continue to build new support.’ In fact, the institute ended its second cycle with a surplus of $539,000.19

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In April 1990, Mustard told the president of the University of Toronto, Rob Prichard, that he was ‘deeply concerned about the Institute becoming a ward of government.’20 CIAR had received more than $4 million from the Ontario and federal governments in its first cycle. In the second, the support of the private sector had broadened and deepened. Businesses, foundations, and individuals had contributed more than $5 million to the institute from 1987 to 1992, including more than $2.5 million for the support of institute fellows. But more than twice as much, just under $11.5 million, had come from the federal, Ontario, Alberta, and British Columbia governments. And it was the Ontario government and then the federal government (despite the disappointment of the Aird-Mulroney capital fund effort) that had loosened the terms of reference in 1989–90 and 1990–91 to keep the institute in business. CIAR had not become a ‘ward of government’; it retained its independence and ability to choose what it would and would not do. But the hard fact was that the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research was dependent upon Canada’s governments for more than two-thirds of its support.




In 1987, at the beginning of the second cycle, the first item on the research council’s agenda was responding to the report of the AIR review panel. The panel had high praise for the program but had also made a number of recommendations for change. These included revising the composition of its advisory committee, establishing a ‘development committee’ within the program, addressing the issue of associates in the program, and having the institute determine which program members’ appointments would be renewed and which might be terminated. All of these items were familiar to the academic members on the research council and to several other members of the council and the board of directors. But this was a new experience for the institute itself: AIR was its first program, and the review report embodied its first external peer-review recommendations for change. The research council addressed the report and its recommendations at its meeting on 17 June 1988. John Madden, the member who had chaired the review, gave a summary of the report. Some members expressed concern about the slow progress in developing networking among the program members and argued that ‘a form of entrepreneurial leadership was needed if the Programme was to function as a cohe-

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sive entity.’21 The council decided that its executive committee and the president should deal with all the recommendations of the review panel regarding changes in the program and then passed a resolution that the program be continued for five more years. That done, Barrie Frost, chair of the advisory committee, recommended that John Hollerbach, a leading robotics researcher at MIT, be appointed a program fellow and Demetri Terzopoulos, a young researcher associated with the Schlumberger research centre in Palo Alto, California, who was moving to the University of Toronto, be appointed a scholar. Both recommendations were accepted by the council.22 At the end of August, Mustard told all the program members that Frost would remain as chair of the advisory committee, that only the program director would continue on the committee and, following a model for advisory committees that had evolved since AIR had begun, the remaining members would be distinguished foreign experts. The program was charged with developing an effective mechanism to enhance its cohesion and intellectual leadership. The new advisory committee would be responsible for advising the institute on the reappointment of program members, taking into account the views of the review panel. And the associate category of membership would conform to the criteria for appointment and participation that had evolved in the creation of the other institute programs.23 In January 1989, Frost reported to the research council that Whitman Richards from MIT, John Holland from the University of Michigan, and Ray Perrault, a leading researcher at SRI International in California and former program associate, had agreed to join the advisory committee. Zenon Pylyshyn, the program’s director, had established a development committee with representatives from each of the three program nodes to assist him in developing better networking, program cohesiveness, and intellectual leadership. The new advisory committee met twice to review all of the program fellows’ and scholars’ achievements; it recommended that two fellows not be reappointed and that two of the younger fellows be renewed for three years. All the other members would be renewed for five years, but three of them, whose work was less directly involved with the program, would be reduced to partial rather than full funding. The advisory committee did not review the nature of the associate category, because it was an issue that related to all the institute’s programs. Frost’s report was approved and council then appointed a committee, chaired by Jim Ham, to review the associate category of membership.24

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In January 1990, the Financial Post announced that General Motors of Canada had given the institute $500,000 over five years to support the work of Ian Hunter, a program member and gifted scientist in biomedical engineering at McGill. Then, in March, Shell Canada gave a similar amount to CIAR to support Alan Mackworth’s fellowship at UBC for five years.25




Jim Ham acted quickly on the study of the associate category in the institute. A letter to program directors in February brought responses from Ford Doolittle in Evolutionary Biology, Bill Unruh in Cosmology, Jules Carbotte in Superconductivity, and Zenon Pylyshyn in the AIR program. Together they illustrated the various ways the category was being used in different programs and, with the exception of the AIR program where some members wanted the category eliminated altogether, the general satisfaction each program director had with his use of the category.26 The committee had its first teleconference on 10 March 1989. A proposal to eliminate the associate category and appoint only fellows, at differing levels of support, and scholars was quickly rejected. Similarly, using the associate category as a slot for persons whose fellowships were not renewed after a five-year review was dismissed. They did decide that current associates in all programs who were not interacting with other program members should have their appointments terminated. John Madden then sketched the several ways associates were being used and suggested that in some cases, released time from teaching duties would enhance the contributions of associates to a program.27 After a second teleconference call on 3 April, Ham drafted a set of ‘policy guidelines for appointment and assessment’ of all three categories of institute appointments. This document led to Ham’s report on the associate category for the research council. He began by underlining the committee’s strong agreement that CIAR should retain its customary three categories of appointments – fellow, associate, and scholar – and add no others. The committee also recommended that in future, all associate appointments be made by the institute and not by programs. Recommendations would be made by program directors, accepted by the program advisory committees, and confirmed by the research council. Regarding the stature of potential associate appointees, the committee said it would be ‘desirable’ to have them of the same stature as fellows, but ‘recognizing the diversity of initial practice,

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not necessarily in all circumstances.’ The committee then identified six potential types of associate member: 1 Persons of Fellow calibre in a discipline core to the program who wish to devote significant but definitely limited time to a particular aspect of the core research program. 2 Persons of Fellow calibre in cognate disciplines whose association with the core program on a time-to-time and topic basis would be mutually interesting and helpful. 3 Persons of potential Fellow calibre who are more mature than Scholars and for whom appointment as an Associate would typically (but not necessarily) be preparatory to a subsequent appointment as a Fellow. 4 Persons of potential Fellow calibre whose current administrative duties preclude full concentration on research. 5 Persons who would provide effective and fruitful links with foreign institutions, the calibre of research in such institutions in the core program being such as to meet the Institute’s standards. 6 Persons whose work does not meet the full criteria of excellence and relevance for an appointment as Fellow, but is judged to be of significant importance to the development of a particular aspect of the core program. The dominating considerations here may be good quality and essential relevance. Released-time support, ‘if required and judged to be fruitful,’ the committee observed, would be relevant for categories 1, 3, and 6.28 The council’s executive committee reviewed Ham’s report on 30 June 1989. It added one more potential type of appointment, a ‘joint appointment,’ for a person with other affiliations, such as a Precarn/ CIAR associate appointment, to recognize individuals whose contributions would be ‘more strategic and applied.’29 On 20 July, the research council approved the Ham committee recommendations, with two changes, after ‘considerable debate.’ First, it insisted that the committee’s recommendations be treated as ‘guidelines’ for appointment of associates, not as formal policy requirements. Second, it rejected the idea that Council had to confirm all associate appointments. Instead, the process that had evolved – of the advisory committee receiving and screening recommendations from the program director, followed by appointment by the president – would continue.30 The Ham report was a useful articulation of the types of associate appointment possible in

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the institute, and some formal recognition was given to having some associates receive released-time support within the limits of a program’s budget. But Ham’s committee and the research council ended up ratifying the status quo.




In the fall of 1987, the institute had had three program proposals under consideration. Earlier in the year, the research council had received a revised proposal for a program in semiotics and asked that it be sent out for external evaluation. The executive committee took up the matter again in November. As in Council itself, there was no consensus in favour of going ahead, and in February 1988, Mustard reported that the committee had decided not to recommend establishing a semiotics program.31 A second proposal that had received much attention in the first cycle was for a program in technology, change, and society. The problem had always been to find a focus for such a broadly conceived program. Richard Lipsey, an economist and council member, told Council in February 1988 that he thought the proposal offered a ‘real opportunity to add to knowledge about how the world works,’ but it had to define a research program. Lipsey agreed to lead a working group on program definition and development.32 In June 1988, Lipsey’s group reported to Council that contemporary economics did not understand the relationship between scientific and technological innovation and economic growth. Neoclassical economic theory had difficulty dealing with the issue. Lipsey’s group proposed to do research to develop a theory that would address the relationship. ‘The basic premise,’ the group said, ‘is that existing theoretical and empirical analysis of these issues within the traditional paradigms of modern neoclassical economics are inadequate; and that a fresh look at these issues is needed using new theoretical insights.’33 Council members, while intrigued, were concerned that the social aspects of the impact of science and technology on society were being excluded in favour of an economics-focused proposal. Members noted that the same problem had initially been identified in the Population Health proposal. And taking that cue, Mustard suggested that an advisory committee be appointed to assist Lipsey’s group in developing a program proposal.34 In the following months, Lipsey’s interest in the relationship between science and technology and economic growth

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sharpened. He was deeply engaged in work on the Canada–U.S. Free Trade Agreement for the C.D. Howe Institute but indicated that he could turn his full attention to a program proposal in February 1989. In January, Mustard reported to Council that the executive committee had determined that the proposal should be changed from a focus on technology, change, and society to a program on economic growth and policy. Alcan had come forward with a grant of $100,000 a year for five years to support Lipsey’s work, and Mustard recommended that Lipsey be appointed a fellow of the institute and director of the Economic Growth and Policy Program.35 ‘Fraser Mustard and I never agreed on who seduced who but we were both willing partners in my becoming leader of the project,’ Lipsey wrote years later. At the time, he did not have a university base, but Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, British Columbia, opened a senior appointment with administrative support for him. Lipsey and his wife moved to British Columbia in the summer of 1989.36 In 1988, the research council also gave brief consideration to a proposal that CIAR join forces with a group planning to establish an institute of mathematics in southern Ontario to support a research program in applied mathematics. A task force to develop a proposal was recommended but never appointed. The following year, two other proposals, one on research in biosphere systems and the other on the quark structure of matter, were introduced, but again no follow-up action was taken. Another proposal, for a program on ethics and research, also had a formal hearing but was rejected by Council in July 1989.37 The third proposal carried forward from the first cycle was for a materials science program on the science of soft surfaces and interfaces.38 Myer Bloom and Evan Evans of the Physics Department at UBC presented their proposal to Council in July 1989. It was a chemistry and physics project in fundamental physical sciences to learn how nature produces materials. Scientists in France and Germany were working in the area; Bloom reported that Canada could assemble the talent to compete ‘effectively at the international level’ in the field. Bloom said that if the program was approved, it would last only ten years: one year for start-up, two years for development, and seven years of full program implementation. After suggesting that the program could link effectively with biological scientists to study the physical properties of biological membranes, Council members unanimously approved providing start-up funds for one year. The proposal would then be reviewed to determine whether to give it full program status.39

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A year later, in September 1990, the advisory committee reported that Bloom was making good progress, that the committee would like to have Council’s endorsement of full program status, and that Bloom should be appointed a fellow of the institute. Although Mustard reminded Council that no new appointments could be made until a program funding base was secured, it accepted the committee’s recommendations that Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces have full program status and that Bloom be appointed a fellow.40 Bloom continued work on program development, but two years later, at the tenth-anniversary meeting of the research council in October 1992, Mustard reported that there was still no funding for the program.41 Lack of funds also hindered the progress of two other proposals. A research program in earth systems, which would study and develop a quantitative theory of how the earth and life on earth evolved and the impact of one on the other, had been championed by Digby McLaren, a council member who was a prominent geologist and president of the Royal Society of Canada. In early 1988, McLaren organized a symposium on the subject.42 In due course a task force was set up, and Jan Veizer of the University of Ottawa and Ruhr-Universität in West Germany led the development of a program proposal.43 In December 1989, after presentations by Veizer and colleagues from Canada, the United States, and Germany, Council gave provisional approval to the program, subject to the availability of funding.44 In December 1990, Veizer met with Mustard in Ottawa and was given a green light to organize two institute-funded meetings of ‘potential players’ in 1991, one in Ottawa and one on the West Coast.45 In March 1992, Mustard recommended to Council that it recognize the work Veizer continued to do on the program by making him an unfunded fellow of the institute. Council and the board of directors quickly agreed but, as the institute’s second cycle closed in the fall of that year, funding for the Earth System Evolution Program was still missing.46 Similarly, a research program in human development waited for funding. The idea for the program evolved out of the work of Clyde Hertzman and John Frank of the Population Health Program. Their work in epidemiology led them to believe that the early development of children had a profound influence on disease patterns in adult life. In 1990, Hertzman prepared a working paper for the Population Health Program on the subject. Mustard, in his twin roles as chair of the Population Health advisory committee and president of the institute, was deeply interested in the subject as a potential research program. It was

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clear that, apart from an American study which showed that enhancement of early childhood development greatly improved the child’s chances of success in school and later in adult life, almost no work had been done on the subject. But it was not obvious that the institute could get funding for such a project or who might lead development of a research program. Bernard Shapiro, deputy minister of education in Ontario, recommended that Mustard contact Dan Keating at the Ontario Institute of Studies in Education in Toronto and Robbie Case at Stanford University.47 Mustard met with Keating, who had worked on child development at the Institute of Childhood Development at the University of Minnesota and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. Keating told him there were ‘no programs in place that were committed to integrating the different disciplines and time periods involved in human development.’48 A number of good people were interested, he added, but because they were at separate institutions, it was difficult to bring them together in a broad-based research program. In August, Mustard met Case in Toronto and found that he was also keen about such a multidisciplinary project.49 In March 1992, Keating and Case, together with Thomas Rohlen from Stanford, Dan Offord from McMaster, Max Cynader of the AIR program at UBC, and Fergus Craik from the University of Toronto, presented a proposal to the research council. Council members were impressed by the ambitious and innovative nature of the proposal and the challenge it presented of mounting another truly interdisciplinary institute program. It approved ‘in principle’ a program in human development, provided that it designed a coherent framework for research and that a strong advisory committee was appointed to oversee its development.50 The president of the Royal Bank and other senior officers were intrigued. The bank donated $50,000 in seed money to fund program development.51 In July 1992, the research council approved Keating’s appointment as a fellow to lead program development, and in October it approved the appointments of Case, Rohlen, Clyde Hertzman from Population Health, and Cynader from the AIR program as fellows.52 These five and other potential colleagues met in Toronto in January and in California in April 1993. But, as with the Earth Systems Evolution and Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces programs, the funding for the Human Development Program still had to be found. That was not a problem for the emerging program in economic growth and policy. The director, Richard Lipsey, was being supported by

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a grant from Alcan. In January 1990, Lipsey organized a major conference called ‘Economic Growth and Policy’ at Simon Fraser’s downtown campus in Vancouver. Economists from Canada, the United States, and Europe spent two days in workshops discussing various aspects of the topic.53 In September, Mustard told the council that he had been working with Lipsey, Brian Arthur of Stanford, the chair of the advisory committee, and Paul Romer, a talented economist at the University of California, Berkeley, to develop a framework for research.54 Council approved the appointment of Romer as a fellow in March 1991, with financial support from the Royal Bank. The Economic Growth and Policy Program was officially launched at the beginning of July 1991, and a group meeting was held in Vancouver that November.55 That fall, the economists Ed Safarian at the University of Toronto and Andrei Shleifer at the University of Chicago, the economic historian Nathan Rosenberg at Stanford, and the statistician Michael Wolfson at Statistics Canada joined the program as associates. The economists George Akerlof at the University of California, Berkeley, and Curtis Eaton at Simon Fraser University were added as associates in January 1992. The core group of program members was rounded out in March 1992, with the appointment of Elhanan Helpman of Tel Aviv University as a program fellow.56




The CIAR’s second cycle, from 1987 to 1992, had been as marked as its first with dreams realized and hopes dashed. A ten-year plan that projected ten full programs running in 1992 with some sixty fellows and dozens of scholars and associates had not been realized. And three potentially significant programs awaited funding. But there were five well-developed programs making major contributions to scientific innovation in Canada. Another, Law in Society (formerly Law and Society), had already published important work on sanctions and rewards and was ready to achieve full program status. The Economic Growth and Policy Program was well advanced in defining its research agenda. Through the five years, as before, the staff of the institute remained small – tiny, really, compared with its responsibilities. It cost a trifling 5 to 6 per cent of the institute’s annual expenditure while providing overall guidance and support to scientists and scholars in networks across Canada with links in the United States and several other countries. But even after ten years, even after remarkable internationally recognized

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peer reviews of its successful programs, even after providing the initiative for the first Canadian consortium of companies doing pre-competitive applied research, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research lived from month to month, constantly searching for ever-elusive financial stability. Mustard, his research council and board of directors, and his staff could be, and indeed were, proud of their accomplishments. But all of them lived and worked on the edge of failure.

10 Origins II

At the beginning of the 1990s, the institute’s Cosmology and Evolutionary Biology research programs had passed their first peer reviews with high praise and strong recommendations to continue. The two programs had a common theme, evolution. In 1988, several members of the research council, led by Digby McLaren, had begun exploring the potential for a third program with an evolution focus, Earth System Evolution. In January 1992, Jan Veizer, the geologist who had been working to develop the program, was awarded the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize, the top prize of the German Research Foundation. Veizer, the foundation’s judges said, ‘has in front of his eyes the overall picture of the Earth during its entire 4.5 billion years of evolution. He’s one of the most creative ... geologists of his time.’1 In July, Veizer began his appointment as fellow and director of the Earth System Evolution Program. Unlike fellows in the other institute programs, Veizer was not funded. CIAR’s slim treasury could support only the interaction costs for Veizer and the small group of skilled scientists in Canada and abroad who were working in the ESE program. That did not impede progress on developing and implementing an ambitious research program. The goal had been outlined in the 1991 planning meetings. It was ‘to develop a theory of organization which could serve as a unifying concept for understanding the dynamics of the geosphere and biosphere.’ Apart from the CIAR group, extensive research on global change was going on in Canada and abroad. An early ESE document explained that this research ‘gives us only a snapshot of the outermost skin [of the earth] in this instant of the evolution of the Earth System.’ What the institute’s group ‘would like to know is its state

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not only “as is”, but also how it got here, that is how the entire Earth System evolved over some 4.5 billion years.’2 The research program was divided into three areas of work. An examination of the geodynamics of the earth’s surface, attempting to understand the interactions between the earth’s lithosphere (the earth’s crust), its hydrosphere (water surfaces), and its atmosphere, was tackled by a team led by an associate, Christopher Beaumont of the Oceanography Department at Dalhousie.3 Another team, led by Veizer, explored the isotopic record of past seawater. And a smaller, third group worked on developing modelling techniques that would enable scientists to understand the evolution of the earth and its biosphere on geological time scales. After the program’s first meeting nine associates were added: Sergio Albeverio, a mathematician and statistician at RuhrUniversität, Christopher Barnes, a paleontologist and geologist at the School of Earth and Ocean Sciences at University of Victoria, John Hayes, an organic and isotope chemist at Indiana University, Paul Hoffman, a geologist and geodynamicist at the Geological Survey of Canada, Stein Jacobsen, a geologist and modeller at Harvard, Anthony Lasaga, a mathematical chemist and modeller at Yale, Brunello Tirozzi, a mathematician at the Università di Roma La Sapienza, James Walker, an atmospheric physicist at the University of Michigan, and Michael Whiticar, a biogeochemist at the University of Victoria.4 Once under way, the program held two meetings for members and guests each year. Ottawa and Cambridge were the sites in 1993; in 1994, the locations were Bochum, Germany, and Ottawa. In 1995, the members met in Victoria with the Geological Society of Canada and the Mining Association of Canada and later in Halifax; in 1996, they returned to Bochum and held the second meeting of the year in Toronto. In 1997, the members travelled to Canberra, Australia, for a meeting supported by the Australian Department of Industry, Science and Tourism, and to Ottawa, where planning for the first program review was on the agenda. Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows being supervised by the program members attended and participated in all of these two- or three-day meetings. During the first five years of the program, over fifty postdoctoral fellows and more than a hundred graduate students took part in the meetings at one time or another.5 For CIAR, the broad participation of scientists, postdoctoral fellows, and graduate students was a bargain. The nine meetings in Canada, the United States, and Germany over five years cost less than $300,000.6 Late in the spring of 1995, William Fyfe, a member of the advisory

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committee and president of the Union of Geological Sciences, met with representatives of UNESCO and the Royal Society (England) to discuss holding an international symposium in Canada in 1996 based on the work of the program. By early fall, an organizing committee and a program planning committee were working on the symposium. Veizer estimated the symposium would cost $150,000; he had commitments from UNESCO and the Royal Society in London to assist with expenses.7 On Thursday, 5 December 1995, scientists from around the world joined the program members and a large contingent of high school students and teachers at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto for the three-day symposium. Members of the media, including the Discovery Channel, gave the symposium extensive coverage. The leading German geological society, among others, was deeply impressed and was soon preparing a follow-up symposium for Bonn in 1999 or 2000. Papers from the meeting were gathered and prepared for publication as a book to appear in 1999.8 During the first five years, program members made significant progress towards understanding the evolution of the earth on geological time scales. Veizer wrote in his report for the first review panel, ‘The major and unifying accomplishment of the ESEP group is the dawning realization, based on experimental data and modeling, that tectonics is the principal driving force of Earth System evolution on geological time scales, including the evolution of its life-ocean-atmosphere system.’9 ‘In addition to this major conceptual advance,’ he continued, the members had also played major roles in findings on a number of specific issues. Among them he noted: ‘(1) mountain belts may be of only three general classes, (2) sea level variations of the last 100 000 years may have required lesser advances/retreats of ice caps than previously advocated, (3) changes in the earth shape may have resulted in variations in the Earth’s orbital parameters (and climate), (4) biogeochemical cycles during the Phanerozoic were driven by tectonic processes, (5) the boreal forests do appear to be the storage site for the “missing” anthropogenic CO2, and (6) past records, even of top quality, are not likely to provide the basis for prediction of specific future response of the Earth System.’10 Veizer also reported that the members ‘have produced entirely new databases for strontium, oxygen and carbon isotopes of Phanerozoic seawater. Their resolution and quality exceeds anything presently available worldwide.’ The group also developed a sulphur isotope record for sulphates and sulphides and a new technique that enabled the extraction of

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sulphur from carbonate shells for isotope measurement. And, using the new databases, ‘we were able to demonstrate for the first time that Sr, O, C and S cycles are interrelated. In other words, on geological time scales of 1 million years or more, we are dealing with a unified exogenic system(geo-hydro-atmo-, biosphere) driven by tectonic forces. This is the first time that data with quantity and quality sufficient to allow examination of this holistic system have been generated and assembled.’ The review panel was chaired by Professor Brian Skinner of Yale University. The other members were Glen Caldwall of the University of Western Ontario, Stephen Calvert of UBC, Michael Gurnis from the California Institute of Technology, Malcolm McCulloch of the Australian National University, Sir Keith O’Nions from Oxford, and Leigh Royden from MIT.11 It met at the end of the 1997–98 academic year and concluded that ESE was ‘a bold and exciting program that is taking research in Earth System Science in a unique direction. The Panel was impressed by the enthusiasm of members for the program, by their insights into the complexities of the issues, and by the calibre of their work.’ Seeking to eventually identify ‘the underlying processes responsible for the Earth’s major evolutionary steps,’ the report continued, the members were following ‘an integrated approach in which geochemistry and geodynamics are blended in an innovative fashion that has not previously been attempted.’ Of the members in the program, the review panel noted that they were ‘an exceptionally talented group of scientists of international stature.’12 The panel observed that the impact of the institute’s program had been considerable on both the Canadian and international geoscience communities. Program members had emphasized that the contacts and interactions facilitated by CIAR had had ‘a significant impact on their appreciation of the interfaces between the solid earth, the atmosphere, the hydrosphere, and the biosphere, and on the potential and power for multi-disciplinary studies to provide a better understanding of the evolution of the Earth as an integrated system.’ More than that, the interactions among the members ‘have produced research findings that open the door to new fields of research with the broader scientific community.’13 The review panel ‘strongly’ recommended that the ESE program be given a new five-year mandate and that, during that time, the program broaden its focus to include ‘topics that more effectively bridge these primary aspects, such as surface processes, palaeobiology, palaeogeography, and palaeoclimatology,’ and consider making specific new appointments in those areas. It also urged the program members to continue to

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concentrate on ‘the long time scale phenomena’ and to avoid work on ‘global change phenomena of the recent past.’ Panel members also thought that the field of geochronology needed more attention in interpretation of the temporal records being developed by the program members, and they recommended that CIAR consider adding a geochronologist to the program. The panel noted that the continued success of the program was going to depend on the institute’s ability ‘to identify younger scientists to fill the interdisciplinary areas between geodynamics and geochemistry.’ With that in mind, it recommended that at the future semi-annual program meetings, ‘up to ten places be reserved for Canadian graduate students and postdocs from outside the three academic nodes [University of Ottawa, Dalhousie, and University of Victoria] of the program.’14




In the spring of 1992, as Veizer and his colleagues in Earth System Evolution were getting under way, a NASA spacecraft, the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE), found what the Associated Press in the United States called ‘huge ripples of matter near the edge of the universe, a momentous discovery that explains how stars and galaxies evolved from the Big Bang that created the cosmos.’ The University of California astrophysicist George Smoot, leader of the research team for COBE, said, ‘If you’re religious, it’s like looking at God.’ Bill Unruh, director of the institute’s Cosmology Program, told the Globe and Mail that if the observation was confirmed, it ‘really allows us to make cosmology into a science.’15 Several days later, Unruh told Maclean’s magazine that the discovery ‘really firms up the models we have of how the universe developed.’16 The discovery, much discussed at Cosmology’s spring program meeting in Banff, heavily underlined a recommendation from the 1990 review that the program should add members who were experimentalists to broaden the expertise involved in the program. George Efstathiou at Oxford, John Peacock at the Royal Edinburgh Observatory, and Alex Szalay at Johns Hopkins were already associate members who combined expertise in theory with skills in observational cosmology. Acting on the review panel’s recommendation, the program added Richard Ellis at Cambridge, Philip Lubin at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Masataka Fukugita at Kyoto University in Japan as new associates in 1992 and 1993.17

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An ‘explosion of new observations, coming both from space borne and terrestrial instruments,’ Unruh reported in 1994, ‘has provided us with some confirmation and some shaking up of our ideas on the origin and evolution of structure in [the] universe.’18 In observational cosmology, another year of data from COBE had confirmed earlier findings, and Dick Bond at CITA was a leading figure in pioneering techniques to pull the maximum amount of useful information out of the growing store of data sets. A second approach was being developed by Nick Kaiser, also at CITA. It involved a new method of mapping the mass of the universe by using gravitational bending of light to detect the ‘dark matter’ that cosmologists believed accounted for more than 90 per cent of the universe as well as ordinary matter that emitted and absorbed light and could be seen directly in telescopes. These two initiatives, Unruh observed, ‘will give a flavour of where we think the excitement lies in physical cosmology, and demonstrate the great progress that is being made, with the certainty of much more in the future.’19 To advance this work, Bond, Kaiser, and Unruh had joined a group of experimentalists to propose a Canadian network of observational cosmology as a Centre of Excellence program financed by the federal government. What emerged was a group of twenty-four astronomers from the University of Toronto Astronomy Department and CITA, the University of Victoria, the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, the California Institute of Technology, and the University of Colorado. The group had been awarded ‘large blocks of telescope time’ at the CanadaFrance-Hawaii facility in Hawaii to secure large amounts of data that were being analyzed by the program’s theorists. And in another observational initiative, the program began a collaboration with experimentalists at the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory to detect neutrinos from the sun at a site deep in a mine using a portion of Canada’s reserve of heavy water.20 Another focus of the program, on theoretical gravity, had also evolved with increasing participation from particle physicists, who brought different methods and assumptions to the examination of cosmological black holes. The question both the particle physicists and the cosmological theorists were asking was, When a black hole in the universe collapses, is the information contained in the black hole lost forever or will it reappear in the process of evaporation of the hole and become observable again? The particle physicists argued that the information must ultimately be recoverable, while the cosmological theorists argued that it is gone forever. The fellows Werner Israel, Don Page, and Unruh

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and the associates Stephen Hawking, Leonard Susskind, and Robert Wald were deeply involved in this theoretical debate, as Unruh put it, ‘on one side or the other.’21 In 1995, the Cosmology Program was in its tenth year of operation. Both the advisory committee and program members were preparing for another five-year peer review. Unruh’s report was due in August for delivery to the members of the review panel. He rehearsed the historical background of the program and summarized the main thrusts of its research in the current five-year cycle. As in the first cycle, emphasis was placed on the program meetings, where the fellows, scholars, and associates gathered. There had been nine from 1991 to 1995. They ranged from a meeting of about twenty-five people at Banff in December 1991 to discuss ‘Faint Blue Galaxies’ to another meeting at Banff the following year to celebrate Werner Israel’s sixtieth birthday and discuss ‘Black Holes, White Holes and Wormholes.’ Nearly one hundred people from around the world attended: scientists, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, and people from the press, including a New York Times journalist who filed a long report. Many of the people at Banff then went to Edmonton for a one-day colloquium at the University of Alberta, capped off by a lecture by Stephen Hawking to a huge crowd, over two thousand people. In 1994, the members were back in Calgary to meet with the Royal Society of Canada. Between February and June 1995, Dick Bond held a workshop at the University of California, Santa Barbara, attended by a large number of members. And in March of that year, all the program fellows and associates met with colleagues at the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Hawaii.22 Was there work left to be done? Were there challenges left in the field for the Cosmology Program to tackle? Unruh was emphatic in his answer. ‘The field is more vibrant, and faces more challenges, then it ever has,’ he asserted. ‘CIAR is involved with a field at the most exciting and productive time in its history.’ He continued by sketching out the potential for both observational and theoretical cosmology and experimental and theoretical gravity. There were also concerns. The institute’s relations with its university partners varied from one unit to another in regard to use of released-time funds. Toronto was the model, turning the funds released by fellow appointments back to the program through CITA to facilitate a vigorous research program of scientists, postdoctoral fellows, visitors, and graduate students. Unruh and his colleagues believed that both the University of Alberta and UBC were less support-

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ive. And there had also been difficulty in finding places in Canada for the program’s scholars to get tenure-track appointments. All three scholars had left Canada for positions in the United States. Again, there was always the problem of finding persons of exceptional ability to recruit into the program to enhance the growing research agenda of the rapidly developing field.23 The review panel met in May 1996. It was chaired by Robin Armstrong, a long-time member of the research council and president of the University of New Brunswick. James Peebles from Princeton, David Schramm from the University of Chicago, Marc Davis from the University of California, Davis, Alex Vilenkin from the Tufts Institute of Technology, Paul Steinhardt from the University of Pennsylvania, and Art McDonald from Queen’s were the other members. They concluded that the work being done was outstanding and that support by CIAR had made Canada a world leader in cosmology. Particular note was taken of Bond and Kaiser in cosmology and Israel and Unruh in gravity physics as highly recognized leaders in their respective fields. The panel strongly recommended that the program be continued for another fiveyear cycle. ‘Canada has an excellent chance with the base that has been established [by CIAR],’ the panel observed, ‘to compete and maintain a place in Astrophysics and Observation.’24 Special note was taken of the ten years of leadership Unruh had given to the program and of his wish to step down from that role. Scott Tremaine, formerly director of CITA and a recently appointed fellow in the program, had been appointed the new director.25 The review panel also recommended a change in the formal title of the program to ‘Cosmology and Gravity.’ It urged further links with observational cosmologists in Canada and suggested a new category of ‘temporary associate’ membership to facilitate short-term, intense collaboration with observational people to interpret newly acquired data. The panel urged the program to enhance interaction by expanding the opportunities for its international associates to spend longer periods at Canadian institutions, and by having more interaction with Canada’s broader astrophysics and astronomy communities as well as more outreach by program members giving public lectures at their own and other institutions. Finally, it called for a revival of an important feature of the program’s first cycle, the organization of regular summer schools for students, particularly those from Canadian universities not involved in the Cosmology Program.26

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As the Cosmology review panel was concluding its work, Kathryn Hough was finishing the last-minute details for the review of the Evolutionary Biology Program. Like Cosmology’s, its second cycle had been very active and productive. And the program had had what Ford Doolittle, the director, called its own ‘natural evolution.’ The direction of the program, he had explained to the advisory committee in 1995, had ‘been defined more by the activities and interests of the individual members than by the opinions of its director or the decisions of [the advisory committee].’ Even so, individual program members had found much common ground in their work. ‘We are most concerned,’ Doolittle wrote, about the origins and basic components of genes and genomes and about the molecular processes involved. We are interested in molecular phylogeny, but largely because of what we can learn about gene and genome evolution from knowing branching order at the root of the tree. We have devoted less effort to population genetic approaches and almost none to studying adaption at the whole organism or behavioral level. We are not evolutionary biologists using molecular biology as a tool, nor (with some exceptions) mathematicians interested in advancing evolutionary or systematics theory. We are (mostly) molecular biologists seeking to understand how the informational and structural macromolecules common to all cells came into being and how we can understand and even manipulate their current function through understanding their antecedents.27

Doolittle went on to explain how far the program had come in the last nine years. First, he saw it moving ‘away from Archaebacteria molecular biology/genetics.’ At the beginning, archaebacteria were ‘still mysterious,’ but over the years, with the CIAR program members in the lead, the exploitation of genetic methods came to be ‘well in hand,’ and one group of the archaebacteria could be ‘manipulated almost as easily as E. coli.’ Much of the remaining work could be folded into ‘mainstream bacterial genetics.’ Doolittle also saw the program moving away from genetic mechanisms. They had found that ‘the study of mutational mechanisms per se was ‘less central to collaborations within the program’ than they had anticipated at first. And the program was also moving ‘away from single-gene phylogenies.’ Developing ‘deep trees’ using single different genes remained baffling, and several program mem-

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bers had moved towards ways of combining information from several data sets and looking for results in the emerging genome sequencing projects.28 Evolutionary Biology Program members had a growing interest in understanding the earliest eukaryotes, which are cells whose DNA is contained within a distinct nucleus. Their target was to crack ‘the remaining major puzzle in cell evolution’: the origin of the eukaryote nuclear genome. In addition, several program members were becoming more involved in two genome sequencing projects that the program had initiated. One of them, the Organelle Genome Sequencing Project, which started in 1992, was led by Franz Lang at the Université de Montréal; the other, the Sulfolobus Genome Project, had begun in 1993 and focused on developing a complete sequence of the genome of the thermophilic archaebacterium Sulfolobus solfataricus, with three million base pairs.29 ‘Genomics,’ Doolittle wrote, ‘will be the major source of problems, inspiration and funding in molecular evolution for the rest of the millennium.’ That called for more concentration on what Doolittle called ‘informatics.’ The genetic sequencing data banks were growing rapidly, and the challenge was to draw the most information possible from them ‘for evolutionary inference, structure prediction, commercial exploitation, or studies in biodiversity.’ Program members were also being more drawn to structure/function studies and applications. Evolutionary approaches to understanding protein structure and function had not concerned members much at the beginning but ‘new projects are moving us in that direction,’ Doolittle wrote. Adding a structural biologist/ protein chemist, he noted, would add depth to the program and assist its members in developing biological applications from their work. Program members were also moving towards more understanding of ‘gene stories’ and the way biologists asked evolutionary questions. As more genome sequences became available, more evidence of homology – that is, of genes with similar or the same cell structure but not necessarily the same function – was coming to light. In the beginning, understanding whole organism evolution had not been on the program’s agenda, but as genome data accumulated to stimulate ‘gene stories,’ a dramatic change was taking place. The program’s members would be ‘studying whole organism evolution after all – but from the bottom up.’30 In fact, what had happened in the Evolutionary Biology Program and in the field was somewhat analogous to the dramatic shift that had occurred in the Cosmology Program with the discoveries of the Cosmic

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Background Explorer. New technologies and ever-expanding computer power had confirmed the existence of black matter in the deep recesses of the universe. In Evolutionary Biology, the massive data sets that had begun emerging from the American Human Genome Project and more sharply defined efforts in sequencing in Canada, including the CIAR’s own program projects, had shifted the focus and emphasis of the program’s research. The two sequencing projects were the sources of the program’s most intensive collaborative efforts. Eight members from the various program laboratories were involved in the organelle genome work in Montreal, and four participated in the Sulfolobus project. There were several other collaborations, each of which included two or three members from one or two laboratories. In all, the two sequencing projects and twelve other collaborations had most of the scientists in the Evolutionary Biology program producing a large number of jointly authored papers published in major biology journals in North America and Europe.31 Doolittle reported to the review panel in 1996 that the ‘strongest quantitative evidence for strength of interaction’ was that, of 317 papers published by program members in the 1991–96 cycle, 71 were jointly authored by members at different laboratories. But the interaction was even deeper than that. It involved what Doolittle called ‘frequent exchange of personnel’ – graduate students, postdoctoral students, and technicians – between laboratories for periods that varied from a few days to several weeks.32 It was the kind of opportunity for the students, postdocs, and technicians that would hardly have existed had it not been for CIAR’s program interaction budgets. The other main item in the interaction budget for Evolutionary Biology was the annual meeting. Doolittle explained that it was ‘the central organizing event of our program, forging new interactions and maintaining existing collaborations. Each meeting has a focus, addressed by Program members and five-to-ten “guests” chosen from among the leaders outside Canada.’33 Typical was the 1994 annual meeting, attended by Mustard. Several weeks later, he enthusiastically reported to the research council that Rick Collins had completed a project on new drugs that inhibited RNA enzymes; that Rosemary Redfield and Donal Hickey had developed new ideas on the origins of sex; that Hickey had also completed a project on genetic tools to control spruce budworm populations; that Bob Cedergren had developed RNA enzymes to fight viruses like HIV; and that Doolittle and Michael Zuker had worked on a refutation of the dominant theory of the origin of genes. He continued:

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‘There was an exciting debate on the origins of introns (the code of information used by the body to produce protein from amino acids) and the challenge of the so-called exon theory of genes (Exons are those strands of information that have been rendered useless over time through evolution or mutation).’34 Doolittle reminded the review panel two years later that introns had been discovered in 1977 and had been ‘an evolutionary puzzle’ ever since. There were two schools of thought; one, ‘introns early,’ regarded introns as ‘relics of (and evidence for) the pre-cellular assembly of genes from smaller, exon-like coding modules.’ ‘Introns late’ thought them ‘extraneous parasitic elements inserted into intact full-length functioning genes.’ In the program, among its members and advisory council people, were strong proponents of both sides of the debate.35 Graduate students and postdoctoral fellows from each of the program’s participating laboratories were regular attendees at the annual meetings, giving them a unique opportunity to meet and learn from the senior program members and distinguished guests. In addition, the program had held three student meetings, organized by and for the graduate students and postdoctoral fellows, where presentations of their work were made and discussed among the participants from the various laboratories and the three or four invited guests at each meeting. Looking to the future, Doolittle strongly recommended that the student meetings be held annually rather than every third year.36 Collins, Hickey, and Zuker, who had reported major accomplishments at the 1994 meeting, were also involved in the changes in personnel of the Evolutionary Biology Program. Collins, who worked on the structure and function of catalytic RNAs and models of RNA evolution at the University of Toronto, had been a program associate in the first cycle. He became a program fellow early in the 1991–96 period. Hickey, from the University of Ottawa, had been a fellow in the first cycle and became an associate in the second. Similarly, Michael Zuker had moved from the National Research Council to the Institute of Biomedical Computing at Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri, and changed to associate status.37 All of this activity continued to be overseen and occasionally influenced by the program’s advisory committee. The first program review, in 1991, had recommended that appointments to the advisory committee be staggered and on a three-year fixed-term basis. That had not been done, but as 1991 drew to a close, there was a major change in the committee’s personnel. Lou Siminovitch, who had led the creation of the

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program and been the committee’s chair, stepped down. He was joined by John B. Evans, Robert Fournier from Dalhousie, and James Friesen from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto. Russell Doolittle (no relation to Ford) from the University of California, San Diego, a committee member, was persuaded by Mustard to assume the chair. Marcus Feldman from Stanford, Walter Gilbert from Harvard, and Michael Smith from UBC stayed on, and Marlene Belfort from the David Axelrod Institute in Albany, New York, joined the committee.38 The review panel met in Halifax and Montreal in November 1996. David Strong, a member of the research council and president of the University of Victoria, chaired the group. He was joined by Maurice L’Abbé of the Office of Research and Department of Mathematics at the Université de Montréal, Albert Dahlberg, a biochemist from Brown University, Nicholas Gillham, a zoologist at Duke, Benjamin Hall of the Genetics Department at the University of Washington, Wen-Hsiung Li from the Centre de génétique moléculaire at Gif-sur-Yvette, France, and Bruce Wier, a statistician from North Carolina State University.39 The panel’s principal recommendation, ‘unanimously and forcefully’ put, was that the program continue for another five years under Ford Doolittle’s ‘outstanding’ leadership. It believed that ‘the collective impact of these individuals’ accomplishments has been greater than the sum of its parts’ and that the CIAR sponsorship had initiated a ‘synergism that enhances the intellectual coherence of their work.’ Moreover, the panel believed that the achievements of the program were ‘so important for ensuring world-wide acceptance of the basic molecular approach to understanding evolution’ and that its ‘many talents’ were so ‘uniquely placed in the world’ to meet the growing challenge of responding to the new information on genetic sequences that it had to be continued and strongly supported for another cycle.40 The panel urged that the renewal of appointments of fellows and associates be made only when they were ranked as ‘excellent’ or ‘outstanding’ and when their interactions with others were evident and valued. As it had done in the previous ten years, the research area was rapidly changing, and the program needed to change with it. New scholars, fellows, and associates were to meet the same standards of quality and had to have demonstrated or anticipated interaction potential that would enhance the research mission of the program. Moreover, the rigorous selection procedures within the institute ‘should make room for new appointments without requiring a net expansion of numbers or salary reduction.’41

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Turning to research directions, the review panel endorsed Doolittle’s advocacy of reducing the role of population genetics, which had been a key part of the initial agenda. It applauded the intention to focus on contributing genetic sequences of ‘special evolutionary significance,’ because of the program’s ‘special ability ... to predict what these will be and to understand what they will mean.’ It also endorsed the plan to enhance efforts in exploiting biodiversity and selecting ‘tractable model organisms for study in depth,’ because it reflected the ‘unique strength and ingenuity of many members’ in this area. Finally, a green light was given to a growing focus on the structure of RNA.42 Over the years, Doolittle and his colleagues had added training of future young scientists into the program’s mandate, and the review panel applauded the effort. It was hesitant to recommend a significant expansion in the number of graduate students and postdoctoral fellows but urged the Evolutionary Biology Program to ‘publicize its intellectual attractions and to enhance its ability to attract the most original and ambitious students into the community.’ The panel was aware that the institute had accepted a proposal from Doolittle to establish a fund for postdoctoral fellowships and scholarships and was looking for financial resources to implement the proposal. If this could be done, the panel observed, it ‘could add a prestigious element to the Program, even if the stipends granted were only a supplement to outside awards.’43




From 1991 to 1996, the institute’s two original programs in the origins of the universe and of life on earth had carried out their research agendas under the intellectual leadership of highly talented directors and had accumulated achievements that garnered internationally significant recognition. During that same period, the institute had finally found funding to start its final ‘origins’ program on the evolution of the earth itself, and by 1996, that research effort was well on its way to a successful peer review in 1998. Finally, as 1996 drew to a close, the Cosmology and Evolutionary Biology programs had received high praise and acclamation from review panels and were poised to begin another cycle of research with enthusiasm and ambitious plans for new accomplishments.

11 Economic Growth and Policy

Fraser Mustard told the CIAR research council in October 1992 that the new program in economic growth and policy was rapidly taking shape. The program had three fellows and six associates, and Mustard said that Richard Lipsey, the director, was ‘building a working dynamic among the players.’ There were expectations that the program would be expanding by adding more Canadian members. Lipsey himself ‘is now more openly challenging [the] policy framework which is derived from old neo-classical theory.’1 For Lipsey, the program was an exciting challenge. ‘Rarely does a person get a chance to change fields in his 60s,’ Lipsey, sixty-four at the time, recalled many years later. ‘For me, however, it was a golden opportunity to fulfil the last of my undergraduate research programmes: to understand and further develop the concepts that Schumpeter advocated and that so impressed me in my now-distant undergraduate days. Because I was launching myself into a field in which I was not well read, I embarked on two years of intensive reading into conventional macro growth theory and, more importantly, into the vast amount of empirical research on the innovative process and on the theories that are designed to have contact with that knowledge and that stem from the seminal work of Richard Nelson and Sidney Winter.’2 The Economic Growth and Policy Program had begun in July 1991 and had its first group meeting in November in Vancouver. In January 1992, Kenneth Arrow at Stanford took over the advisory committee’s chair from Brian Arthur. The next month, a two-day group meeting with invited speakers took place in Toronto.3 Further meetings were held in Vancouver in May, in Toronto in September, at the University of Maastricht in December, in Keystone, Colorado, in March 1993, and at Stan-

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ford in July.4 The advisory committee attended the Maastricht and Stanford meetings and on 7 July approved the appointments of Pierre Fortin, an economist at the Université de Québec, John Baldwin from Statistics Canada, and Richard Harris from Simon Fraser University as associates.5 At the Stanford meeting, Paul Romer presented a framework document for consideration by the members and the advisory committee. The result was, as Mustard put it, ‘a very constructive discussion’ and a developing ‘general premise around which they can work.’ Lipsey presented a long document that outlined his research role in the program as setting the parameters of the program in an initial monograph and then writing a major book capturing the essence in theory and empirical findings of the impact of technological innovation on economic growth. Mustard noted that there was ‘support for Dick to do his book and/or monograph. All agreed to help him.’6 Another item on the agenda was planning for a program meeting in October in Tel Aviv. 7 In the weeks following the Stanford meeting, Lipsey became increasingly concerned about the direction the program appeared to be taking. Earlier, in 1991, he had produced a 228-page framework document that set out in detail his view of the issues involved in the program and more than twenty detailed research suggestions.8 At Stanford, there was general agreement with the overall approach to the program, but several members had spoken of developing their own research strategies. These, Lipsey believed, did not fit neatly into what he called his ‘vision’ of the program. By September 1993, he had become convinced that ‘the Group we put together is not going to be the vehicle for my vision so we must develop a vision that will make the best of the very fine talent we do have in the Group.’9 ‘My concept was that the Group would come together sharing a common outlook though active interchange, and coordinated work would just follow naturally,’ he wrote. ‘So far, people seem to be getting on with their own research agendas and our Group interaction promises to produce a few joint papers, mainly from people who are geographically close together.’ There was no ‘significant interchange at a distance’; members were scattered across the continent in two countries and in Israel. Lipsey did not believe that the periodic group meetings during the year were adequate evidence of continuous interactivity. He had become discouraged with his role as director and was eager to get on with work on his monograph and major book.10 Lipsey met in Toronto on 17 September 1993 with Mustard, Ed Safarian, and Peter Nicholson, vice-chair of the advisory committee and the

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executive vice-president, corporate strategy, of BCE Inc. Lipsey reviewed the three parts of the developing program. The first was an integration and synthesis of knowledge that drew upon the insights of reform neoclassical economics. The second was a history of innovation and technology, and the third was micro studies of the management of innovation and the process of innovation itself. The difficulty was that neither the second nor the third part had potential to develop linkages with the first, nor was real interaction with the first an obvious or even easily achievable possibility. Mustard acknowledged Lipsey’s concern. The Economic Growth and Policy Program’s interaction was ‘less dynamic than in our other social science programs such as Population Health and Human Development,’ he noted, and ‘the barriers to building the framework of understanding are sufficiently great that we cannot expect the catalytic interaction to evolve easily.’ He thought that a minimum objective for the program had to be some evolution in the thinking of all three groups towards more effective interaction within two years. An optimum ‘would be to have within two years some clearly defined interaction across the groups creating a coherent understanding of the determinants of economic growth.’11 The program was still on trial. But Mustard was convinced that the group Lipsey had assembled had the potential to develop into a major institute program.12 After his meeting in Toronto Lipsey told the program members that the ‘CIAR-Lipsey vision ... required that people both network and interact within the group so as to build up a self-sustaining set of interactions much the way that a chain reaction builds up to create the explosive energy needed to blast outwards. The actuality has turned out to be that people are networked outwards so that the critical mass of energy dissipates to the outside world and creates no internal explosion of activity with the group.’13 Lipsey outlined a proposal of work for the next three years. It could be organized around four main topics. The first was an overview of the group’s understanding of economic growth, including both original research and a synthesis of what was already known. Another was the introduction of endogenous growth into macro growth models. A third topic, labour markets and income distribution, would involve the study, among other things, of the impact of globalization on labour markets and longterm unemployment and the effect of growth on income distribution. Finally, there could be intensive study of the management of innovation by firms. John Baldwin’s data sets would be a particular stimulus to pro-

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mote interaction between the last two topics.14 And a way to bring the whole group together in a common task, Lipsey suggested, was to have them agree at the Tel Aviv meeting to proceed with ‘a book of essays that draw on the strengths and existing research of our members.’15 Romer responded at the beginning of October. He agreed that interaction to date ‘has not been as successful as it could be’ but argued that within the program, ‘there is still a great deal of fundamental disagreement about the superstructure, about the overall framework that should guide individual efforts.’ He suggested that Lipsey might have underestimated ‘what the institute and this program have already achieved.’ In his view, the goal of CIAR ‘was to support individual scholarship in the program areas.’ Romer thought Lipsey’s suggestion that the program should form ‘working groups that are smaller than the group as a whole makes some sense.’ But he did not favour publishing a book of essays. Instead, he proposed that the working groups could facilitate interaction among themselves and with the other groups by focusing their interests on Baldwin’s data sets.16 On 25 October, Lipsey resigned the directorship of the Economic Growth and Policy Program. He had reached the age of sixty-five and become ‘extremely jealous of my time.’ He told Mustard that he thought ‘a reasonable vision can be sorted out for the Group, but I am not the person to carry it out or defend it ... This is because I no longer believe fully in either the CIAR’s research model, nor in how it is interpreted by the Group’s members.’ ‘I gave two years to creating the Group,’ he continued, ‘and, now that it is up and running I need to free my time for research – time is running out on me and I need to concentrate my efforts on my own work.’17 The following week, on 1 November, the Tel Aviv meeting began. That evening the group met at dinner to discuss the program and its future. The key item was Lipsey’s resignation as director. Discussion centred on finding a replacement: Should it be a new person brought in from outside? Did it need to be a Canadian? ‘Ed Safarian crystalized the discussion by saying the next director had to come from within the Program,’ Mustard noted. He reminded members that the advisory committee, in consultation with them, would propose a new director to the research council and ‘encouraged the discussion to conclude at this point since they were not going to get much further.’ Mustard added, ‘We left this Turkish-style restaurant, which had the image of a bordello, in fairly good spirits.’18 The next day, after the working sessions – ‘the presentations each contained points of importance and generated inter-

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esting responses’ – Mustard went home with Elhanan Helpman to talk about the directorship situation. ‘We had a good hour and a half discussion free of other interruptions before the others arrived for dinner,’ Mustard noted. ‘Helpman was quite prepared to take on the directorship of the program ... He felt it was very important that Lipsey should have a role as the founding father and external relations diplomat for the program. He also felt it would be very important to have Ed [Safarian] involved.’ On 3 November, the group went to Masada and, Mustard wrote, ‘largely came to a consensus that Helpman should be made the director.’19 The next day, Mustard had dinner with Lipsey, Helpman, and Safarian. ‘That dinner cemented the agreement,’ he recorded. Lipsey would be named founding director, Helpman would assume the directorship on 1 January 1994, and Safarian would be named associate director. Helpman would be responsible for ‘the intellectual leadership of the program which means defining its thrust, its membership and the foci for the meetings, their timing and their content.’ Lipsey would provide advice and assistance to Helpman in the recruitment of new members. And Safarian would be the ‘Canadian contact’ for the program and work with Helpman in running the program.20 Late in 1993, Mustard wrote to Lipsey: ‘You have created a strong base for the economic growth program and have contributed immeasurably to changing the way in which the issue of long term growth is viewed with large segments of the academic and policy communities in Canada. This is a tremendous and enduring achievement, a real paradigm shift.’21 In March 1994, the group met again in Whistler, British Columbia. Mustard noted that a key point emerging from the three-day meeting was that failure to incorporate endogenous technological growth in economic theory left neoclassical economic theory without a way to recognize the power of technological innovation in economic growth. Another was that most neoclassical economists resisted the implications of endogenous technological growth. On the last day, 16 March, there was another long discussion of a focus document for the program that centred on global economic systems, labour markets, and the management of technological change by firms.22 In the early summer of 1994, Mustard told the research council’s executive committee that the directorship transition in the Economic Growth and Policy Program had ‘gone smoothly.’ Elhanan Helpman, he added, ‘is a very stable leader and much respected by the group and his peers.’23 In October, he reported that four new associates had joined

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the program: David Mowery, who worked on technological change and innovation at the University of California, Berkeley, Kevin Murphy, a labour economist at the University of Chicago, Eric von Hippel from the MIT School of Business, who used large census data sets to analyze labour markets, and Peter Howitt of the University of Western Ontario, who studied the effects of technological change on labour markets and the potential interaction between business cycles and growth. With these additions, the program was equipped to tackle the focus areas set at the Whistler meeting. At the beginning of November, the members met at Oxford to examine aspects of labour markets in northern countries, and the rise of unskilled labour and increased unemployment and its effects on productivity and innovation at the level of the business firm. The meeting centred on the connection between trade and economic growth and on income distribution and wage differentials. Steven Nickle and Adrian Wood from Oxford and Kevin Murphy were the key presenters.24 They and others gave papers that stirred a long discussion with what Mustard called ‘the cut and thrust of the audience.’ On 6 November, Paul Romer led the group in a discussion of what they all had learned about the linkage between technological innovation and economic growth, unemployment, and change. Major technological change, it was observed, could lead to increasing inequality in labour markets and was certainly a contributing factor to the demand for skills and unemployment. Then Lipsey and Paul Krugman from the advisory committee had a debate about competitiveness. Krugman argued that firms competed against one another, not nations. But Lipsey asserted that the structure of the economy and of society influenced the competitiveness of firms and that it was nations that shaped their economies and societies. The following day, the meeting concluded and Mustard was pleased at the interaction that had taken place. The Canadians Craig Riddell, Peter Howitt, Michael Wolfson, and Pierre Fortin had made strong contributions. And the younger program members were especially impressive: they were ‘very demanding and active in their work all the time.’25 For some of them, the Oxford meeting was the catalyst for commitment to the program. Eric von Hippel, Kathryn Hough from the institute noted, had been ‘uncertain of his role,’ but ‘since the Oxford meeting has become involved in organizing, with Dick Lipsey, a small group to look at innovation in the firm.’26 In the spring of 1995, the program sponsored jointly with the Austrian International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis a major

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meeting in Ottawa, including a public policy forum open to senior government officials and representatives of high technology industries.27 The symposium took place on 26 and 27 March 1995. In the publication that resulted from the meeting, Modern Perspectives on Economic Growth, Fraser Mustard explained that the IIASA and CIAR participants had been brought together ‘to foster interaction by some of the leading experts in the fields of evolutionary economics and endogenous growth theory.’ IIASA had fourteen participants, and CIAR’s Economic Growth and Policy Program members and advisers numbered seventeen. A public meeting attracted a large group of invited guests from both the public and private sectors, and the event was closed by a dinner address by John Manley, Canada’s minister of industry.28 ‘The meeting went well,’ Mustard concluded. ‘The differences between evolutionary theory and the new growth theory were well stated and cooperative projects between members of the groups established.’ ‘The main conclusion I gathered from the meeting is that both approaches show that [economic] competition is not perfect,’ he added, ‘that markets are not perfect and that prices, although important, have limitations ... They show the limits of policies for economic growth based on the neoclassical model.’29 Program members, the advisory committee, and three invited students met in June 1995 at Banff for a regular program meeting. Helpman reported to the advisory committee that over the last two years, the members had studied both theoretical and applied approaches to growth and employment, growth and its fluctuations, and adjustment to major technological change. Lipsey was developing a structuralist approach to link theory and empirical evidence. David Mowery and Nate Rosenberg were collaborating on a history of medical technology and the computer software industry. Ed Safarian was studying the operation of multinational organizations and technological change, and Pierre Fortin was examining employment insurance and the effects of minimum wages on longterm growth during recessions. John Baldwin was analyzing data on training in firms and on research and development and productivity. Helpman and others were looking at the effects of major technological change and adjustments on products, capital goods, and institutional change. And Helpman, Lipsey, Romer, Harris, Howitt, and Murphy were preparing a book on general-purpose technologies.30 The trade and growth members included Helpman, Romer, Harris, Howitt, and Alwyn Young from MIT, who had just joined the group. They were exploring an endogenous growth theory developed by

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Romer and Helpman and studying the rate of technological change and productivity growth at national and international levels.31 The technological change group looked at the micro level at the historical aspects of change and at new technologies and their applications at the level of the firm as well as foreign investment and human resources development. Mowery, Rosenberg, Lipsey, Safarian, Wolfson, and von Hippel, Helpman noted, had begun ‘useful interactions’ in the microeconomic group. Fortin, Riddell, Murphy, George Akerlof, and Young were building the labour group, which had yet to find a leader among the participants. Members were analyzing unemployment in the OECD countries, asking what was causing it and how it affected wage distributions and the introduction of modern technologies.32 All program members were eager to add one or two younger scholars from Canada. An opportunity arose at the Banff meeting. Paul Beaudry, who studied business cycles, employment, and wage determination, and Scott Taylor, a specialist in applied trade theory, both from UBC, had presented impressive papers at the meeting. The members recommended that they be appointed scholars. The advisory committee agreed, and the executive committee of the board of directors approved their appointments in April 1996.33 In 1996, Helpman and his colleagues organized more successful meetings and prepared an extensive report on the program’s development and progress for its first five-year peer review, scheduled for 1997. The majority of the report summarized the issues the group was exploring, the work being done by program members, and some specific examples of the progress being made, including the establishment of a working paper series and reprint series of members’ publications. Helpman pointed out that eighteen members of the program ‘belong to the founders of the “new” growth theory that emphasizes knowledge, economies of scale, and imperfect competition as central ingredients of the modern growth process.’ They had ‘clarified, elaborated and further developed’ the theory in their work.34 In addition to their research, many of the members had been especially active in promoting the understanding of the group’s work to the business and academic communities in Canada and discussing their research findings with public officials, particularly from the federal departments of finance and industry. The ‘major achievement’ of the program, Helpman stressed, ‘has been the ability to develop a fruitful dialog among its members, despite significant differences in backgrounds. In fact, we have learned over

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time how to benefit from each other’s idiosyncrasies in promoting our own research. The format in which the CIAR has organized this research effort had proved to be extremely fruitful.’35 The review took place in Boston late in October 1996. Peter Nicholson chaired the panel. The other members were Michael Bruno, the chief economist and senior vice-president of the World Bank, David Dodge, the federal deputy minister of finance, Claudia Goldin, professor of economics at Harvard, Donald McFetridge, professor of economics at Carleton University, and Amartya Sen, professor of economics and philosophy at Harvard. The panel met separately with each member of the program and had a second wind-up meeting with Helpman on the final day.36 Lipsey told the panel, ‘Had I not had the support of the Institute and the benefit of the knowledge of those in the group who are experts in [their] areas, I would never have done the work I have done since then on technological change and growth.’ ‘For the past four years, the CIAR group on growth and technology,’ Akerlof said, ‘has dominated my intellectual life.’ Fortin added that the intellectual and financial support of the CIAR had ‘allowed my intellectual production to expand greatly in quantity and quality since 1993.’ The impact of working with their colleagues under the broad umbrella of economic growth and policy was echoed by nearly every member of the program in their interviews with the committee. As Richard Harris put it, ‘The discussion with people within the group from a wide variety of areas and perspectives is incredibly stimulating and quite different than the type of interaction one gets from professional meetings ... This may be the most socially valuable role of the CIAR growth program.’ And Romer concluded that ‘the most important effect of the Program at the Institute has come from the opportunity it has given me to work with my colleagues in the Program.’37 In the late afternoon and early evening of the final day, 26 October, the review panel drafted its evaluation of the Economic Growth and Policy Program. ‘The overall quality of research,’ the panel observed, ‘is clearly of world standard in the field. The group is unique in the scale and calibre of the effort it has focused on understanding the determinants and consequences of economic growth.’ But, it asked, did the program as a whole exceed the sum of ‘its distinguished parts’? Had the members ‘together done more than they would have done separately to advance understanding of economic growth?’ The panel concluded that the answer was yes. It cited ‘testimony of virtually all members to the

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effect that: (a) their research agendas have been redirected to focus on economic growth; and (b) interaction with colleagues in the Program has generated important new insights and motivation.’ There had also been interaction with other research institutes, like the CIAR-IIASA meeting in Ottawa, and with the larger profession. There was a growing list of jointly authored papers, including several using Canadian data to make valuable comparisons with United States data. And the book on general-purpose technologies would be published shortly.38 The review panel also noted that there was more to be done. In particular, it cited two areas for development: strengthening the still fragile links between the group working on labour markets and human capital and those working on macro-level analysis of global systems; and enhancing the early interaction between the labour market/human capital focus and the work going on in the Population Health and Human Development programs of the institute.39 The panel underlined the successful leadership of Lipsey and Helpman. The program’s ‘good taste in the selection of research priorities; its scholarly productivity; and the increasing collegiality of its members are evidence of unusually talented leadership – first from Richard Lipsey who generated the intellectual vision and energy to launch the Program, and then from Elhanan Helpman who has moulded a very diverse and independent-minded group into a remarkably collegial team.’40 The panel ‘strongly’ recommended that the Economic Growth and Policy Program be continued, but with a caveat: since the program, ‘as currently organized and focused, had been functioning at full strength for only a little more than two years,’ it called for another review in three years, when another review panel could do its evaluation of a full five years of work. It also recommended that ‘increased emphasis’ be given to examining the impact of economic growth on labour markets, human capital, and related social processes and that there be a reduction in the effort given to microeconomic analysis of technological change. ‘While the relevance of micro work on technology and innovation is undeniable, it is extraordinarily difficult in most cases to explicitly link the micro-technological analysis to the other aspects of growth being studied elsewhere in the Program,’ the panel commented. ‘The Panel believes therefore that the overall payoff for the program will be greater if more effort was focused on phenomena at the nexus of growth, trade, employment and wages, and the production of human capital.’ Work on technological change should not be abandoned but should continue ‘primarily at a relatively aggregated level of analysis.’

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The panel again stressed more interaction with the Population Health and Human Development programs and suggested that if and when new members were added, ‘some weight should be given, at least in some cases, to evidence of a willingness to interact with either of the other two Programs.’ The panel did not think that the program membership should be expanded: a total of eighteen members was just about right. But, as some current members moved on to other pursuits, the program should look especially to appointing women, younger people, and more Canadians to membership.41 The panel reminded the members and the advisory committee that this program’s work was ‘of potentially great significance in public policy discourse.’ ‘To be relevant and effective in this arena,’ it continued, ‘the bottom-line findings must be disseminated quite broadly and in terms that can be understood outside the economics profession. It is recommended therefore that publications by Program members be accompanied, where appropriate, by a summary in “plain language” of the issue and the key findings. It is also strongly recommended that Program members continue to appear in public fora and to make themselves available, as appropriate, for interviews with the specialized media.’42 The quest by the institute’s research council for a strong social science program that addressed intellectual issues which were important in the arena of public policy had begun many years earlier in hesitant, floundering attempts to define a workable program on technological change and society. Since 1988–89, when Richard Lipsey had taken his first thoughts about a program idea to the research council, he had, as the review panel noted, given that halting search a new focus and new definition, one that challenged mainstream assumptions within the economics profession. The program, which was begun in 1991, had not worked out quite the way Lipsey had envisioned, but his initiative and Helpman’s influential leadership had drawn a diverse group of highly regarded scholars in Canada and the United States into a very effective research program that, in the late fall of 1996, was just beginning to tap its potential influence on economic thought and public policy.

12 Human Development

As soon as Dan Keating’s appointment as director of the Human Development Program was confirmed, he called a meeting of his colleagues. It was a diverse group that met in Toronto on 5 August 1992. Robbie Case and Tom Rohlen were from the Faculty of Education at Stanford. Max Cynader, a neuroscientist at UBC and fellow in the Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Program, was well acquainted with the work of the institute. So was his UBC colleague Clyde Hertzman, an epidemiologist and member of the Population Health Program. Steve Suomi was a primatologist at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development in Maryland, and Richard Tremblay was a psychologist and pediatrician at the Université de Montréal.1 Much of the day was devoted to getting acquainted and outlining each member’s research interest. Later, the group talked about possible research agendas and sources of funding for the program.2 In October, Keating, Case, Hertzman, and Rohlen presented a preliminary sketch of a program to the advisory committee. They suggested three areas of study: the first would be an examination of neurobiological, cognitive, and behavioural processes and their roles in human development. Another would be the assembly and analysis of longitudinal population data on how factors such as health, competency, and social status of children influence their later life as adults, and a third would be the ways in which societies and institutions function and how they can influence human development. The work that Hertzman and others were already doing in the Population Health Program would link neatly with the proposed longitudinal studies in Human Development to study children’s health in relation to adult health risks and work. So, too, would Christine Power’s work at

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University College, London, examining a social gradient of health and educational achievement from early childhood to mid-life. Keating added that members had already met with people from the Canadian government to discuss developing databases from the 1994 National Population Survey and the proposed National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth to explore linkages with research in child development being done by Dan Offord at McMaster and Richard Tremblay at U de M.3 A few days later, Robert Picard, chair of the advisory committee, told the research council that the Human Development people were ‘eager to get started.’4 Program meetings in January and at the end of April 1993 began to sharpen the focus of the program proposal and led, in June, to the first formal statement of its objective. Titled ‘The Learning Society and Canada’s Future,’ the document said the program intended ‘to create an integrated framework of understanding of the factors influencing human development from early life through to old age and the linkage among the different periods in development and their effects on learning and health.’5 As an example, it cited the fact that emerging knowledge in the life and social sciences revealed that sensory stimulation of a child in the earliest years, from conception through preschool, when the child’s brain was most receptive to such stimuli, strongly influenced the child’s later behaviour and coping skills. Children who had been poorly supported in their preschool years were less able to cope when they entered school. Members of the program, led by Hertzman, would join with members of the Population Health Program to launch the Child Longitudinal Study Group (known as the ‘Children’s Group’), which would explore the connections between early life experiences and later life outcomes in health, well-being, and competence. They hoped that the work of the group and links to other longitudinal programs in Canada and abroad would lead to a book-length analysis and prescription for a ‘learning society.’ Another goal of the Human Development Program’s work was to better understand how groups and group behaviour influence human development. Research in this area opened possibilities for developing linkages with another institute program, Economic Growth and Policy.6 When the executive committee of the institute’s board of directors met that summer, Mustard explained that Keating and his colleagues were building ‘a coherent framework to embrace the linkage across the stages of development’ and were making ‘extraordinary progress.’7 A few months later, in October 1993, Mustard reported to the board that

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CIAR and the Faculty of Education at the University of Toronto had been successful in persuading Robbie Case, a key figure in the program, to leave Stanford and take up the directorship of the Institute for Child Study in Toronto.8 At the end of November, the members came together at Dunsmuir Lodge in Sidney, British Columbia, for two days of intensive discussion about program development. Several possibilities were on the table. Hertzman suggested that collaboration on a book – similar to the first book of the Population Health Program but focused on a synthesis of research on developing competence, coping skills, nurturing, lifestyles, and well-being – would be an important intellectual contribution and would also bring the diverse research areas of the members together in a project of mutual interest. Keating and several others debated questions and issues about how groups function and how they influence social relationships in human development. Max Cynader told members about fundamental development processes and the development of neural networks in early childhood, and Steve Suomi related Cynader’s work to his own studies of the behavioural development of rhesus monkeys. Mustard summed up the discussion, telling the members that the program needed a clearly stated ‘framework document’ that addressed five themes: concepts of a learning society; the behaviour of young adults; early childhood; the effect of new electronic systems, i.e., computers, on cognitive development and behaviour; and institutional organizational structure. The task of drafting the document was given to Keating.9 The result was a second institute statement of the program, in January 1994. It began with this bold assertion: ‘Modern societies increasingly face difficult new challenges as they seek to cope with global economic competition, the need to educate for new competencies in the population, the maintenance of the social fabric for socialization and nurturance, and the provision of opportunities for health and well-being for each citizen. Planning for these societal necessities increases in complexity as the rate of social change accelerates. This is the dilemma that Canada, along with most other developed countries in the contemporary world, must confront.’10 The program proposed to address the problem by developing ‘a profile of what “a learning society” must be like, if it is to thrive in the modern era.’ Ambitiously, it stated that the ‘main objectives’ of the program ‘are thus to analyze and integrate existing knowledge, and more important, to reconceptualize the dynamics of collective and individual

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human development in modern societies.... We anticipate that such an effort will transform the ways in which we view the fundamental processes of human development, and, in turn, offer a better opportunity for guiding social change away from negative outcomes and toward more optimal development.’11 With a focus on developing guidelines for social change, the program members worked in their own areas. They also recognized that general collaboration among themselves was only a part of their agenda: to be effective, they also had to create what Keating called ‘learning networks’ with other groups, both public and private. Much of this initiative fell upon Keating and, to a lesser extent, Mustard and other program members. Keating worked with members of the Ontario Premier’s Council on Health, Well-Being and Social Justice, and Offord chaired its committee on children and youth. Keating gave keynote addresses to the Child Welfare League of America/Canada, the Alberta Association for Young Children, the Institute of Canadian Bankers, and a host of other groups. Mustard visited the Meadow Lake Tribal Council in Saskatchewan and opened discussions about collaboration in its childcare program. He and Keating visited several provincial ministries as well as federal departments. Mustard and Keating wrote a paper for the National Forum on Family Security that was included in Family Security in Insecure Times, published in 1993. And Rohlen, Case, and Keating planned a symposium on organizational learning and human development.12 In the fall of 1994, Robert Picard told the research council that the Human Development Program had developed a demanding research agenda and proposed to share its work with the communities with which it was associating. Program meetings during the year, in May in Toronto and in September in Montreal, had covered all aspects of the program’s work. One item of particular interest was Jeanne Brooks-Gunn’s presentation of her longitudinal study of American children, relating young children’s IQ scores to income, family, and other social indices. A professor at Teachers College, Columbia University, in New York City, Brooks-Gunn was conducting research that would complement that of the Children’s Group. Other members were exploring a project in ‘telelearning’ in cooperation with the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education at the University of Toronto. And Michael Wolfson of Statistics Canada and the Population Health Program was helping program members integrate their research with the new National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth.13 There were changes in the membership of both the program and its

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advisory committee in 1994. Barrie Frost, who had joined in 1992 as an associate member, became the Max Bell Fellow in the program in that year. Jeanne Brooks-Gunn from Columbia and Douglas Willms of the Faculty of Education at UBC joined the program as associate members. Peter Hicks, a senior policy adviser in the Department of Human Resources Development of the government of Canada, Howard Gardener of the Graduate School of Education at Harvard, Freda Martin, the executive director of the Hincks Treatment Centre in Toronto, and Angèle Petros-Barvazian, the former director of family health at the World Health Organization in Geneva, became members of the advisory committee.14 By the winter of 1994–95, the research work in the program was beginning to take shape. The people involved in the life cycle studies, namely the Children’s Group of researchers from Population Health and Human Development, were moving more quickly and surely than their ‘learning society’ counterparts because they had had a head start with Hertzman’s work in the Population Health Program. Perhaps because Keating had had to spend so much time on program outreach, the people working on the analysis of the nature of groups and how groups influenced human development lagged behind. Of more concern to Mustard in the early summer of 1995, the two research foci had yet to establish linkages and common objectives with each other. Keating, Mustard recorded, ‘described some of the difficulties his colleagues had in working in the broader picture and understanding the value of longitudinal studies in establishing links between early life and later life.’15 At a program meeting in Bethesda, Maryland, in April, the members had agreed to hold a week-long meeting at Emerald Lake in Field, British Columbia, in August to tackle the problem. Over the summer, Keating, Hertzman, and Mustard drew up an agenda for the meeting. The goal was to define ‘a strategy to develop the linkages between Track A [the life cycle studies] and Track B [the group and learning society studies] of the program. A clearer and better understanding of the two components of the program and where the linkages are’ was necessary. So the Emerald Lake meeting would begin by ‘sharpening the definition in the different areas and between the different areas of the program.’16 At Emerald Lake, Keating told the advisory committee that ‘the program has moved quite far with Track A but considerable more work has to be done on Track B.’ ‘This area has yet to be fleshed out,’ he added, and he was planning a symposium at the University of Toronto for June 1996 that would concentrate on ‘corporate issues, society wide issues,

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schooling and family issues.’17 Keating also believed that the idea of a program monograph, which Hertzman had promoted much earlier, would facilitate concerted efforts by the two tracks. As he put it, the book ‘intends to pull together the Track A story with some shadowing of the Track B story.’ The details had to be polished, and this was also on the Emerald Lake agenda. Keating said that he hoped to have a ‘working monograph’ complete by February 1996.18 Mustard sensed that ‘among a number of participants there was an increasing understanding of the relationship between early childhood and the gradient in competence and coping skills’ and that there was ‘an emerging substantial coherence’ as the program meeting drew to a close. To maintain the momentum, two administrative changes were adopted. Jeanne Brooks-Gunn, who worked in the Track A group, agreed to become associate director of the Human Development Program and to work with Keating on linkages between the two groups. Keating also formed a program ‘executive group’ of himself, BrooksGunn, Hertzman, Suomi, and Rohlen to work with the new chair of the advisory committee, Lewis Lipsitt, to ‘move the agenda forward.’19 The members met again in February 1996 in San Diego, where a detailed outline of the book was hammered out. The book featured strong presentations by the members working in the Children’s Group, and there was more than a ‘shadowing,’ as Keating had put it at Emerald Lake, of the work of the ‘learning society’ unit. Alan Pence was preparing a chapter on the influence of community values and priorities on the childcare experience of children in a given culture. Marlene Scardamalia, who would soon join the program as an associate member, and her colleague at the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, Carl Bereiter, were going to write about ‘schools of the future,’ and Tom Rohlen was going to discuss the differences between Japanese and North American culture and how that influenced human development.20 But Keating’s plan for a ‘learning society’ symposium in Toronto in June 1996 was set aside for a year when the program members had an opportunity to play a major role in a meeting of the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development in Quebec City in August. The Human Development members would give a number of invited addresses and present four symposia describing the program’s work.21 Among the program members who presented their research at Quebec City was Douglas Willms, who had joined the program as an associate two years earlier. He talked about the differences that arose in

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schools and communities regarding the success of children in a school setting. In 1995, Robin Armstrong, a founding member of the institute and president of the University of New Brunswick, began discussions with Mustard about the appointment of a CIAR fellow at his institution. Armstrong was particularly interested in bolstering his Faculty of Education. Soon he and Mustard were negotiating with the government of New Brunswick to finance a fellowship, and by the fall of 1995, an agreement was in place. The government would provide $50,000 a year for five years if the university and CIAR could raise matching funds for the fellowship. Willms was selected and in November moved from the University of British Columbia to Fredericton to take up his fellowship and establish the Atlantic Centre for Policy Research in Education.22 Also in 1996, Keating was developing a project of OISE, the University of Toronto, and CIAR to establish the Learning Society Network, which he described as a ‘private, non profit enterprise.’ The Learning Society Network, he wrote, ‘would seek out and respond to proposals for joint ventures from within and outside the University of Toronto whose goal is to establish or to investigate prospects of establishing Learning Society Networks.’ The networks, in turn, would provide ‘opportunities for individuals to acquire the diverse skills necessary to contribute to the building of a learning society.’23 Work proceeded on the initiative as time allowed, but after the conclusion of the conference in Quebec City, much of Keating’s time was devoted to preparing a report on the program for its first peer review, scheduled for 1997. As Keating was preparing his report, he received a commentary on the program from one of the key members of the advisory committee, David Grier, who had been instrumental in getting the initial support from the Royal Bank. Grier emphasized that, in his view, the ‘core of the program’ grew out of earlier explorations in the Population Health and Economic Growth and Policy programs. Together they posed an intriguing question: What are the factors that determine whether a society acquires an inventory of ‘coping’ skills, defined as a capacity for its population to innovate and for its population and institutions to adapt to accelerating technological, economic and social change? Or, as he put it, ‘What are the determinants of a Learning Society’ and how can the Human Development Program ‘contribute to the development of a new framework of understanding of the determinants of a Learning Society’?24 Keating’s report picked up on Grier’s commentary in its outline of the origins of the program. He told the review panel that Human Development asked whether the determinants in health that had been discov-

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ered in the Population Health Program would be echoed by tracking other determinants and outcomes that it was exploring. Robbie Case and Doug Willms were studying mathematical achievement outcomes, Dan Offord and Richard Tremblay were looking at general behavioural and school problems, Brooks-Gunn was considering overall coping ability, and Chris Power and Clyde Hertzman were working on mental health and social adaptation. To date, it appeared that the same phenomena were occurring as had been observed in the Population Health Program, and Keating wrote, ‘If this holds true for such a wide range of developmental outcomes, it would strongly suggest not only that there are common sources for this, but also that the steepness of the SES [socio-economic status] gradients across different outcomes is an important indicator of population well-being that we could use as an important diagnostic of societal adaption.’25 Max Cynader’s examination of neurological development in very early childhood and the work of Steve Suomi with rhesus monkeys, which had just recently been supplemented by that of Christopher Coe at the University of Wisconsin in biopsychology and fetal development, pointed to better understanding of biological embedding26 and the effects of stimulation and nurturing of young children as determinants of social and behavioural outcomes.27 Keating, Frost, Offord, Case, Tremblay, Pence, Rohlen, and Scardamalia were doing new and comparative analyses of how different social and cultural factors shaped the developmental experience of different societies and how societies were influenced by their organizational structures. This wide-ranging body of work was to be brought together in the program’s monograph, which was being reviewed for publication at the time of the program review.28 And there was more to report. For example, Keating reminded the review panel of the role CIAR was playing in the establishment of Willms’s Atlantic Centre for Policy Research in Education at UNB. In addition, Human Development Program members had played important roles in developing, with Statistics Canada, the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth. The program and the institute had been instrumental in creating a chair in child development at the Université de Montréal for Richard Tremblay; Offord’s Centre for Studies of Children at Risk at McMaster University was collaborating with members of the program; program members were leading a team of scholars establishing a new, federally funded Network of Centres of Excellence in Telelearning; and the program and the University of Toronto were beginning work on a new human development network encompassing

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the Institute of Child Study, the new Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology, and several other units.29 Looking to the future, Keating forecast a stronger emphasis on examination and evaluation of the social and cultural aspects of human development and on the impact of society’s organizations on human development through all stages of the life cycle. There was also a need to acquire more research capacity to do large population analyses of developmental data. More work was also to be done on linking a growing body of evidence from neuroscience about biologically critical periods to the developmentally sensitive periods in the life cycle. These emphases, together with the continuing work of program members, would, Keating hoped, point to discovery of conceptual frameworks and key features which would support the building of an adaptive learning society.30 The review panel, which met with program members in Toronto, was chaired by Louis Maheu, dean of graduate studies at the Université de Montréal and a member of the research council. The other members were Jacquelynne Eccles of the School of Education at the University of Michigan, Robert Hinde from St. John’s College, Cambridge, Ann Masten of the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota, Jean-François Saucier from the Department of Psychiatry at the Hôpital Sainte-Justine in Montreal, Saul Schanberg of the Department of Pharmacology at the Duke University Medical Center, and Carolyn Tuohy, deputy provost and professor of political science at the University of Toronto.31 The panel reported to the president in October 1997. ‘New paths substantially enlarging our thinking about human development have been imaginatively explored and a considerable amount of high quality research has been produced and published by the members of the program,’ the report said, adding that the program had popularized important issues of human development across Canada. The panel believed the program had several major strengths, the first of which was ‘its conceptual and scientific breadth,’ which, in itself, ‘successfully enlarged the concept of human development.’ This unique interdisciplinary approach ‘should clearly be maintained, encouraged and strengthened.’ Another strong point was the program’s assembly of its diverse longitudinal studies and databases and its sharing them with other researchers in Canada and abroad. A third asset was the work being done on the relationship of development processes to socio-economic status gradients and the emerging work linking biological processes to the program’s lon-

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gitudinal studies. Together, the program members had ‘built a platform and foundation opening the way in the future to still more integrated collaboration for the study of human development.’32 Looking ahead, the panel believed that the longitudinal data sets should be used to develop ‘more theory, building links between life experiences and developmental processes or life outcomes.’ ‘The time has come,’ the report bluntly stated, ‘to put more emphasis on the why question.’ To get at the ‘why’ question, the program members would need to work more closely together. To date, the panel believed, ‘there is a lack of truly collaborative and joint research projects and activities,’ and it was going to be necessary to have a ‘restructured intellectual agenda’ to stimulate more collaboration. In addition, the international ‘visibility and impact’ of the program had to be strengthened as did work between program members and young scholars; finally, a ‘more active and improved relationship’ with the advisory committee was needed.33 There was no doubt that the Human Development Program should continue. But change was needed in both its focus and its content. It had to give more attention to ‘interpersonal, social, cultural and community factors’ that influenced human development. It also needed more ‘theoretical expertise’ from the social science disciplines as well as more work on ‘poverty, work settings and toxicity, drug abuse,’ and related issues, and more ‘project-oriented collaborative works’ with members of the Population Health and Economic Growth and Policy programs. Noting that major expansion of the membership was a budgetary impossibility for the institute, the review panel called for modifications of the core membership. Especially urgent was the appointment of new senior members, either fellows or associates, to correct ‘the current unacceptable lack of balance ... with respect to gender.’ In all, it estimated that five new senior appointments would be required; in addition, the program needed much stronger participation of young scholars in its work. In sum, the program had built a strong foundation and set the stage for greater achievement. The list of recommended changes for the next cycle was challenging. But, the panel concluded, ‘the HDP now has the opportunity to change the field; it is close to having the potential and the necessary ingredients to achieve this goal at an outstanding level.’34 The review report was taken up at the next research council meeting, on 7 November 1997. Maheu summarized the high points of the report. The council’s attention was focused on three issues. The first was the rela-

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tionship between the Human Development and Population Health programs, stimulated in part because Council had renewed the Population Health Program for a third cycle earlier in the meeting. The review panel had recommended greater collaboration between the two programs, and Michael Dempster, a professor of management at Cambridge University, went a step further to suggest merging the two programs, arguing that economies might be realized by doing so. Barrie Frost, a program member, reminded Council that ‘there was already a real synergy at work’ in the collaborative work on longitudinal studies being done by the Children’s Group. Maheu added that the review panel was calling for stronger intellectual linkages, not structural fusing. Collaboration had to grow out of shared research interests and not be imposed upon the program ‘from the top down.’ More than that, he noted that Hertzman, who was about to succeed Bob Evans as the director of Population Health, and Keating, Human Development’s director, both strongly favoured further development of cross-program collaborations.35 The second issue involved the same theme in a discussion about having a joint advisory committee for the two programs, which, as Patricia Baird put it, ‘represented two sides of the same coin – many of the social and biological factors that determine the health of a population also determine the development of individuals.’36 Stefan Dupré, who had recently succeeded Mustard as president of CIAR, foresaw ‘a combined advisory committee for the HDP and PHP with two vice-chairs’ and a subcommittee under each vice-chair. Opinion was more divided on this issue. Baird and Maheu favored Dupré’s idea, but Robin Armstrong argued that integration had to take place among groups in the programs, not at the advisory committee; Dempster promoted a single, dual-mandate committee. In the end, Council approved a motion in favour of a joint advisory committee with vice-chairs and separate subcommittees.37 The third issue was a concern among some council members about the relationship between the Human Development Program and a proposed Network of Centres of Excellence in Child Development. Would the centre, if approved and established, steal the limelight from the institute’s program? Would it undermine the program’s work? Would program members be involved in the proposed centre? When it was pointed out that six of the key program members were already deeply involved in developing the Centre of Excellence proposal and, therefore, that collaboration between the program and the proposed centre was highly likely, Council members also reminded themselves that each

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had a different, if related, agenda. The proposed centre was to work solely on child development. But the CIAR program, as the review panel had underlined and recommended reinforcing, was to study human development over the whole span of human life.38 With that concern allayed, the research council quickly agreed to continue the Human Development Program for another five years.39

13 The Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces

In the fall of 1992, Myer Bloom, the director of the Soft Surfaces and Interfaces Program, and his research partner at UBC, Evan Evans, were ready to begin work. Bloom was a highly respected senior physicist, about to retire, and Evans, considerably younger, was a pathologist with a growing research reputation who was cross-appointed to the Physics Department. They had put together a small team of talented colleagues in Canada and abroad. Joining them in the central node in British Columbia was Michael Wortis, a theoretical physicist at Simon Fraser University. Collaborating in Ontario was Jaan Noolandi, a biophysicist at the Xerox Research Centre of Canada. In Quebec, Theodorus van de Ven, a physical chemist at McGill, was a member of the group. And there were two foreign members, Ole Mouritsen, a biophysicist at the Technical University of Denmark, and Erich Sackmann, at the Technical University of Munich.1 Bloom had held a fellowship in CIAR since 1990; the others were all associate members of the program. In October 1992, Mustard told the research council that stable funding for the program was still ‘a problem.’2 It didn’t matter: Bloom and his colleagues were about to get started. The problem they addressed was straightforward yet complex. Most technology at the end of the twentieth century was based on the physical and chemical properties of inanimate solid or liquid materials. But the properties of living systems, matter ‘designed by nature,’ were largely unknown. The SSSI program members were dedicated to ‘attempting to identify and answer fundamental questions concerning the physical properties of natural materials.’ ‘We anticipate,’ a program description continued, ‘that this will lead to the discovery of new physical insights into the organization of condensed matter, contributing to a more com-

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plete understanding of physiology and pathophysiology, and, along the way, help to solve some important technological problems.’3 An ‘incredible explosion of knowledge’ in modern molecular biology had identified new ways to isolate, analyse, and manipulate DNA and RNA molecules and get detailed ‘blueprints’ of protein molecules. Bloom, Evans, and their colleagues had other interests: What were the biological and chemical mechanisms that made things work in biological cells and tissues? If they could answer these questions, their work would complement that of the molecular biologists and develop a more profound understanding of normal and abnormal biological functions, much of which emanated from properties at interfaces of biological material. Michael Wortis at SFU and Ole Mouritsen in Denmark led the theoretical exploration of soft organic materials. At the central node at UBC, their insights were tested in Bloom’s laboratory, where he used nuclear magnetic resonance to characterize molecular motions in biological material and the ways in which membrane fluidity was related to membrane structure. In Evans’s laboratory, micro-mechanical measurements were being used to understand the fundamental continuum properties of membranes to complement the molecular information gained in Bloom’s NMR research.4 Outside British Columbia, Erich Sackmann in Munich headed a world-leading laboratory studying the physical properties of membranes. At McGill University’s Pulp and Paper Laboratory, Theodorus van de Ven was developing an experiment that would resolve long-standing controversies and uncertainties concerning the forces between membranes. And at Xerox Canada, Jaan Noolandi was exploring the forces between cells of biological material.5 If all this work came together, there was the potential for significant technological transfer from the laboratories to new or improved industrial processes. New materials, coatings, and adhesives might be developed as well as new processing techniques, medical and environmental materials and biomedical material and implant technologies.6 Bloom was scheduled to retire from the UBC Physics Department at the end of 1993, but he assured Mustard in May that he would continue his work, that the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council had renewed his operating grant for three years, and that the university would give him space. He did wonder about the status of his institute fellowship: fellowships were used to supplement or replace portions of a professor’s university salary. In negotiation with the university’s dean of science, Mustard worked out an arrangement to allow Bloom’s fellow-

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ship support to continue as a research grant administered by the university.7 A potentially more difficult problem arose with Bloom’s announcement at the 1996 program meeting at Ladysmith, British Columbia, that he was dealing with the early stages of Parkinson’s disease.8 Earlier, in January, when Mustard was in Vancouver, Bloom had suggested that Evans might assume the directorship of the program. Now, in April, the issue came to a head in a meeting of Mustard, Bloom, Evans, Wortis, and Sackmann. All strongly supported Bloom in continuing his directorship. They also agreed that the program should have an executive committee composed of the group plus Adrian Parsegian, a theoretical molecular biologist from the National Institutes of Health in Maryland, who had joined the program in 1994, and van de Ven from McGill.9 The matter was settled at a June 1996 meeting of the advisory committee. Bloom’s executive committee would include Evans, Parsegian, Van de Ven, and Wortis.10 By the time of the Ladysmith meeting, Parsegian was only one of a number of new members of the group. Terrance Beveridge, a biochemist at the University of Guelph, Pieter Cullis, a biochemist at UBC and chief scientist and vice-president, research, at Inex Pharmaceuticals in Vancouver, and David Tirrell of the Department of Polymer Science and Engineering at the University of Massachusetts had also joined the program in 1994. New members in 1996 were Alice Gast from the Chemical Engineering Department at Stanford and Mohandas Narla of the Cell and Molecular Biology Division of the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory in California.11 Three more members were proposed at the Ladysmith meeting: Jacques Prost of the Institut Curie in Paris, Martin Zuckermann, a physicist at McGill, and David Boal, a theoretical biophysicist at SFU. All three were accepted by the advisory committee in June.12 As the group grew in numbers, the members refined and intensified their research projects. By the spring of 1996, six sets of program members were at work, including Bloom, Evans, Sackmann, and Cullis on the evolution of membranes in relation to the evolution of cholesterol; Evans, Tirrell, Parsegian, and van de Ven exploring single molecular adhesion bonds; Evans, Wortis, Sackmann, Cullis, Bloom, Gast, and Noolandi on shape variations and shape transformations of cells and cell-like objects; and Mouritsen, Bloom, Evans, and Cullis on membrane structure and function in relation to molecular interactions.13 Of the six, Bloom told the advisory committee in June that two were fully defined: his group on the evolution of membranes, and Evans and Sack-

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mann’s on cell shape variations and transformations. The other four were in various stages of development. But, Bloom added, since the beginning of the program, ‘we have done everything we set out to do.’14 Still, there was much more work in the future. Bloom outlined three new ‘generic categories’ which would ‘make up [the] body of the work over a number of years.’ They were exotic membranes and interfaces, how to use the insights from the SSSI program for new materials, and how to build resilient structures with soft materials.15 The other point of interaction for the group was its annual program meeting. Half of the minuscule budget of the program, $50,000, was spent on this meeting, and each year it attracted more and more leading scientists from around the world and a growing number of young scientists. Several of the members testified that it was the primary attraction of the program and a feat that could not have been accomplished without the support of CIAR. Sackmann, for one, called the meeting a brief but invaluable ‘worldwide university.’16 And, on three occasions during its initial cycle, the program sponsored well-attended and highly successful summer schools for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. Between April and June 1996, the program’s advisory committee was restructured. The committee became autonomous, no longer a subset of a larger materials science committee, and new members were added. Armstrong remained chair of the committee, and John Berlinsky and Peter Norton stayed on. They were joined by Theodore Steck, a biochemist from the University of Chicago, and the chemist Michael Klein and the physicist Tom Lubensky from the University of Pennsylvania. Mustard suggested, and program advisory committee members agreed, that for review purposes the program’s starting date should be 1993, not 1990, when Bloom was first appointed a fellow and the director. That meant that its first review would be scheduled for 1998.17 In the end, because of a transformation of the administration of the institute, beginning in 1996, the Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces Program review did not take place until 1999. The review panel was chaired by David Litster, vice-president and dean of research at MIT. Howard Berg from Harvard’s Department of Molecular and Cellular Biology, Kent Blaise, a chemist from the University of Pennsylvania, Philip Pincus, a physicist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Thomas Witten, a physicist from the University of Chicago, were its other members. This was the first CIAR review panel that did not include a member of the research council as its chair. The committee met and issued its report in the summer of 1999.18

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The report began with ‘overall impressions’ of the program. It highlighted the fact that the program was sparingly funded, receiving about $100,000 a year for most of its first cycle. A proposed increase to $200,000 would still leave it with far less funding than nearly all the other CIAR programs. Nevertheless, program members had ‘made significant cooperative progress on their main problem, understanding the mechanical properties of lipid bilayers.’ Their results had interested physical scientists studying the mechanical properties of soft matter. ‘While their understanding is significantly more mature than it was nine years ago,’ the panel continued, ‘they do not yet centrally engage fundamental problems in biology, nor have they developed significant biomimetic devices or materials.’ While the measurement tools developed by Evan Evans had had ‘a major influence internationally on related research,’ panel members believed that Bloom’s report and the information from other program members ‘offered a rather murky picture of where the program should go in the future.’ Why was this so? The review panel thought that part of the problem rested with a lack of leadership from the program’s advisory committee. It, they commented, ‘appears to be largely dysfunctional.’19 The panel was very impressed with Bloom’s leadership role, first in getting the program under way and then in the excellent rapport that had developed among program members, who were influenced by Bloom’s encouraging style of leadership. It also singled out the summer school initiative as a real contribution of ‘great educational benefit’ to the graduate students and postdoctoral attendees and as another way to ‘bind the groups together’ in the program. And, as was so often the case in institute programs, membership in this program had stimulated ‘significant shifts in research direction by some of the senior participants.’ On the other hand, the panel was ‘struck by the absence of young members (under the age of 40) ... The Panel was not aware, nor made aware, of any outstanding students who have been educated in the program who have become members of the network or who show great future promise for Canadian research achievement. This program has not been instrumental in attracting outstanding talent to Canada.’20 The panel hesitated to say whether this was due to a ‘lack of talent in Canada or to lack of sufficiently aggressive efforts to recruit younger researchers into the program.’21 The SSSI program had formed a ‘network with strong foreign representation,’ but the review panel was disappointed with the ‘amount of networking in Canada.’ There had been a ‘significant international

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impact’ from the liposomal shape work of the program, and it had had ‘a substantial impact’ on the development of the nodes in Denmark (Mouritsen) and France (Prost); it had also influenced the research directions of Gast at Stanford University. But, in a word, outside the core node at UBC, there had been too little networking among the Canadian members. Furthermore, ‘the Panel felt that the program was somewhat unbalanced in the direction of condensed matter physics.’22 Looking at the ‘current status’ of the field, the panel observed that the program’s agenda, discovering the mechanical behaviour of phospholipid bilayers, was a subfield in a larger field ‘which seeks to understand the mechanical properties of soft materials such as those found in living organisms.’ In the subfield, the CIAR group’s ‘progress so far has been substantial,’ and its work ‘is relevant to important applications such as liposomal drug delivery and transport of molecules across cell membranes.’ But, in order to ‘bear on central issues in biology and/or develop biomimetic materials,’ it was necessary to demonstrate which phenomena seen in the group’s model systems were ‘also important in living counterparts and to progress beyond lipid bilayers as simple models for membranes, since real membranes contain substantial amounts of protein inclusions of other associated macromolecules.’ The essence of the panel’s critique was that since the program’s beginnings, other scientists in the field had progressed beyond the work of the CIAR group. ‘Over the past decade,’ it declared, ‘the condensed matter physicists involved in these systems have made sufficient progress that the CIAR SSSI Program no longer occupies the unique position it once had.’ Nor did the review panel ‘perceive a corresponding evolution in the SSSI Program’s goals as would be required to maintain its relative standing.’23 The panel concluded that the program should not be continued. ‘Notwithstanding the considerable success the program has had,’ it observed, ‘the Panel did not perceive a sufficiently clear vision or sense of urgency for the future to convince it to recommend that the CIAR should support the current program for another five years at the increased level [of funding] contemplated.’ Instead, the review panel wrote: ‘We believe that the CIAR should have a program in which the intellectual tools and methods developed in the physical sciences are applied to problems in the life sciences. Accordingly, we recommend that the Research Council form a task force to design such a program. This task force should have important representation from the fields of physics, physical chemistry, analytical

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chemistry, biochemistry, polymer science, and biology. Some of the members of the current program should be included. ‘Indeed, a new CIAR program in this area might build upon recent developments in understanding the physical properties of membranes, focusing on some of the more difficult unsolved problems.’24 For the institute this was a new experience. No previous review panel had recommended that an institute research program be terminated. The advisory committee addressed the issue on 26 October 1999. It tried hard to put a good face on the review panel’s conclusions. The advisory committee believed that SSSI ‘accomplished a great deal and the change recommended by the committee should be seen as a positive thing and not a negative thing.’ ‘We agree with the recommendations,’ it decided, but ‘we want to recognize the accomplishments of the program’ and acknowledge that ‘underfunding [had been] an obstacle’ from the beginning.25 Looked at this way, the panel was recommending not termination so much as a change in direction, retaining the best assets from SSSI and using a task force to explore ways to use the techniques of the physical sciences in the life sciences. On 30 October, the panel’s report and the advisory committee’s response were taken up by the research council. After a brief discussion, Council concluded that the Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces Program should be closed.26 Stefan Dupré then wrote to all the program members, telling them that there would be no more program meetings, but other interactions between members would continue until formal closing at the end of June 2000.27 The records do not indicate how program members reacted to the decision.

14 The Knife Edge

The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research had begun its third cycle of operation in the fall of 1992. The Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, Cosmology, Evolutionary Biology, and Superconductivity programs had all passed their first reviews with excellent ratings and were progressing well in their second cycles. Economic Growth and Policy and Population Health were off to strong starts, and four other programs, Human Development, Law in Society, Earth System Evolution, and Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces were in various stages of development. Program members were located in most of Canada’s universities, in many of the best public and private institutions in the United States, and in universities and research centres in Great Britain, Europe, Israel, and Japan. Of the Canadian institutions, the University of British Columbia received the most support, more than $1.3 million in fiscal 1992–93. The University of Toronto was close behind at just more than $1 million, and McGill ranked third with more than $800,000 of support.1 On the revenue side of the ledger, the federal and provincial governments accounted for two-thirds of the funding but, after years of effort, the corporate sector and foundations had at long last begun to recognize the importance of CIAR’s work. In fiscal 1992–93, the private sector contributed more than $1.5 million to the institute. So there was much to be proud of. But when the research council convened for its tenth-anniversary meeting at the end of October 1992, the mood was more questing and introspective than celebratory. CIAR was in trouble. Before the cycle was finished, the turbulent times of the third cycle would precipitate fundamental change in its administration. The problem was an old one. CIAR did not have enough money to

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run its programs. Since 1987–88, it had been scraping by. It had had to consider closing its doors in the winter of 1988–89 and the spring of 1990. With ten programs running or getting started, every new program proposal developed, every new program given the green light to go ahead, every new program appointee approved added another obligation and challenge to the institute’s fragile and uncertain funding base. So Council did not dwell on the achievements of the past but deliberated on the prospects for the future, what ever-optimistic Fraser Mustard labelled ‘the next ten years.’ One point seemed evident: public funds would remain the essential base of CIAR revenue. But government support, especially that of the federal government, was getting harder and harder to acquire. It was understandable. Several of CIAR’s programs were interdisciplinary, so their structure and goals did not fit neatly into the agenda of most federal programs and budgets. And some programs, like Cosmology and probably Evolutionary Biology, operated at such a sophisticated and refined level of science that government officials had a hard time discovering what financial support would bring in tangible pay-offs Canada’s taxpayers. Provincial support, resting on the bedrock of Ontario generosity, initiated by Bette Stephenson a decade earlier, could more easily be tailored to a particular program or project. But the problem with provincial support was having to deal with many separate governments and developing multiple funding packages to market to each.2 In the corporate sector, Canadian companies had increasingly rallied to CIAR, but Mustard estimated that many ‘are already supporting the Institute at close to their capacity, and in some cases, beyond.’ With few exceptions, such as Royal Dutch Shell, most international companies doing business in Canada had their funding decisions made at the home office, usually in the United States. Among foundations, only three in Canada had an asset base larger than $300 million in 1992–93 and none had a base larger than $400 million, meaning that prospective support from Canadian foundations was near its limits.3 CIAR desperately needed to enlarge its funding base. To some council members, ‘the United States is a logical and likely place to seek such support.’ But how? Should the institute, as Mustard asked, ‘grow to become an international institute, as opposed to a Canadian institute, in its expansion and search for a broader and richer support base?’4 Obviously, many CIAR programs had key members in prestigious institutions in the United States, and that would help attract support. But should it

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‘establish a formal structure there?’ While nearly all council members agreed that CIAR should develop an ‘international component,’ Robin Armstrong, a founding director and council member, worried about ‘how one would protect the Canadian content of CIAR once the Institute ventured into the American market.’ Others joined in, concerned that ‘CIAR’s unique character would be lost in the U.S. and so the Institute would lose what had made it remarkable.’ Martin Wilk, consistently a leader in council deliberations, bluntly stated that ‘funding had to be within Canada if the Institute was to sustain its Canadian content.’ CIAR, from its earliest days, had promoted and supported excellence in research, but that, Wilk argued, was not enough. ‘To exist only to promote and sustain excellence is not in and of itself a good enough reason for the existence of CIAR.’5 The issue was not resolved at the October council meeting, but the notion that CIAR might establish a ‘branch plant’ in the United States had been quashed by the vigorous nationalist perception council members had of the institute’s character. In January 1993, Chris Paterson, the institute’s financial officer, estimated that expenses in 1992–93 would be ‘slightly less’ than the budgeted amount, but $2.5 million would be needed to balance the budget. The bleak outlook prompted William Blundell, a member of the board of directors, to ask whether a program that had matured could be ‘spun off somewhere else or become self-sustaining.’ ‘We cannot,’ he added, ‘keep adding programs.’6 The picture was no better in April when the board’s executive committee met. Paterson projected a deficit of $2.15 million and noted that CIAR had accounts payable to the universities of more than $2 million. He and Mustard had already mused about having to close the institute at the end of June, but they noted that the lease on the office space at 179 John Street (which the institute had occupied since 1988) would not expire for another five years. The institute did not close and ended its fiscal year on 30 June with a deficit of just less than $2 million and accounts payable to the universities of more than $2.7 million. Mustard also imposed a 10 per cent reduction on all program budgets for the coming fiscal year. He told the executive committee of the board that this hurt all programs and put four of them, Human Development, Economic Growth and Policy, Earth System Evolution, and Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces, at special risk.7 There was a desperate shortage of cash. Paterson reported that if no new revenue sources were found, the institute would finish fiscal 1993– 94 with a year-end deficit of $5 million and accounts payable to the uni-

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versities of almost $5.4 million. If $4 million of new money could be raised, he added, the accounts payable to the universities could be reduced to just less than $2 million by June 1994, and the institute would have a year-end deficit of a little more than half a million dollars. Although Mustard was requesting more funding from the federal government, prospects were slim. The only hope was to get substantial funds from the private sector, and the situation was very urgent. ‘If we cannot meet our goals over the next three months,’ Mustard said, ‘then closure of the Institute would have to be considered.’8 During the summer of 1993, Mustard worked out four options to resolve the financial crisis. He presented them to the board’s executive committee on 2 September. The first was to close all programs at the end of the month. The second was to reduce support for all fellows, scholars, and associates by an average of 50 per cent, impose a similar cut on the executive salaries at institute headquarters, and reduce travel and office expenditures. The third option was to close all programs except Artificial Intelligence and Robotics and the four social programs (Economic Growth and Policy, Population Health, Human Development, and Law in Society). Finally, eliminating all programs except the four social programs would cut institute expenditures by $3.5 million to $4 million, and the 1993–94 fiscal year would end with a deficit of about $250,000 and a cumulative deficit of $2.25 million.9 The board’s executive members – Reva Gerstein, Bette Stephenson, Gerald Hatch, Gerald Heffernan, and Len Bolger – quickly agreed that option two, the 50 per cent cut across the board, was the only one which would ‘give the Institute a chance to preserve what has been accomplished and provide an opportunity to build a future.’10 They thought the huge reduction could be sustained for the fiscal year. Mustard then proposed that he visit the key university presidents who were supporting the institute and seek their agreement on the proposal. He had to act quickly. If he did not have an agreement from the universities before the full board met on 5 October, ‘he would recommend closure.’11 Mustard’s first visit was to Rob Prichard and Adel Sedra, the president and the provost at the University of Toronto. Prichard and Sedra recognized that their university had received enormous benefits from its association with CIAR. It was a key node in the AIR program; CITA, a major component of the Cosmology Program, would not have existed without CIAR; and nearly every other institute program had key members in the university’s departments and faculties. They also knew how devastating a huge budget cut could be to research programs. Prichard and Sedra

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believed that now was the time to help CIAR. They also believed that they needed to find a solution that would not tie up a proposal of help for months in the university’s complex budget procedures. There was no time for that. Prichard and Sedra proposed that the university make a loan to the institute. It would allow CIAR to continue full funding to its program members. Moreover, the loan would be repayable only if the institute could return to financial stability. By the time Mustard gathered members of the research council, program directors, and selected program members together in an emergency meeting in Toronto on 22 September, nearly all the Canadian universities had agreed to follow U of T’s lead. One key university, UBC, which had the largest support from CIAR, had yet to be contacted.12 (President David Strangway quickly agreed when Mustard and Jim Ham met with him in Vancouver shortly after the emergency meeting.) Greatly relieved, the CIAR program directors left the meeting with instructions to tell their colleagues that ‘the Institute will be continuing and that the programs are to continue their operations.’13 Two weeks later, on 5 October, the board of directors met in Toronto. Mustard reported on the details of the Prichard-Sedra proposal. The universities would give the institute a non-interest-bearing loan to ensure program funding to cover members’ work from 1 October 1993 through 30 June 1994. CIAR would be committed to repayment of the loan only ‘if new funds became available.’ The 50 per cent reduction in executive salaries at headquarters and reduced expenditure on travel and office expenses remained in place. The loan agreement had a dramatic impact on the institute’s budget for 1993–94. The projected deficit for the year was reduced from $4.3 million to $1.9 million. With a bit of luck, the institute could get through to the end of the fiscal year in June 1994. But what of the future, of the days beyond 30 June? There was still an enormous amount of work to do, still millions of dollars to raise. 14




The key to raising those millions was the federal government. Its matching grants were the essential incentive to persuade the provinces and the private sector to continue, and even increase, their support for the institute. Without that base support, provinces other than Ontario and private donors might consider investing in CIAR too great a risk. As 1993 drew to a close, the prospects for increased federal support were

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not good. Ottawa’s grant had three years to run: $2 million in the current fiscal year, $1.75 million in 1994–95, and $1.75 million in 1995–96. It was not enough. A September 1992 request for increased funding remained unanswered in April 1993.15 In mid-June, Brian Mulroney, the prime minister, resigned, and his successor, Kim Campbell, was expected to call a general election in the fall. Campbell agreed to receive a delegation from the institute – Allan Taylor, Peter Nicholson, and Trevor Eyton – who urged action on the outstanding request. Her response was a letter to Mustard, which he saw as ‘a potentially positive statement.’ Soon after, the prime minister sent a second letter, extending her warmest congratulations to Mustard for winning the prestigious Royal Bank Award. Plans were made to step up efforts to get federal funds before the election, but there was no time. The Progressive Conservatives lost the general election of October 1993, and Jean Chrétien formed a new Liberal government. The Liberals had been out of power since 1984. The process of persuading the federal government to adequately fund CIAR had to begin all over again. By December, initial contacts had been made with some important allies close to the new government. John Godfrey, formerly an institute vice-president, had won a seat in Don Valley West in Toronto and was eager to help. Another champion was Lorna Marsden, president of Wilfrid Laurier University and a long-time participant in CIAR affairs. She had been a Liberal senator for several years before resigning to take the university post. She contacted Chaviva Hošek, the new prime minister’s director of policy and research. But by the spring of 1994, the $2 million in funding anticipated for 1993–94 had still not been released. The new government also altered the funding terms. It would no longer give funds on a matching grant basis. Instead, it had sent CIAR a one-time contract that specified that upon signing, it would release half of the money. The remainder would be withheld until CIAR had submitted and the government had approved a business plan for 1994–95 and 1995–96 that would be tied to ‘secured revenues.’ The plan had to be delivered by 28 May. And if the institute did not sign the contract and return it to Ottawa in a matter of days, it would be void. With great reluctance, the board’s executive committee recommended signing the contract to get the first $1 million. But the impact of the new terms could be devastating. ‘If we were to create a business plan that met these specifications,’ Mustard told the board of directors, ‘we would have to drop about 120 of our Fellows, Associates and Scholars which is more than 70% of the Institute’s activity.’16

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With Mustard leading the effort, lobbying in Ottawa became intense. A major objective was to alter the terms of the contract. Godfrey took charge of that challenge in vigorous, ‘very blunt’ discussions with the new minister of industry, John Manley. Manley knew nothing about CIAR but seemed sympathetic. But his officials balked. They and the Treasury Board reviewed the institute’s financial history and, accustomed to standard business practices, immediately sized it up as rife with financial mismanagement. Marsden joined Godfrey, and Manley finally agreed to meet his officials and Godfrey on the evening of 3 May.17 Godfrey had asked for a total of $4.6 million for 1994–95. Manley’s deputy minister, Harry Swain, began by arguing that CIAR was mismanaged in that it had never raised secure funding. Mustard recorded that Godfrey ‘then got Manley committed to the need for a solution through a variety of devices ranging from political and emotional blackmail to delightful arguments.’ In the end, Manley instructed his deputy to ‘do something.’18 At last, in September, two and a half months after the close of the fiscal year, Harry Swain told Mustard that Treasury Board had agreed to release the second million dollars promised for 1993–94. There was still no word about 1994–95. The institute had asked for $4.6 million, but Swain had gotten only $3.5 million in firm commitments from several government departments. If that was going to be the result, it would mean that CIAR would have to raise substantially more funding in the private sector than planned. Still, Mustard unhappily concluded that ‘we should leave the federal government at $3.5 million because I don’t think we can spend the energy to work with the departments to get them to change their attitude.’19 By early November, anticipated federal support for 1994–95 had crept up to $3.85 million, but Treasury Board had rejected the business plan of May 1994 and a revised plan had been submitted at the end of October. Mustard hoped that it would be approved quickly and the federal funds released at the end of the month. They were not. The revised business plan had to go to Cabinet for approval, and a commitment to funding could be delayed into the new year.20 All of this put increasing pressure on the institute to step up its private fundraising capacity. Although federal funding was the keystone to financial viability, Mustard was convinced that he ‘could not do anymore insofar as the federal government was concerned, and that changes in their approach would have to be brought about by others.’21 Beyond that, his time was so taken up in finding support for the institute that he

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was ‘not able to spend the time needed on the programs and their continued development.’22 For the first ten years, maintaining regular contact with each of the research programs, attending program meetings, and keeping in touch with program directors had been a major priority in his monthly schedule. But since 1992, his large file of records of meetings contained only occasional evidence of contacts regarding programs tucked among page after page of notes about the fight for funding, mostly concerning the federal government. In addition, the research council got much less attention. Since the tenth-anniversary meeting in the fall of 1992, it had met in February 1993 to do regular business. The emergency meeting in September 1993 had brought together the council and program directors to debate the future of the institute. At the council’s sole meeting in 1994, in late October, Mustard explained that the smaller number of meetings had been due to ‘the unstable financial situation and thus the uncertain future of the Institute.’23 It was clear that he and his tiny staff could not do the job that needed to be done. They needed help, and they needed it quickly. Two of his prominent directors came to the rescue. Gerald Hatch and Gerald Heffernan offered the institute $2 million over five years to ‘finance the development function of the Institute.’24 The donation included funds to recruit a development officer, whose responsibility would be to help the chair of the board of directors raise funds. Hatch, Heffernan, and Mustard anticipated that the new person would head a new Institute Foundation with the role of securing long-term funding for the institute. Mustard had begun musing about changes in the leadership of CIAR in the spring of 1994 when he and Rob Prichard met on a plane trip to Vancouver. Mustard raised the name of David Johnston, who was about to finish his term as principal of McGill, and Prichard warmly endorsed the idea of Johnston’s participation. Whether Johnston would take over the chairship of the board and lead its revitalization or, perhaps, replace Mustard as president was not clear at that stage, but Prichard ‘would strongly support Johnston taking on the Institute.’25 By the summer of 1994, Mustard was courting Johnston to become chair of the board. The unresolved funding issue was an obstacle. Mustard told Harry Swain that if federal funding remained uncertain, ‘there would be difficulty in our being able to make the case to David and two of the Institute’s major donors would be reluctant to make their commitment for support of the Institute and David Johnston.’26 With the final 1993–94 payment in hand and work continuing on the 1994–95

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federal grant, Mustard met Johnston at his McGill office on 13 September. They talked for several hours and retired to Johnston’s home for a family dinner and more conversation about the institute. Johnston agreed that the institute needed a development officer to head up a new Institute Foundation. He was eager to talk to people in the private sector and the government to ‘build support for the Institute.’ He was also ‘a strong champion of the members of the Institute’s programs working with us in the fund raising.’27 A few weeks later, Johnston told Mustard that he would come to Toronto every Tuesday to work at the institute, and the two agreed to hire a consulting firm to conduct a search for a development officer.28 On 2 November, the board of directors elected Johnston as its chair. Reva Gerstein, who was stepping down, remained on the board.30 Johnston set ambitious goals for the board and the institute. His funding target was to secure $3 million to $4 million from the federal government for 1994–95 and 1995–96, $2 million to $3 million from the provincial governments for each year, and private funding under a ‘realistic plan’ of $2.5 million in 1995–96 and $4 million in 1996–97. Looking at the board, Johnston believed its current size, twenty-two members, was correct for a ‘substantial decision making body.’ But he believed that a better approach would be to have an expanded board, perhaps forty to fifty members, which would be recruited to act ‘primarily as ambassadors for the Institute.’ They would meet once a year, and an executive committee of seven to ten persons would ‘be the central locus of legal responsibility for the Institute.’ It would meet monthly or quarterly. Johnston, Mustard, the development officer, and program members would all be involved in a funding effort ‘to expand our support beyond the magic 100 potential patrons and 40 secure ones.’30 Johnston’s plan was discussed at a board meeting at the end of February 1995. In April, the board’s executive committee approved a gradual expansion of the board membership. By then Douglas Todgham, who had been at the University of Toronto and director of development at the Art Gallery of Ontario, had been appointed vice-president for development and head of the Institute Foundation.31 In the spring of 1995, Treasury Board finally approved the institute’s business plan. The board stipulated that the institute could not carry a negative balance for more than two consecutive years. And, in an extraordinary move, it also approved a five-year federal grant of $3.5 million a year. With the business plan in place, the contract idea was shelved. But so, too, was the old one-for-one matching grant formula.

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From 1994–95 through 1998–99, the grant would be on a one-for-two matching basis: in order to receive the full annual allocation, CIAR would have to raise $7 million annually from its provincial and private supporters.32 Still, the federal grant would be a stable financial base for the institute for five years. If the other sectors met their goals, the institute could finish 1995–96 with a surplus of more than $1 million and begin repaying the university loans that had kept program activity alive through the financial crisis. It was a huge challenge for the new regime.




Once again, the board of directors had to review the options for the future of the institute. Martin Wilk had presented them at the 28 February meeting. The first was devolution of the work of the institute: a phaseout of the organization, handing over its programs to other sponsors. A second was to retain all the fundamental features of the existing institute. That would preserve the status quo, but Wilk, one of the authors of the business plan, emphasized that the ‘status quo cannot be maintained.’ A third option was to broaden the institute’s mandate to include basic research initiatives and an ‘applied arm’ that would do project research and policy analysis for governments, industry, and other clients. Or CIAR could shift from supporting sustainable research programs to responding to ‘short-term opportunities,’ although doing so ran the risk of ‘opportunity’ projects ‘petering out.’ Board members clearly favoured the third, expansionary option of adding applied research to the institute’s mandate. They realized that the change would require a strong ‘outreach’ program. A task force, chaired by Arnold Naimark and including program, board, and council members, was appointed to work with Robert Paterson to develop a strategy.33 Paterson, a former vice-president of CIBC, had joined the institute earlier in the year as senior adviser to Mustard to work on outreach.34 At the beginning of May, the task force’s report on an outreach plan, designed to establish and market an ‘applied arm’ of the institute, was approved by the executive committee of the research council.35 The ‘applied arm’ plan was both a potential source of revenue and a marketing tool for CIAR. Potential donors interested in supporting projects in applied research could be added to the list of traditional donors who supported the basic research programs. But no action was taken, and attention remained fixed on normal funding efforts. The institute was not meeting its challenging goals. At

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the end of April 1995, it had raised just under $1.5 million from the private sector and $1.8 million from the provinces for 1995–96. With the new one-for-two matching grant formula for federal funds, the institute could draw on only a bit more than half of the federal grant in the coming fiscal year. ‘If we are not able to meet our targets,’ Mustard bluntly told the board, ‘we will have to close or modify programs significantly.’ The institute’s officers would monitor fundraising on a monthly basis and do a full review in September.36 The outlook in July 1995 was no better. A projected surplus of $600,000 for fiscal 1994–95 turned out to be a deficit of more than $1 million. CIAR was skating perilously close to the edge. The agreement with the federal government would not allow it to operate for more than two consecutive years in deficit. If it did, the federal grant would collapse. In October, Mustard told the executive committee of the board that the institute was not going to qualify for a full federal match on its funding initiative for the first quarter of 1995–96. The universities were getting nervous about their loans to the institute, and university accounts payable were at an ‘untenable level and will remain so at the end of the current fiscal year.’ The only solution, he added, was to greatly increase the institute’s revenue or to reduce its expenditures. He again proposed an immediate program expenditure reduction of 50 per cent and urged that a plan to implement the cut be developed by a new strategic planning committee of the board. A month later, Gerstein, chair of the committee, reported that an annualized 50 per cent reduction ‘would make it extremely difficult to sustain the scale and scope, integrity and commitment to the Institute’ of potential donors. The committee rejected the 50 per cent reduction and asserted that ‘the best chance to sustain a viable institutional framework was a reduction of 20 to 30%.’ Another board group, the program adjustment committee, also agreed that 50 per cent was too drastic. It focused on a 23 to 33 per cent reduction. The executive committee unanimously agreed to a program spending reduction of 23 per cent.37




CIAR’s research programs were often threatened but rarely handicapped during the long financial crisis. For instance, at the beginning of the crisis, early in 1993, the institute’s research officers were planning an important conference. The Honda Foundation had been working with the Science Council of Canada on a conference in Ottawa on eco-

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nomic prosperity and health. When the science council closed, Martin Wilk suggested that CIAR take over the project. In addition to the costs of bringing participants from Japan, the Honda Foundation would contribute $300,000. The Department of External Affairs had agreed to cover some additional miscellaneous costs. CIAR and the foundation drew up a three-day program agenda and a select list of thirty people to invite. They would come from the institute’s programs, other Canadian institutions, and researchers from Japan. Another group of up to ninety observers would also be invited. A much larger public event on the same theme was also planned. As the preparations continued, the conference theme shifted to ‘determinants of health.’ The conference, ‘Prosperity, Health and Well-Being,’ took place in Toronto, 16–18 October 1993. It was a great success. It attracted much international attention to the institute, and an issue of the prestigious journal Daedalus published the papers from the conference proceedings.38 Work in the research programs continued; program meetings were held as scheduled, and some new appointments were made to programs. Inevitably, the debate over membership categories, which had begun in the first program cycle, was rehearsed again by both board members and the research council. As before, it centred on the associate category. By 1993, the characteristics of associate membership were very diverse. The greatest source of contention was that some program associates got partial funding over and above their interaction costs while others did not. Yet, increasingly, program members, advisory committees, and the research council insisted that the scientific and intellectual qualifications of associates be at the same very high standard as for fellows. At the same time, in an ad hoc fashion, a few newer fellows were being given only partial funding. What, then, differentiated partially funded associates from partially funded fellows? Was it only that associates were not expected to give as large a commitment to their CIAR programs as fellows were? If so, how much less? And why? As the debate continued, another factor emerged. Programs, it was realized, could get more out of their budgets if some or all of their program fellows dropped to partial funding status, freeing up dollars to make additional partially funded fellow appointments. The executive committee of the research council worried over these matters in July and December 1994.39 In May 1995, the board’s executive committee took the issue in hand. At the time, there were thirty fully funded and twelve partially funded fellows in the institute, 140 associates with various types of appoint-

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ments, and nine scholars. The committee recommended doing away with the associate category except in rare special circumstances, such as when an appointment would bring access to a particular person, institution, or facility that would benefit a research program. These special associate appointments would be limited to three-year terms. In the current group of 140 people, those who shared the high appointment standards of fellows were to be converted to the fellow category. Normally, then, institute programs would include only scholars and fellows. The funding of fellows was to be put on a sliding scale matched to the quality of the each fellow’s contribution to his or her program. In November 1995, these recommendations were endorsed by the research council, and program directors and advisory committees were to be asked to ‘discuss how this should proceed.’40 The financial crisis also raised questions about the life cycle of research programs. If, for example, a research program garnered a second successful peer review, perhaps even a third, could it or should it be terminated? Could it or should it be turned over to the sponsorship of another institution or agency? Even if the institute had stable and ample funding, was it expected to support each and all of its successful research programs forever? If that were the case, but if the institute’s stable and ample funding nonetheless had a cap, CIAR would reach its funding capacity with existing programs and be unable to sponsor new research initiatives. Although the point had never been fully debated and considered at the institute, it was certain that neither the founders nor the present leadership and advisers anticipated supporting all its successful programs forever. The general question became specific in January 1993. The Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Program, now directed by Steve Zucker at McGill, was scheduled for its second peer review during the year. Mustard told the board that the customary two-stage review would take place; in the first stage, the panel would evaluate the intellectual thrust of the AIR program and its relevance to the current state of knowledge in related fields of science and technology. For the life cycle issue, that stage of the review would be crucial: it would ‘determine whether the program is terminated or not.’41 The review was completed, and AIR was again recommended for continuation. The review panel did strongly recommend rejuvenation of the program and suggested that some of its members step aside, so that younger people representing a broader spectrum of disciplines than the original group could be appointed to reflect the wider group of interests in AIR that had emerged in the last ten years. The exec-

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utive committee of the research council took up the review report and its recommendations in July 1994, as the financial crisis deepened. A long discussion took place and no conclusions were reached.42 In the fall of 1994, Zucker and other program leaders discussed using the funds freed up from retiring fellows to provide partial funding for a broader group of new fellow appointments.43 Then, a year later, suddenly – ‘arbitrarily,’ as Mustard put it – AIR was terminated. In order to meet the institute’s objectives, the strategic planning committee of the board and Mustard decided that, in addition to the 23 percent funding reduction for all programs, the AIR program had to be cut. It was the institute’s most expensive program – $1.6 million per year – but it had also spawned two successful offshoots, IRIS (the Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems, a Network of Centres of Excellence established in 1989) and Precarn, both of which had just received substantial new funding. Through these, some of AIR’s research work and networking would continue. Before the announcement was made to the research council on 22 November 1995, Mustard visited every program member and university president involved to break the devastating news.44 Letters expressing disappointment and regret arrived on Mustard’s desk from most of the program members. But all had high praise for CIAR. ‘In our field we have particular cause to be grateful to you,’ Alan Mackworth wrote from UBC. ‘By selecting AIR as the very first program, the Institute gave us credibility, recognition and support that other organizations were unwilling to provide. As a team we went on to build PRECARN and IRIS as unique models for networked research and development. Personally I have been able to achieve goals that would otherwise have been impossible. And our Laboratory for Computational Intelligence is now established as a world leader. I am grateful to you and the Institute for your critically important support over the years.’45 Mackworth, Zucker, and other members would continue to work on the AIR projects, and they were discussing ways to continue affiliation, without funding, with the patron institution that had been so important to their careers. Closing the program ‘was not easy to do,’ Mustard ruefully told the board’s executive committee early in 1996, ‘but has not created too much rancour in the system.’46




The unending and at times desperate quest for funds and the compromises in support for programs were discouraging for Mustard. By the

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summer of 1994, his reservoir of persuasion with the federal government had run dry and, uncharacteristically, he admitted that changing the government’s attitude about CIAR ‘would have to be brought about by others.’ ‘This thing up at Ottawa was dicey,’ Gerald Hatch recalled. ‘They drove Fraser and all of us nuts – I mean, how they kept you on the knife edge.’47 Mustard also became increasingly concerned about his failure to maintain contact with the institute’s programs. In April 1995, Mustard met with David Grier and Doug Todgham. Grier, a long-time supporter of the institute and key member of the Human Development advisory committee, ‘expressed concern that the federal funding crisis had sapped JFM’s energy away from the programs and intellectual leadership that some need.’48 On 19 July, two days after Mustard had told the executive committee of the board that a predicted surplus of nearly $700,000 in fiscal 1994–95 had turned out to be a deficit of more than $1 million, he met with his friend John R. Evans. Mustard noted that Evans ‘had some very strong advice and guidance about steps that should be taken.’ Seriously worried about Mustard’s health, Evans bluntly told him it was time to retire from the institute presidency. ‘Living through the still tough financial matters of this period,’ Mustard observed some years later, ‘it would be better for me to get out and hopefully new blood could keep the thing going.’49 Over the next few weeks, Mustard informed board members, the research council, and program personnel that he would retire on 30 June 1996. There was much to do before that. A discouraging proposal by Mustard recommended cutting program expenditure in half.50 In the late fall of 1995, the board’s executive committee rejected the proposal but eliminated the AIR program as a cost-cutting measure. The board’s strategic planning committee, chaired by Gerstein, would develop a succession plan and find a new president for the institute.51 And Mustard and Len Bolger set out on one last bold venture in privatesector fundraising. At a meeting in Toronto in September 1995, they had sketched out an ambitious plan. They knew that the institute had to have a secure support base of $7 million to $8 million annually from the private sector and two levels of government. That goal had not been reached and was not going to be reached in the 1995–96 fiscal year. What was needed was an immense sum, the interest on which could provide the necessary base support. They proposed a loan of $100 million from a private donor, which could be repaid over several years. They chose Cliff Rae, a Calgary friend of Bolger, as their target.52

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Rae, an established supporter of the institute whom Mustard had met in 1988, was counsel for a private foundation with substantial resources. Mustard had carefully cultivated a relationship with Rae, beginning with a 1989 proposal for foundation support for three fellows in the Population Health Program. An agreement was finally put in place for a donation of $200,000 over two years for the Economic Growth and Policy Program in 1992. Two years later, the foundation, which preferred to remain anonymous to all but the most senior people at the institute, gave $500,000 over five years to support the Human Development Program. Now Mustard and Bolger went back to Rae and proposed the $100-million loan. Negotiations went on for several months as Rae promoted CIAR at the foundation. He rejected the notion of a $100-million loan as too ambitious, saying it would be easier just to donate several million dollars a year to the institute. Finally, just before Mustard left office in June 1996, a deal was struck for $4.5 million over three years, by far the largest private-sector donation the institute had ever received.53 Meanwhile, the strategic planning committee was busily working on the succession. Gerstein reported in February 1996 that it was consulting widely with the research council, various advisory committee members, and some of the institute fellows. It also relied on Lou Siminovitch, a founding member of the institute, and John R. Evans and George Connell, former presidents of the University of Toronto, as consultants. ‘The Committee,’ Gerstein said, ‘currently is considering an individual who does not have a science background, but is highly regarded.’54 Two months later, she told the executive committee of the board that her group had ‘completed its task.’ Stefan Dupré, a prominent senior professor of political science at the University of Toronto and frequent administrative adviser to several governments in Canada, had ‘accepted the job as the next President of the Institute and will take office on July 1, 1996.’55 On 15 April, Dupré met with the full board of directors. He told them he was ‘ready to take on the challenge of maintaining the vision of the founders in pushing back the frontiers of human knowledge,’ adding that ‘if the Institute does not continue to concentrate on interdisciplinary excellence to advance our understanding of complex problems, it will lose its soul.’56 Mustard was pleased. He had worked with Dupré on an Ontario royal commission and on Ontario’s Council on University Affairs, and he admired his successor’s administrative talent. The research council also convened a meeting to introduce Dupré to each of the institute’s programs. Over two days, the program directors and some program mem-

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bers sketched out their work. Len Bolger, reporting to the board, styled the meeting ‘CIAR – 14 years and one weekend.’ ‘Very valuable work is being done and it must proceed,’ he said. ‘If we did not have this Institute at this time of great change, we would have to invent it.’57 On 16 April, the research council had a regular business meeting to review the financial status of the institute, program development and rejuvenation, the issue of full or partial funding for fellows, and the developing agenda for ‘outreach.’ An important aid to that agenda, Council suggested, was to engage a historian to write the history of the institute.58 On 25 June 1996, Mustard met with the executive committee of the board. It was his last meeting as president of CIAR. He would be continuing in the institute as the Bell Canada Fellow, working on development of the research programs with Dupré. Mustard would also become president of the new Founders’ Network, a group of long-time supporters of CIAR who would help promote the objectives of the institute and assist in CIAR’s outreach initiative.59 Mustard hinted at a coming reversal of the institute’s financial fortunes: it would close fiscal 1995–96 with a positive balance. Doug Todgham added that at the end of June, the institute had secured $4.5 million in private-sector support (the anonymous donation). The 1996–97 budget, Mustard reported, had a revenue target of $10.5 million and a potential operating surplus of $1.2 million. Among the details, there had been an increase in head office expenses because of staff expansion and having both a president and a chair of the board on salary. Even so, the headquarters administrative function cost but a tiny fraction of the overall budget, a minuscule 2 per cent a year.60 Mustard closed the meeting with reflections on the fourteen years of his presidency. He had begun in a borrowed office, with a staff of one (Peter Munsche) and a great reservoir of hope and goodwill from the founding directors and research council. John Wilson, the founding chair of the board, provided the first installment of start-up funds, Bette Stephenson and the Ontario government the second. The institute ‘started with very little,’ Mustard remarked, ‘and will, by the end of June have raised from nothing (for what seemed a strange idea to many) more than $65,000,000 through the continuing work of the Board and the friends of the Institute.’ There were more than 180 program members at work in the research programs in the early summer of 1996. ‘As Founding President, I hope you get as much satisfaction as I do from what we and our colleagues have accomplished,’ he told the board members. Stefan Dupré’s appointment as president, Mustard concluded, ‘has been widely acclaimed and brings new credibility to the Institute.’61

15 The Law Program

When the institute’s law program had started, in 1986, its focus was on sanctions and rewards. Its most visible accomplishment in the late 1980s was Martin Friedland’s symposium on that topic in May 1986. The symposium produced a valuable set of essays by a group of Canadian and American historians, sociologists, psychologists, and scholars in management and public policy that reviewed the history and applications of legal sanctions and rewards in the Anglo-American judicial system. The book, Sanctions and Rewards in the Legal System, was edited by Friedland and published in 1989. In 1987, David Johnston, the principal of McGill, Guy Rocher, and others formed an advisory committee to assist Friedland with program development, and John Hagan was appointed the second program fellow. At year’s end, the advisory committee recommended to Council that the program’s perspective and approach be broadened to address in depth how law worked in society and how the law interacted with other social controls. In February 1988, Rocher, who was also a member of the research council, reported that he and Friedland had met with Rod Macdonald, the dean of law at McGill, and Jean-Guy Belley, professor of law and sociology at Laval. They discussed broadening the program to include comparative research in the Quebec and English-Canadian legal systems. They also had decided to convene another colloquium in May 1988, bringing together social scientists and legal scholars from a number of Quebec universities. The group hoped that, as at Friedland’s earlier interdisciplinary seminar, a number of specific research proposals would emerge from the meeting.1 In June, Rocher reported that the colloquium had been successful and work had begun to form a research

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node in Quebec to develop an empirical approach to comparative study of the common law and civil law systems. Rocher added news of the progress of the sanctions and rewards part of the program as it advanced its research agenda. Council accepted Rocher’s recommendation that Paul Reed of Statistics Canada, who had interests in both the quantitative and the qualitative aspects of legal research, be appointed a fellow.2 All seemed to be going well. But Friedland was becoming concerned about the direction the program was taking. He met with Mustard in the fall of 1988 and told him that it was becoming ‘too diffuse.’ Friedland was anxious to keep the momentum going in sanctions and rewards but was worried about the broader development being advocated by the advisory committee. The committee decided that Friedland should continue to lead the sanctions and rewards work and that Rod Macdonald at McGill should be asked to develop the broader approach. Macdonald’s mandate was to create an intellectual framework for the whole program that would present a ‘coherent focus’ on each of its components.3 The framework document would be presented to Council in December.4 Council did not meet that month, and drafting an intellectual framework proved more difficult than expected. Instead of a framework document, on 24 January 1989, Friedland, Macdonald, Reed, and Prichard brought another proposal to Council, seeking full status for the Law and Society Program. Friedland and Macdonald reported on progress in their respective program areas, and Reed reported on the growing interaction between social scientists and legal scholars in studying the effectiveness of law. Questions from members of Council indicated continuing concerns. Especially critical was the lack of any evidence of interaction among program members, or ideas about how such interaction might quickly develop. Law and Society had done important work, but it had no scheme for interaction nearly three years after the first fellow had been appointed. Council members argued that CIAR had not been established to support independent research projects, even if they were related and conducted under the umbrella of a common theme. Other agencies provided that kind of research support. CIAR had a different mission: its role was to encourage and develop active, interdisciplinary collaboration between the members of its research programs. Pressed on the point, Prichard told Council that there would still ‘have to be several meetings of the group to develop an agenda for cooperative research.’ That was the problem: as Martin Wilk put it, ‘they must

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do more than simply produce studies; they must assemble people in synergistic relationships.’ Council, after much discussion, accepted the executive committee’s recommendation that Macdonald be made a fellow and that he succeed Friedland as program director while Friedland continued to lead the sanctions and rewards initiative. Council dodged the main proposal to elevate Law and Society to full program status. It handed that responsibility back to the program advisory committee and Council’s executive committee.5 Johnston, the chair of the advisory committee, met with the executive committee shortly after the Council meeting. ‘The issue was to create an intellectual framework embracing both the social sciences and law,’ he said. ‘It is important that hypotheses are formed in order to focus the research.’ The executive committee eventually agreed that Law and Society could be elevated to full program status if it met three conditions. First, it had to develop ‘strong links between legal scholars and social scientists.’ Second, it had to establish ‘an intellectual framework’ for its work. And, finally, the program’s advisory committee had to be ‘strengthened’ to reflect the first two conditions. In short, both the program, under Macdonald’s leadership, and the advisory committee had to change.6 And that proved no easier to do than it had been before. Ten months later, in December 1989, Mustard reported to the research council that restructuring the advisory committee had not been done and that Macdonald was still working on ‘defining the intellectual framework.’ ‘This program is struggling,’ he said.7 Even so, in 1990, Friedland published two more books on sanctions and rewards: Securing Compliance, an edited volume of seven interdisciplinary studies by various legal scholars and social scientists, and Regulating Traffic Safety, written by Friedland, Michael Trebilcock, and a young legal scholar at the University of Toronto, Kent Roach.8 At the institute, Mustard and Jim Ham wrestled with the need to strengthen the advisory committee and reform the program. In April, they sought help from Harry Arthurs, the president of York University and former dean at the Osgoode Hall Law School. Years earlier, in 1983, Arthurs had led a group that issued a report called Law and Learning for the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. The report had had a major impact on legal and social science scholars by arguing strongly for interdisciplinary research and empirical research in law.9 A meeting of Arthurs, Mustard, Macdonald, Belley, Reed, and Ray Breton, a senior sociologist at U of T, to develop an action plan quickly followed. Macdonald, who had worked for more than a year to find a

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definition of an intellectual framework for Law and Society, pinpointed the program’s predicament. The program, he said, ‘was in a box mainly due to the fact that almost all research in law and society assumes the categories and concepts that are thrown up by the law itself ... There is a lack of deep scholarship that one could use as a springboard and thus we would have to begin at ground level.’ Arthurs cautioned that ‘it might be too early to decide exactly what had to be done.’ ‘If a group of four or six people could get together to discuss their ideas and could achieve effective articulation,’ he suggested, ‘this would in itself be an accomplishment.’ The meeting concluded with a decision to find six or eight people of ‘depth and breadth’ to form a working group and to hold a two- or three-day seminar to set the parameters for the changed program.10 At the end of August 1990, David Johnston stepped down as chair of the advisory committee. Arthurs agreed to take the position and work with Mustard and Macdonald to restructure the committee.11 A month later Mustard reported to the research council that Arthurs and Macdonald had picked two foci for the program. The first was ‘the concept of normativity as involving both instrumental and symbolic elements’; the second was ‘the notion of legal pluralism.’ As Arthurs explained in a 1991 presentation, the program wanted to develop a new theory of law which broke away from the conventional thinking that law was a system of commands, enunciated and enforced by a state sanctioning system. The program’s new approach would recognize that the norms of society’s social and economic behaviour were generated by more than just state legislation and adjudication. A wide variety of formal and informal processes in markets, workplaces, universities, neighbourhoods, and so on were also very important. In addition, the state sanctioning system was not the only effective or important method of translating these several norms into social behaviour. And many of the other influences on social and economic behaviour ‘bear no resemblance to the conventional model of law.’ What was needed was to identify and ‘map’ the several normative systems and understand how they related to one another and to state law.12 Macdonald, Mustard concluded, would continue to work on an intellectual framework for the program. He would also follow up on the 1988 seminar to develop a network of legal scholars and social scientists from Quebec universities. Finally, Macdonald would also establish a parallel network among English-language scholars in Canada and prepare for a three-day seminar of that working group.13 Macdonald worked throughout the fall of 1990 and reported in Febru-

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ary 1991 that creation of the Quebec network was going well and that he wanted to establish an organization of ‘Quebec Associates of the Law Program.’ He had also met with colleagues on the West Coast and hoped to set up a western network soon. Networks for the Atlantic provinces and Ontario were to follow on his agenda. Once they were all in place, their task would be to identify ‘possibly five individuals [who] may emerge as leaders who we would plug into the Law Program.’14 A year later, in February 1992, Macdonald told the advisory committee that he and Friedland, Belley, and Reed were all working on individual research projects relating to Law in Society (the new title for the program) and that by 1994 he hoped to see monographs from Belley, Friedland, and himself, a collection of essays from his Quebec network, and a collection of theoretical essays from the emerging English-language networks.15 Liora Salter, a senior scholar at the Osgoode Hall Law School, had accepted an invitation to join the program as an associate. In July 1992, the board of directors approved the appointment of Belley, who had been an associate, as a fellow in the program. At that stage, Mustard still described Law in Society as a ‘provisional program under development.’16 Finally, in February 1993, more than five years after the first program advisory committee had recommended that the perspective of the program be broadened beyond sanctions and rewards, Macdonald and Salter presented a new ‘framework’ document to the research council. Its goal was to ‘reformulate the theoretical paradigm’ of law. The theoretical framework would seek to discover where state law fits into the regimes of society’s norms, what those norms are, and how they are influenced by law. The framework would also examine how the norms related to one another and the relationship between state law and customary law. Salter went on to outline the individual research programs of the members, noting that each had to address the larger questions of the new framework. And Macdonald reported on the still incomplete development of the several networks and the hope that from them would emerge a small new group of leaders for the Law in Society program. After some discussion, the research council approved the framework proposal. Eight years after Martin Friedland had presented his initial plans, Law in Society finally became a full-scale research program.17




The new framework document was titled ‘Law and the Determinants of Social Order.’ Macdonald organized four meetings in quick succession,

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in June and November 1993 and April and October 1994, where program members explored major issues that had been outlined in the 1993 framework. At the April 1994 meeting, Salter proposed a new dimension for the program with an investigation of the ‘institutions of the new economy.’ Program members hoped that this initiative could build linkages to the institute’s Economic Growth and Policy Program. At a follow-up meeting in May, program members and guests began to work on a prospectus for the project. Further work was done at the October 1994 meeting. Two new associate members were there, Michael Asch, an anthropologist at the University of Calgary, and David Wolfe, a political scientist at the University of Toronto. Asch joined Friedland, Macdonald, Belley, and the advisory committee members Justice Barry Stuart of the Yukon Territorial Court, Johan Mohr from York University, and Sally Engle Merry from Wellesley College in Massachusetts to explore another new initiative for program members who would not be working on the institutions of the new economy. They settled on a tentative theme of ‘law in everyday life: imagining justice.’ Both themes, Macdonald reported, ‘continue to be grounded in the Critical Legal Pluralism intellectual framework.’18 By October 1994, Macdonald’s term as director of the program was drawing to a close. Some months earlier, he had told Mustard that he wished to resign as program director. For five years, following the mandate given to him by the research council, he had worked hard to broaden the program from its original base in sanctions and rewards. It had passed through a phase as the Law in Society Program and had gone on to further refinement under its current title, the Law and the Determinants of Social Order Program. Work was now under way to refine the two new themes explored in the 1994 program meetings. A Quebec network was beginning to coalesce, and starts had been made on establishing several networks in English-speaking Canada. During the same period, Macdonald had assumed several other responsibilities outside CIAR. In 1989–91, he had chaired a task force on access to justice for the Quebec Ministry of Justice. He worked for the Canadian Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples in 1991 and 1992, served as scholar in residence to the Ontario Law Reform Commission from 1991 to 1993, worked with the Canadian Law Reform Commission in 1993 and 1994, and produced a study for Ontario’s Civil Justice Review in 1994.19 He would stay in the program and continue to contribute to its research agenda. At the same time that Macdonald wished to step down as director,

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Harry Arthurs wanted to resign as the chair of the advisory committee and join the program as an active research member. Aware of Macdonald’s impending departure, Arthurs suggested that Liora Salter be considered for the program’s directorship.20 Within a month the transition had begun. Mustard announced to the executive committee of the research council in July 1994 that Salter would be assuming the directorship and Arthurs was going to be recommended for fellowship.21 When Council met in October, there was a hitch. Mustard recommended that both Arthurs and Salter be made fellows and that Salter be appointed program director. Before making a decision on these recommendations, Council said, it wanted a full report on the progress that had been made by the program since its confirmation of full program status in February 1993. What, in fact, had been accomplished in the past five years, and what were the goals of the program?22 The answer came in two parts. The first, in January 1995, was Macdonald’s final report as outgoing program director. It was a detailed, comprehensive document which outlined the history of the program from its earliest days and then turned to the achievements of the past five years. First, the program had ‘succeeded in developing an intellectual framework that is meaningful to scholars in several different disciplines.’ That intellectual framework also lent itself to empirical investigation in diverse settings, from the examination of ‘competing orders of contractual regime in the Saguenay Lac St. Jean area of Quebec, to patterns of civil disputing in the small claims courts and community dispute resolution in downtown Montreal, to approaches to policing and law enforcement in Niagara Falls, New York and Niagara Falls, Ontario.’ The program, Macdonald added, had also set an intellectual agenda for legal scholarship in Canada. Program members sat on the editorial board of the Canadian Journal of Law and Society, legal pluralism had become an important research theme in Canadian law schools, and three graduate programs in Canadian law faculties had established critical legal pluralism as an important area of specialization. The program was having a ‘major impact’ on public policy formation, and the influence of program members ‘is enormous’ in respect to the work that they had done to develop policy initiatives at both provincial and federal levels of government.23 Although Macdonald was especially grateful to CIAR for the support it had given to the program, he also presented a frank, critical assessment of the relationship between the program and the research coun-

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cil. The council, he wrote, ‘is intellectually attuned to the perspectives and priorities of traditional scientific inquiry – rightly so given the ambitions of CIAR to bring together scholars in a “university without walls” so as to achieve intellectual breakthroughs.’ But it was ‘not at all clear that these intellectual tools can be marshaled in quite the same manner in a field of inquiry like law.’ The difference had been there from the beginning, when Mustard and the council had thought that development of statistical databases would be a central aspect of the program’s work. Program members and other legal scholars had found this material unhelpful, because ‘the statistics were not sufficiently disaggregated, or they did not track information that permitted analysis of causal relationships.’ In short, ‘these formal statistics are meaningless in themselves as a tool for empirical research in law and society.’24 The paradigm of scientific inquiry, Macdonald wrote, ‘is one that assumes ever increasing sophistication of explanation and builds on the theories, hypotheses and puzzles of earlier generations ... The scholarly discourse of the humanities is quite otherwise. Previous understandings are routinely dismissed as “untheoretical and uncritical” ... Legal scholars ... have for the most part adopted the rhetorical logic of the humanities. They have not tended to validate their own positions with familiar claims that all previous theories were incomplete, or were helpful but partial. Rather, validation occurs through the assertion that everything that occurred previously was either naive and untheoretic, or politically suspect, or both.’25 In sum, the problem that the research council had with the several phases of the law program was that council members had one set of perceptions and expectations of legal scholarship and the program’s members had another. The problem, Macdonald wrote, ‘lies in perspective ... These other disciplines view what they call law as an object of inquiry – a thing as against which they can apply their theoretical constructs; legal scholars, by contrast, view law as a subject of inquiry – as a way of constructing, symbolizing, valuing and expressing interpersonal and social relationships. The paradox, of course, is that these other disciplines ask those who attempt to understand the law as subject to get up to intellectual speed in each of their disciplines, while maintaining the most anodyne and unsophisticated understanding of the law which they view as the object.’26 Bridging the gap between the perceptions of the research council and those of the program members would be a difficult task for the new program director. Macdonald had reported on the past; Council also wanted to know

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where the program was going in the future. Salter, serving as acting director, addressed the question in February 1995. She began by restating the main goal of the program: ‘The Law Program is directly concerned with questions about social order and disorder. Having recognized that social order is seldom co-terminous with laws and regulations, a major effort has been made to explore how laws and regulations made by the state interact, compete and clash with the many ways that communities, families, and even the markets, deal otherwise with their need for continuity and stability, creativity and change.’27 As laws and regulations penetrated into more and more aspects of social and economic life, she continued, ‘profound skepticism – often even cynicism – has developed about the usefulness and efficacy of law to accomplish its stated purposes.’ That and ‘more informal modes of law making’ to promote ‘continuity and creativity within and among communities’ was the subject of the ‘law and everyday life: imagining justice’ research theme in the program. The other theme the program would address was ‘institutions of the new economy.’ It would study the changes that globalization was triggering in legal and regulatory regimes, social and political institutions, and public governance. ‘New economic institutions are emerging at the local, national and international levels, but their effects are little understood.’ The task of the program members was to broaden the understanding of these new institutions.28 Salter looked forward to intensive research efforts ‘pursued through collaborative efforts of senior scholars within the CIAR and in research centres throughout the world.’ To accomplish this ambitious agenda, Salter said, it was imperative to add new members to the program. Because of the active and influential roles they had played on the advisory committee, Sally Merry, Boaventura de Sousa Santos (professor of sociology and law at Coimbra University in Portugal), and Harry Arthurs had been asked to join the program as members, and Guy Rocher would work in the new economy group. Other potential fellows and associates were also being considered. Several of them had no previous association with the program. Some would be asked to give seminars to the program group, to a wider academic audience, or to a third group of CIAR’s ‘interested public.’ One person had already given a seminar, and two others were scheduled to do so in the next month, March 1995.29 Salter also called for changes in the role of the advisory committee. Some members who had been active were now being asked to join the research program; others had provided some advice and criticism from time to time, especially when the program was revised in 1992. But now

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the program needed an advisory committee more in line with others in the institute. It should give ‘peer review’ to all the program’s research plans, working papers, and materials to be submitted for publication. It should also be a ‘sounding board’ for all the work of the program, ‘to ensure that the Law Program speaks intelligibly and persuasively both to the legal and social science communities, and to practitioners and policy makers.’ Salter noted that the new chair of the advisory committee, Justice George Adams of the Ontario Court, was ‘particularly suited’ to oversee these new committee responsibilities, as were two continuing members, David Sugarman of Lancaster University and Barry Stuart. She proposed that they be supplemented by the appointment of five new internationally recognized scholars and five senior practitioners or policy makers ‘with a strong interest in the intellectual agenda and its practical implications.’30 The program was working, Salter reported, to enhance its image and presence in CIAR. A ‘noon hour event’ at the institute in November 1994 had attracted a good audience, and two others were being planned for the next month. In addition, the program was developing a series of working papers, similar to those in the Economic Growth and Policy and Population Health programs, which would be available through CIAR.31 Macdonald, Salter, and the other program members anticipated that the two reports would go to a spring 1995 meeting of the research council and that the proposed new fellows and director would be confirmed then. But there was no meeting. The institute was in the midst of a major financial crisis, and nearly all the time of the president and others at CIAR was focused on resolving the funding problem. A meeting of the council’s executive committee early in May, which concentrated on the funding crisis, urged that a full council meeting be held in late August. It was not. And when the council did meet, late in November 1995, the law program was not on the agenda.32 Earlier in the year, at an executive committee meeting in mid-February, the members had received copies of Macdonald’s report and heard an update from Mustard. The committee then had a discussion with Salter, Arthurs, and Adams about Salter’s outline of the work ahead. Some members made general observations and suggestions. There was no criticism recorded, and the committee blandly concluded that ‘this was an important area to study.’ No action was taken, nor could have been taken, on the several program appointments that awaited confirmation.33 Salter, Arthurs, Merry, and de Sousa Santos carried on as de facto though not de jure director and fellows of the program.

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At the end of September 1995, Richard Simeon from the Political Science Department at the University of Toronto gave a public lecture for the institute called ‘In Search of a Social Contract: Can We Make Hard Decisions As If Democracy Mattered?’ The following month, the program members met to refine the research agenda for the program and hear Peter Fitzpatrick of Birkbeck Law School at the University of London talk on ‘The Mythology of Modern Law.’ And in November, David Trubek of the University of Wisconsin Law School discussed ‘Social Justice after Globalization’ in another CIAR law public lecture. When Salter reported on the program in April 1996, she noted that another program meeting would be held in Montreal at the end of the month and a second program meeting would take place in conjunction with a meeting of the international Law and Society Association in Glasgow in July. The Montreal meeting would feature the publication of another book, Le droit soluble, drawn from the work of the Quebec network Macdonald had organized. Macdonald, Belley, and Rocher would present papers at the meeting.34 Salter also noted since 1994, the program members had collectively received more than $2 million in research grants from the European Union, the United States, and Canadian agencies. Over the life of the program, members had published more than seventy scholarly papers based on their program work and given nearly eighty public lectures. The program’s series of working papers, disseminated by CIAR, was well under way.35 Salter noted that the program had had considerable influence on the teaching of law and on research in Canadian law schools and had made a significant contribution to discussions of law and law reform in Canada and abroad. ‘The ambitions and membership of the Program are considerably broader than they were when the Program was first established,’ she added. If the current initiatives were successful, the program would have even more influence on shaping curricula in university law and social science programs and in ‘shaping public debate about the implications of institutional change for civic society’ in and beyond Canada.36 Salter’s report was but one of a group from all the program directors that went to the research council for its mid-April meeting in 1996. The main purpose of the two-day session was to have each program present an overview of its work to introduce the incoming president, Stefan Dupré, to the institute’s research programs. On 14 April, the presentation on the Law and Determinants of Social Order Program did not go well. In the discussion that followed, some council members again sug-

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gested that the program lacked coherence; others thought that the program’s new framework and agenda did not indicate how the several themes and the research groups would work together. The next day, institute vice-president Len Bolger told the board of directors that the law program was working to understand how law and the legal system were changing to keep up with ‘a rapidly changing world.’ ‘It is the youngest program,’ he explained, referring to its brief time enjoying full program status, ‘and is struggling to find its way as many programs have struggled in the past. However, its importance is recognized and the program will progress.’37 On 16 April, at a ‘business meeting’ of the research council, members again expressed doubts about the law program. They were impressed by the quality of the people involved, but one member suggested the presentation ‘in general lacked substance.’ Another noted the important issues the program proposed to explore, ‘but it lacked focus.’ Yet another thought the program agenda ‘lacks an underlying question and nothing is drawing the group together.’ And, a member observed, ‘the program had taken far too long to find a focus.’ In the end, Council asked Bolger, John Leyerle, Denis Stairs, institute vice-president Marc Renaud, and Martin Wilk to meet with the program’s advisory committee in May or June ‘to try to develop a proposal with a coherent focus.’38 George Adams, who had attended the program presentations, was concerned. Although he believed that the program could restate its objectives in a way ‘which ties its several projects together,’ he was ‘apprehensive that a majority of the Council may be immoveable.’ Conscious that the program was scheduled to come up for peer review in 1997, he told Mustard, ‘It will be difficult for the Group to continue to be inspired knowing that its [Council’s] support is almost certain to end after the next review.’ He believed that it was necessary to have his advisory committee and the program members meet together with the research council to resolve ‘the concerns raised with me by the Council.’39 At the end of the month, at the law program meeting in Montreal, Mustard underlined the importance of a meeting ‘as soon as possible’ with the small group from the research council. All agreed.40 Mustard, however, was still immersed in the funding problems of the institute and preparing for the transition of leadership just two months away. And before any meeting could be held with the council’s group, it was necessary for the program members to get together with the advisory committee. Finally, at the end of May, the committee met to develop a strategy for meeting with the council group. Adams raised a

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new concern. Mustard, he observed, ‘is leaving as the principal force behind CIAR.’ David Johnston, the chair of the board, was ‘relatively new’ and president-designate Dupré had yet to become fully familiar with the institute. People in the program sensed that both might be sceptical of the support the institute was giving to the program. Mustard shared that concern. It was vital, he observed, to meet with the research council group ‘to try to keep this program going.’ There was general agreement that something had to be done, and done quickly, about what several committee members called the ‘fuzziness’ of the program’s statements. One member said that the program ‘makes sense ... in talking about change ... Interesting ideas thrown out, many provocative and new ways of looking at our legal institutions – but when I read the formal presentations or listen to the formal presentation [about] what the program is trying to achieve – not clear.’ Another acknowledged that the ‘people are not able to articulate what [they are] doing,’ and, echoing a theme of Rod Macdonald’s final report two years earlier, added that ‘there is a tension going on between this program and the research council and other social institutions.’41 Mustard said that it was necessary to ‘get a rump of RC to get on side – and get rump group to report to RC as whole.’ But the advisory committee believed more preparation was necessary before meeting with the council group. They concluded that a retreat should be organized where the committee and the program members would ‘work together to get some coherence.’42 A few days later, at the beginning of June, Salter proposed to Mustard that she and the other members of her group – Arthurs, David Wolfe, and Jane Jenson, a political scientist at the Université de Montréal – should each meet with a member of the small council group. Salter also believed, as did Adams and Mustard, that the advisory committee members, most of whom were new appointees, needed to be ‘brought up to speed,’ and she said she would work with Adams to get the committee together to do that. Then a meeting with the whole research council could follow ‘immediately thereafter.’43 Mustard replied that he needed to talk to Dupré and Kathryn Hough before taking any further action. On 23 June, Michael Asch, the associate member from the Anthropology Department at the University of Calgary who was the program’s expert on aboriginal issues, sent a brief message to Salter that he was resigning from the program.44 Later that same week, Mustard told Salter that he had met with Dupré and Hough. ‘We agreed that the next step would be for the new President to meet with George Adams to determine what the appropriate future course of events should be. Until

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this meeting is held, you should not try to organize meetings involving program members, members of the Advisory Committee or members of the Research Council. Arrangements for any meetings that come out of the Dupré/Adams meeting must be arranged through the office of the Vice President of Programs, Kathryn Hough.’45 Salter was shocked by the sudden, unexpected turn of events. Now, it seemed, the fate of the program she had worked to improve and expand was out of her hands. There was no point in protesting to Mustard: he was leaving the presidency within days. Nor could she approach the research council; that was clear in Mustard’s message. Beyond that, Salter remained very much aware that Council had never approved her appointment as program director; formally, she remained ‘acting director,’ the recommendation for her appointment in limbo. The next day, 28 June, she sent a brief letter to Dupré resigning as ‘acting director’ and associate in the Law and Determinants of Social Order Program.46 When Dupré became president of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research three days later, determining the future of the law program was an urgent item on his agenda.

16 New Leadership

Stefan Dupré became president of CIAR on 1 July 1996. He spent the next several days reviewing the status of the institute’s budget and programs. The Law and the Determinants of Social Order Program required immediate attention. He had agreed to meet with George Adams as soon as possible. But as he reviewed the overall financial situation, Dupré became increasingly concerned. ‘The good news,’ he told the board’s executive committee in a confidential memorandum on 10 July, ‘is that the current budgetary position of CIAR is in balance on operating account ... The bad news is akin to that of the proverbial totalitarian state in which everything that is not compulsory is not permitted. Our budgetary situation is utterly without the flexibility that would permit us to exploit pressing short term opportunities in 1996–97 and to plan for 1997–98 with a meaningful sense of priorities.’1 Dupré concluded, ‘I must take decisive action at this time. I am therefore recommending to the Executive that the Law and Determinants of Social Order Program be terminated as of June 30, 1997.’2 Dupré also met with Adams on 10 July. Adams had anticipated an exchange of views and had prepared a memorandum of points to discuss, including the fact that the advisory committee had not been consulted by either the program or the research council since he had taken the chair in February 1995. But before the discussion could begin, Dupré told Adams he was closing the program. ‘I am sorry to have involved in the committee those of you I asked to serve,’ Adams wrote to committee members, adding, ‘Indeed, I regret having accepted to be involved.’3 Dupré had made sure that the institute’s commitments to program members who had arranged released time would continue until the end

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of June 1997. ‘This is not a reflection on the acknowledged excellence of the Program members,’ he told the board’s executive. ‘It is instead the inexorable conclusion that I have drawn from a state of affairs in which the single program that has never received unconditional approval of the Research Council, must be forsaken in a setting where the priorities competing for our resources indicated that CIAR regrettably has one program too many.’4 Beyond that, he assured Harry Arthurs that $15,000 would be available to cover the costs of manuscript preparation for a book that Arthurs and his colleagues had been preparing.5 There was no going back on Dupré’s decision. He reminded Council in November that when the program was presented to the all-program meeting in April 1996, Council had ‘determined that a good deal of time would have to be spent on righting this program.’ But now, he said, ‘on the basis of priorities, trying to save this program did not make sense.’6 One item that did make sense topped the list of priorities that he included in his July memorandum to the executive. It was to ‘revive CIAR’s financing of Artificial Intelligence and Robotics.’7 The program had passed through a second review cycle in 1993–94 with a strong recommendation to continue, but Mustard had suddenly shut the program down in the fall of 1995 because of the institute’s financial state. Many program members and Mustard had hoped to revive the program or start a new initiative emerging out of its innovative research agenda. Dupré agreed. He and Mustard put together a core group of Peter Caines, Alan Mackworth, and Ray Reiter from the program, Ray Perrault from the advisory committee, Harry Rogers from the research council, and Paul Johnston and Kathryn Hough for a conference call at the beginning of October. They agreed that Perrault would coordinate a group to meet at the Founders’ Network in early November to prepare a proposal for a new initiative to present to the research council at the end of the month.8 At the meeting, Alan Mackworth bluntly told Mustard, Dupré, and Hough, ‘We don’t trust the institute after what has happened, but we’re willing to give you a chance. We’re willing to put some energy into this if things are serious.’9 Once assured that a proposal would go to Council, the working group proceeded to develop a proposal on ‘collaborative systems.’ This, they said, was ‘one of the biggest challenges in the field’: to discover ways to integrate knowledge from ‘discrete mathematics’ (logic, algebra, automata theory) with ‘continuous mathematics’ (calculus, probability theory) to use in communications, reasoning, perception, or sensing and control research. The proposal would build on

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AIR’s existing strengths, but it would need ‘some new players’ from computer science, control theory, neuroscience, artificial intelligence, and psychology engineering. Part of the appeal of the proposal was that ‘there is no equivalent group in other countries.’ And the group recognized that, even if the Council approved the proposal, ‘it cannot be started unless there is a secure funding base in view of the fact we cut funding [for AIR] last year. The risks of starting again without some assurance of funding are such that it would have a very negative effect on the institute.’10 On 28 November, Dupré met with the board of directors and presented a business plan for the next several years. Included was proposed start-up funding for a ‘Collaborative Systems Program which will be discussed at tomorrow’s Research Council meeting.’11 The next day, in a conference call including Perrault, who was in California, Alan Mackworth presented the collaborative systems proposal. Collaborative systems, he said, were ‘a collection of agents, aiming at a common goal, through coordinated use of perception, communication, planning and action, and operating in a dynamic environment.’ Examples could be business firms, hospitals, sports teams, air traffic control systems, and robots, among others. Modelling issues, performance issues, and methodological issues were all necessary areas of intensive, interdisciplinary research. Mackworth suggested that the CIAR program might concentrate on one or two particular areas, such as network management or teams of robots.12 Council members were not convinced. One suggested that the proposal’s ‘definition was so loose that collaborative systems could be almost anything.’ Others agreed. Still others wondered why CIAR should pursue this proposal when the very strong groups in artificial intelligence at UBC, U of T, and McGill, which the earlier program had created, could do this kind of work. Another member noted that there was a large amount of commercially sponsored research already going on in this area. Mackworth agreed but argued that ‘we nevertheless need better theoretical underpinnings,’ and that was what the proposal would provide. It was all for naught. Council concluded that ‘the proposal was not adequate; the area of research was too broad; and it was not clear who would be involved in terms of personnel.’ The decision was unanimous.13 Some years later, Mackworth said, ‘I got hammered and I got hammered in ways that I thought were unfair ... I felt I had been strung out to dry here.’14 A collaborative systems program was dead. But Dupré was not pre-

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pared to give up. The board had also approved an item in his budget to start a new program, and in early January 1997, he told Mustard and Hough that he was ‘anxious to put something in place.’15 In April, he proposed to Council that three of its members, Peter Nicholson, Robin Armstrong, and Harry Rogers, ‘begin to think about the nexus between science and technology as the “site” for a new CIAR program.’ He saw this area as a logical successor to the AIR program, which, with Precarn and the IRIS Network of Centres of Excellence, had itself been at the interface between science and technology. Nicholson framed the question: ‘In what areas have recent clusters of technological development encountered bottlenecks that can only be resolved by reverting to fundamental research?’ Council liked the idea and charged the trio to begin their work. The institute’s search for a new program, even as its fiscal picture was clouded with uncertainty, was going to go ahead.16




The precarious state of the institute’s finances dominated Dupré’s work from the earliest days of his administration. Although eager to develop a new research program, he assured the research council that he ‘would not rush anything.’ The very earliest a new program could be started would be in the 1998–99 fiscal year.17 In August and September 1996, he had met frequently with Mustard to discuss funding for CIAR. Mustard and the Founders’ Network had contacts and the ability to open doors for Dupré and the institute, and soon Mustard and his executive assistant Dorothy McKinnon were setting up meetings and interviews with long-time supporters of the institute. In addition, provision was made to maintain the Founders’ Network, including allocations of $50,000 in 1996–97 and $25,000 for each of the next two years from the anonymous foundation grant obtained in 1996. In early January 1997, Dupré and Mustard reached agreement on a basis for stable funding for the Network.18 The key to the institute’s own financial stability in the first years of Dupré’s administration was the support from the anonymous foundation that had been secured by Mustard and Bolger. Dupré told the board in November 1996, when he presented his business plan, that the bulk of that money would be used to support the institute’s ‘health and well-being programs’: Population Health and Human Development. But, he added, the $1.5 million per year of foundation money would end in the 1998–99 fiscal year. Searching for a replacement donor or

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donors was risky, and Dupré suggested that working hard to create an endowment be considered. ‘We will have to have income from interest on an endowment by the 1999–2000 fiscal year in order to go into the following years on a stable basis,’ he concluded.19 By April 1997, attention was turning to renewal of the federal government grant, which would expire in 2000. It provided one dollar for every two dollars the institute raised elsewhere, up to $3.5 million per year. Dupré told the board he was determined to get better terms, a one-forone dollar match, for example, in a renewed grant. At the same board meeting, members were briefed on a potential foundation for the institute, an idea it had flirted with before, to build an endowment for CIAR.20 In September 1997, the board’s executive committee discussed the foundation idea further and gave approval to the establishment of a parallel foundation in the United States to receive donations to CIAR from American sources. These foundations remained in the planning stages. By then, the big news was an improving financial picture. Martin Walker, the vice-president, finance, announced that the institute had closed the 1996–97 fiscal year with a surplus of $1.7 million. Dupré announced that the institute’s accumulated deficit would be eliminated in 1997–98 and that he anticipated an accumulated surplus for the following year.21 There was more good news in November. Dupré reported that the institute had received a $50,000 contribution from the government of New Brunswick and that the government of Alberta had agreed to match – dollar for dollar, for three years – every private dollar raised in the province up to $300,000 per year. The institute was expecting about a $300,000 surplus for the fiscal year and would be able to pay off all the loans the universities had given it in 1993–94, except those from the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia.22 The fiscal outlook continued to improve in 1998 and 1999. A major highlight was Dupré’s persuading the University of Toronto and the University of British Columbia to write off their outstanding loans to CIAR. A good portion of each had been paid down over the years, but nearly a million dollars was still outstanding, $478,860 to the University of Toronto and $502,717.82 to the University of British Columbia. On 19 November 1998, before the day’s board meeting, Dupré received letters from Adel Sedra, vice-president and provost at U of T, and Martha Piper, president of UBC. ‘It is important for UBC,’ Piper wrote, ‘to signal its confidence in the work of CIAR by forgiving the outstanding loan, to enable the Institute to direct its resources to wherever they are most needed in advanced research.’ ‘Our forgiving the loan is an invest-

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ment in the future of CIAR,’ Sedra added. ‘We are very happy to be your partner in this exercise. We continue to believe CIAR is a tremendous force for good in Canada, and a secure future for CIAR is important not only to the University of Toronto but to all Canadians.’23 Earlier in 1998 Christopher Torres, the new vice-president, finance, had gotten approval to invest the institute’s growing surplus current account funds with Royal Trust Capital Management. And Dupré had gotten approval from the board’s executive committee to set aside a donation of $250,000 from Bowrings to start an institute endowment account.24 In the spring of 1999, the institute’s endowment funds were transferred to the University of Toronto’s consolidated investment pool, and another excess of income over expenditure of several hundred thousand dollars was being projected for the 1998–99 fiscal year.25 These developments amounted to a major change for the better from the situation Dupré had found when he took up the presidency nearly three years earlier. The accumulated deficit had been paid, and the university loans paid or forgiven. Income was exceeding revenue. Still, one thing had not changed, not since the institute’s earliest days. Ongoing fiscal stability, year over year, remained a goal to be achieved. A very significant problem was that the anonymous foundation’s donation had run out by the end of the 1998–99 fiscal year. Attempts had been and continued to be made to get a renewal of the donation, but the prospects were not promising. In addition, Doug Todgham, the vice-president, advancement, told the board in April 1999 that nearly $800,000 in pledges to CIAR had not been renewed. He also predicted that the underexpenditure on programs would not continue, especially if a new program to succeed AIR was started. Then there were the uncertain prospects for the federal grant. Dupré was pushing hard for an increase from $3.5 million a year in matching funds to $5 million, along with a one-for-one dollar match to replace the current two-for-one arrangement. But progress was very slow. Dupré hoped that the government would appoint its consultant, who would review the institute, as soon as possible.26 Several weeks later, the consultant had been hired but Dupré guessed that there would be no news until after the next federal budget, in the spring of 2000, at the earliest.27 As 1999 drew to a close, Dupré modified his expectations: he would accept $3.5 million per year, matching the dollars raised elsewhere one for one. What he feared was a renewal at the current level but retaining the two-for-one formula. He and the board discussed what would happen if that occurred. It was clear that the foundation’s donation was not going to

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be renewed. A two-for-one federal grant renewal would produce a deficit of $1.2 million a year, ‘which would mean that programs could not be renewed and/or more money would have to be raised.’28




In November 1996, a few months after Dupré’s arrival, David Johnston began his third year as chair of the board of directors. He had led the board through challenging times: the fiscal crisis of the mid-1990s, Mustard’s resignation and the search for a new president, and a major expansion in the size of the board itself. When he assumed the chairship, the board had twenty-two members, approximately the same number it had had throughout most of Mustard’s presidency. By November 1996, the membership had nearly doubled, to forty-two members. Johnston expected them all to serve the institute, most of them as ‘ambassadors for the institute’ who would meet once a year and at other times be ready to serve the crucial function of spreading the good news of CIAR’s work across the nation. Reflecting on the opportunities of new leadership, Johnston told the board members that ‘this is probably the most important year in the life of the Institute, other than its first year.’ The challenge before it, the headquarters staff, and the members of the CIAR programs, ‘remains to institutionalize the Institute without bureaucratizing it.’29 For the board itself, the task had already begun. Reva Gerstein, reporting for its nominating committee, named the members of four committees. The executive committee, in addition to Johnston and Dupré, included William Blundell and Gerald Heffernan as vice-chairs, seven other board members, most of whom were long-time veterans of the board, and the institute’s vice-presidents. The development committee had Johnston in the chair, several other board members from across the country, the regional vice-presidents for British Columbia and Quebec, Dupré, Todgham, and six ‘friends’ of the institute who were not board members. The remaining two committees were smaller. Bette Stephenson chaired the nominating committee, including Johnston, Dupré, and five veteran board members. The strategic planning committee, chaired by Gerstein, consisted of Dupré, Johnston, John R. Evans, Gerald Hatch, Gerald Heffernan, and Stephenson.30 In November 1997, at a meeting of the nominating committee, a mandate committee, chaired by Allan Taylor and Reva Gerstein, was added to the committee list.31 The nominating committee was concerned that the responsibilities of

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the board members, the executive committee, and the president were not clearly reflected in the institute’s by-laws. The mandate committee was given the task of drafting a ‘statement of Board responsibility.’ Johnston and the nominating committee also were anxious to clarify the role of and engage the interest of the ‘ambassadorial’ members of the board. Johnston suggested that all the members be polled at the next full board meeting to discover ‘particular programs or areas with which they would like to be more involved.’ Heffernan went a step further; he recommended that the institute initiate an ‘adopt-a-program’ strategy for each of the directors.32 When the mandate committee finished its work in the spring of 1998, it set out as one responsibility of board members to ‘familiarize themselves with individual programs of the Institute, in keeping with their personal interests, in order to exercise suitable oversight as required from time to time.’33 Gerstein explained that the committee ‘does not expect all the Board members to be involved with all programs, but would like them to be knowledgeable about the Institute.’34 The problem was that throughout Johnston’s term as chair and beyond it into 2000, more than half of the board members took their responsibilities so lightly that – with one exception, in April 1998 – fewer than half bothered to attend board meetings. Only one-quarter of the members were present at the board meeting of 20 November 1997.35 The by-laws required that when the board had ten or more members, two-fifths of the members would constitute a quorum.36 At the November 1997 meeting, only ten members were present, far less than a quorum, and the next meeting, in April 1998, had to ratify the motions passed in November.37 In June 1998, the executive committee accepted a recommendation from the governance committee (which had replaced the nominating committee) that 20 per cent of members attending a board meeting would constitute a quorum.38 There the matter stood until November 2000, when the quorum was redefined as onefifth of those in office whenever the board had a membership of not less than six and not more than fifty.39 In August 1998, Johnston sent a message to the members of the board of directors reporting that the ‘second complete year of Steve Dupré’s presidency ... has been a good year.’ The ‘basic concept of the Institute,’ he added, ‘is now firmly engrained in Canada.’ Johnston continued: Our bold step to expand the Board from a little more than a dozen to almost 50 is now in its second year and has given us a powerful group of

New Leadership 231 ambassadors for the Institute from coast to coast. We still have some work to do in getting all of our directors engaged when there are only two board meetings a year, and engagement is to some extent dependent upon areas of personal interest. Two initiatives have helped. First, we are continuing in our efforts to align each director with one of the Institute’s research programs to develop a greater familiarity and some satisfaction at seeing at first hand what a difference research can make. Secondly, thanks to some splendid work by Alan Taylor and Reva Gerstein ... we have several new board committees, new mandates for all of them and an up to date transparent governance process in place. Now our challenge is to make it work.40

Three months later, at the fall 1998 board meeting, Dupré announced that Johnston had accepted the presidency of the University of Waterloo and would be stepping down as chair on 1 July 1999. Work on engaging the ‘ambassadorial’ members halted while, for the next several months, the executive committee attended to the regular business of the institute; the task of searching for a new chair was assumed by the governance committee. In April 1999, Taylor reported that the committee had narrowed its search for a new chair to a short list. He anticipated that a candidate’s name would be brought to the June executive committee meeting.41 It was. On 15 June, the executive committee learned that Thomas Kierans had agreed to serve as chair of the board as of 7 September 1999. Between Johnston’s departure and early September, William Blundell, the board’s vice-chair, would serve as acting chair.42 Kierans had been president and chief executive officer of the C.D. Howe Institute and had recently been appointed head of the Clarkson Centre for Business Ethics and Geoffrey R. Conway Chair of business ethics at the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto. He held degrees from McGill and the University of Chicago and had occupied senior corporate positions in Canadian business. At the time of his appointment, he was chair of Petro-Canada and of Moore Corporation. He had also chaired a number of non-profit organizations, including the Royal Ontario Museum and the United Way of Greater Toronto. Dupré, delighted with the appointment, said, ‘With his unique blend of distinguished corporate credentials and outstanding commitment to public service, Mr. Kierans brings a wealth of experience to the CIAR that will ensure our continued growth and development.’43

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While Johnston and senior members of the board were trying to sharpen the interest and engagement of the ‘ambassadorial’ members, Dupré was looking for a way to revitalize the research council. During the years immediately before he took office, the council had met less frequently than usual and often to deal primarily with the consequences of the institute’s fiscal troubles. Its role as the creator, guide, and monitor of the institute’s research programs was given lesser priority. The closing of the very successful Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Program by Mustard and of the Law and the Determinants of Social Order Program by Dupré, together with Dupré’s determination to create a new program, refocused the council’s attention on its central responsibility. Dupré also recognized that the time to change and revitalize the membership was long overdue. Many of the thirty members in 1996 were veterans of a decade’s standing or longer. Over the next eighteen months, Council accepted the idea that a three-year rotation of members, first recommended in 1983, be put in place. One-third would retire each year, and the maximum time a member could serve would be two terms. By the time the research council met in April 1998, the rotation had begun. Ten members would step down in June, including a founding member, John Leyerle, and Arnold Naimark and Martin Wilk, who had served the council and the institute with distinction for many years. Another ten would go in June 1999, and so on. This opened two possibilities: all the retiring members in any year could be replaced, or the total number of members could be reduced gradually and carefully by not replacing all the departing group each year.44 The latter option was deployed. The major task of the research council during the Dupré administration was to deal with program reviews of each of the institute’s eight remaining programs. The Cosmology, Evolutionary Biology, Population Health, and Superconductivity programs underwent their second fiveyear reviews from 1996 to 1998. The others, Economic Growth and Policy, Earth System Evolution, Human Development, and Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces, finished their first cycles of research from 1996 to 1999. The Cosmology review panel’s report was a major item at Dupré’s first research council meeting on 29 November 1996. The panel unanimously recommended that the program be continued for a third term under the leadership of Scott Tremaine of the University of Toronto,

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who had succeeded Bill Unruh, the founding director.45 Three of the panel’s recommendations were especially important. First, the program needed to increase its efforts to build bridges between its theoretical cosmology members and observational cosmologists in Canada. In addition, the panel wanted the program to take a more active role in the development of younger scholars in cosmology. And it was vitally important, the panel believed, that the institute continue to give strong support to maintaining its University of Toronto partner, the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, which had developed an international reputation for leadership in the field. Approving a third term for a research program was a new step for Council; the proposal raised a host of questions about how long the institute should support any program it had created. In this instance, the evidence showed that the rapid progress in the science over the last decade had opened more opportunities to do research at the highest level. The program, retitled Cosmology and Gravity, would continue.46 Much the same was reported for the second review of the Evolutionary Biology Program. Gordon Maclachlan, who presented the report to Council in April 1997, noted that ten years earlier, evolutionary biology programs in universities ‘had not evolved much beyond Darwin’s discoveries, based on anatomical observation.’ What set the CIAR program apart was that it had struck out in a new direction and from its earliest days had tapped into new areas of science involving DNA and RNA sequencing. Members of the program were creating fresh paths to a more profound understanding of the deep history of biological evolution. The coordination of their work was highlighted at the program’s annual meetings. ‘The annual meetings are wonderful,’ a program member told the author. ‘Interactions are so effective at the meetings.’47 Over the decade of research, ‘a flood of information’ had come out, and more was coming every year. The review panel listed ‘numerous advances in the field that would not likely have occurred without CIAR’s existence, and that had tremendous impact at the world level.’ The panel noted the strong leadership of Ford Doolittle and strongly recommended that he continue as program director. It recommended some changes in personnel, including tightening up the associate membership category and increasing the number of women in the program. Council, after some deliberation on the panel’s recommendations, renewed the mandate of Evolutionary Biology for another five years.48 The same day, the research council also considered the first review report on the Economic Growth and Policy Program. Peter Nicholson,

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who had been the council’s member on the review panel, reminded members of the program’s three areas of focus: technological change; human capital and the labour market; and an aggregated, mathematical study of global economic systems. It was the people in the third area, Nicholson noted, ‘who have given the program its reputation. They have built a bridge from the conservative mainstream of classical economics through to the newer theories which might otherwise be considered to lie outside the mainstream.’ The panel had recommended modification of the program’s research directions to increase emphasis on the impact of economic growth on labour markets, human capital and related social issues and to sharply decrease the attention given to microeconomic analysis of technological change. It thus recommended personnel changes which resulted in a number of people leaving the program. That opened an opportunity to fulfill another panel recommendation, that more Canadian scholars be brought into the program. Another major recommendation, that the program be reviewed again in three years instead of five, was strongly rejected by both the program’s advisory committee and the research council. The program was given a mandate to continue for another five years under Elhanan Helpman’s leadership.49 The research council responded to the second review of the Population Health Program and the first review of the Human Development Program in November 1997. The major change in the Population Health Program, recommended to and endorsed by the review panel, was that Bob Evans, after ten years of distinguished leadership, was stepping down as director. Clyde Hertzman would succeed Evans. Carolyn Tuohy, who reported to Council on the review, noted that several of the members of the program had received international recognition for their contributions to research on the determinants of health. She said that the panel recognized that the exploration of socio-economic status gradients remained the ‘spine’ of the program but thought more should be done in strengthening the program’s conceptual framework. The panel also urged the program members to ‘emphasize the social determinants and look more closely at the implications of different social/cultural understandings of human relationships.’50 Louis Maheu then reported on the Human Development Program and told the council that the panel believed the program ‘needs to modify its focus to look at how the SES [socio-economic status] gradients connect to interpersonal relationships, families, and cultures.’ It also needed to explore the ‘social and cultural mechanisms of building

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a learning society – how do you build learning skills in individuals and the learning capacity of society.’ All of this suggested to some Council members that the two programs, some members of which had already developed strong working relationships, should be merged. In the end, the council renewed the Population Health Program for a third fiveyear term and the Human Development Program for a second and approved the formation of a joint advisory committee.51 Dupré had proposed that Fraser Mustard be invited to chair the joint advisory committee; Mustard became special adviser to the group instead. Patricia Baird, vice-president and member of the research council, accepted the chair in January 1998. The other committee members were Stephen Ceci and Lewis Lipsitt from the former Human Development advisory committee and Terry Sullivan and Alvin Tarlov from the Population Health advisory committee. Dupré and Kathryn Hough joined them for their first meeting at the Founders’ Network on 25 February 1998.52 Baird took the revised structure for the joint committee and its mandate back to the research council on 24 May 1999 for approval. Its purpose was to foster the development of a set of common interests shared by both programs. First among them was continued exploration of biological pathways and how they translate the effects of social class into health and other outcomes. In addition, the further development of the programs’ longitudinal databases could help members to understand how various social and economic factors influence both health and development. A third common interest was understanding social cohesion and its associated dimensions, including how wealth is distributed and what social supports are evident throughout the lifespan.53 In April 1998, Art McDonald reported to Council on the second review of the Superconductivity Program. Five years earlier, during the institute’s fiscal crisis, the program had been renewed for a second term. It had been possible to do this because, apart from Jules Carbotte, the director, all the program members were associates who received support only for program interaction activities. The program continued to make major advances in the science of condensed matter and in understanding the parts of that phenomenon which led to high-temperature superconductivity. It had also become a world leader in growing crystals at the University of British Columbia and McMaster University that were large, of high quality, and very pure. All in all, the program was addressing questions of central significance to materials science research, and the panel strongly recommended that it be continued for a third term.

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Council approved and recommended to the board of directors that Louis Taillefer succeed Carbotte, who was retiring, as director.54 At the next research council meeting, in October 1998, Glen Caldwall summarized the findings of the first Earth System Evolution review panel and the response of the advisory committee. The program director, Jan Veizer of the University of Ottawa, and Christopher Beaumont of Dalhousie University were fellows; the remaining members were associates who received support only for interaction with other program members and other scientists in Canada and abroad. The panel gave the program high marks. The calibre of the members’ research was impressive, and the panel strongly recommended that the program continue for a second term.55 Caldwall said that the advisory committee agreed with the panel’s recommendations that the program should concentrate on a ‘long time scale’ approach to earth systems because that was what made its work unique, and that when opportunity arose, new appointments should be made in palaeobiology, chemistry, and climatology. In addition, the advisory committee suggested a change in leadership style, with Veizer remaining director and heading an executive committee with four other people. The council agreed to continue the program for another five-year term.56 The final program review during the presidency of Stefan Dupré was the evaluation of the Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces Program in the summer of 1999. The report was given to the research council at its meeting on 30 October. The panel’s recommendation to close the program elicited no debate. But some council members were concerned that the recommendation that the institute develop a new program where soft surface science research be explored for the life sciences might be given preference over other potential new program opportunities. It was agreed that a proposal for research in soft-surface science for life sciences would be presented to the next meeting of Council along with other research opportunities.57




Recommendations to renew programs for a third five-year term raised an important unresolved issue for CIAR. Should there be a fixed limit of, say, three terms for the institute’s support for any its programs? If so, how would a successful program be phased out? The issue had been mentioned almost in passing at Dupré’s first research council meeting in November 1996.58 But a year later, while considering the review

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panel’s recommendation to support the Population Health Program for a third term, council members discussed it more thoroughly. Dupré said Council might ‘need to start preparing ourselves now for where we think the Institute should be going when its third quinquennium programs are starting to mature.’ He did not believe it was appropriate to bring the issue into the terms of reference for review panels examining programs finishing their second terms. Rather, Council should discuss the matter and develop some ideas on a phase-out strategy and when it might be applied. Arnold Naimark, a long-time member, observed that ‘a marker of success was the degree to which these groups became selfsustaining’; CIAR had not contemplated that ‘a program should become a permanent ward of the Institute.’ Dupré was encouraged to appoint a subcommittee ‘to bring together information on issues of renewal and longevity.’59 In April 1998, Dupré reported that Carolyn Tuohy, a member of the research council, had agreed to chair a committee on program longevity. A long discussion followed on the committee’s terms of reference. The first item was how and when a program might be terminated. Members agreed that there needed to be some ‘disengagement mechanism’ and that a ‘one size fits all’ approach would not be appropriate for the institute’s programs. Council believed it was also important to be aware of whether there was a ‘receptor capacity to take over and support an existing program’ when it was terminated. The president reminded the council that the board of directors had established its own strategic planning committee, which was dealing with the renewal of the federal government’s grant. A longevity strategy that would free up funds for new programs at appropriate times would be an important factor in the institute’s appeal for new funds. Members also urged the program longevity committee to build recognition of the institute’s long-term goals and mandate into a longevity strategy and asked the president to reflect on the relationship between the longevity committee and the board’s strategic planning committee.60 Tuohy reported on her committee’s conclusions in October. The committee established no fixed time limit for programs. Instead, there should be four ‘possible expectations’ for all programs at the end of a period of funding. The program might have reached maturity and be ready for a full or partial transfer of its work to another ‘receptor.’ The program might reach a stage of transmutation where its work would evolve into one or more new research programs. A program might be continued with full funding or continued with only interaction funding.

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Or, finally, a program might be terminated. Because of this variety of possibilities, Tuohy’s group recommended the establishment of a ‘new initiatives’ committee to ‘identify new program possibilities’ and a strategic review committee to review a program in the middle of its second or third term in the context of the costs and benefits of continuing the program or of terminating it to fund a new initiative. Dupré advised the council that in just a few years, in 2002 and 2003, four institute programs would complete their third terms, opening the opportunity to replace them with new research programs. Council accepted the program longevity committee report as written, and Dupré asked it to leave the issue of membership on the newly proposed committees in his hands.61 A few weeks later, Dupré told the board of directors that the issue of program longevity is ‘vital to the Institute.’ He viewed CIAR ‘as a catalyst rather than a program manager. Therefore a fifteen year maximum would be appropriate unless the program were to be reconstituted in a substantially different form.’62 The Tuohy committee’s report was circulated to the programs for comment and consideration. One point in particular, the idea that a receptor capacity might exist to assume the support of a phased-out program, raised concern with some program directors. They suggested that some programs might not generate a receptor capacity in the form of other aegises. Ford Doolittle got to the heart of the matter. The committee’s view of the potential of receptor capacity, he wrote, ‘is in line with [the] general trend towards strategic, program-oriented funding and the ever-more prevalent public attitude that the public function that legitimates the pursuit of scientific knowledge is the generation of wealth ... But for my program (and I expect for Cosmology and Earth Systems), it is not appropriate.’ There was only one ‘other aegis’ for Evolutionary Biology, the universities in which program members worked. ‘If CIAR support were lost for my program, we could not find within our universities support for those trans-university activities which have made us what we are, nor could we find in the private sector sponsors who would be willing to pay salaries of individual faculty doing such untargeted research, outside the aegis of a respected institutional structure like CIAR. We will slowly lose our cohesiveness,’ Doolittle continued, ‘and our most precious resource – the annual meetings. We would cease to be the world’s best department in the field.’63 Scott Tremaine, the director of the Cosmology Program, heartily agreed with Doolittle. ‘For our Program,’ he wrote, ‘the receptors are of

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course the universities, and – in large part through your [CIAR’s] persuasive negotiation – we have successfully installed an impressive cohort of Fellows and Scholars in permanent positions in Canadian universities. ‘Unfortunately, the report is silent on the central role CIAR has played in retaining our Fellows and Scholars in Canada; in effect, it assumes that once a critical mass has been assembled there will be no leakage. The experience of our Program shows that this is not the case: given the quality of the Scholars and Fellows that CIAR wants for its programs, there will inevitably be strong efforts, growing in frequency, for foreign universities (and in some other programs, from business as well) to lure these researchers away ... ‘Bluntly, the core of the problem is that Canadian universities are generally unable to compete with their foreign counterparts in salary, research support or working conditions.’ Therefore, Tremaine concluded, ‘the most likely final stage of the life cycle of a CIAR program is that after the program is transferred to a receptor institution the best of its participants will slowly but inevitably drift away in response to irresistible offers from outside Canada.’64 In May 1999, Dupré met with the program directors and discovered, as he later told the board’s executive committee, ‘that there was apprehension among Program Directors that there would be an arbitrary rule for the termination of programs after ten or fifteen years.’65 He had assured the directors that he did not believe in an absolute maximum length for CIAR programs, but he had also told them, ‘I very much agree with the main thrust of the Tuohy-McDonald-Naimark Report on Program Longevity.’66 The matter was taken up again at Council in October, and after a long discussion, Council decided that the ‘new initiatives’ committee the Tuohy committee had recommended was not needed. The process for considering new programs that had developed over the years was satisfactory, and Dupré assured Council that ‘the existing “task force” model would remain in place to investigate further any potential program areas that captured Council’s interest.’67 And the mandate of the strategic review committee was refined. The board was told that for existing programs, it would ‘assess the strategic importance of continuing each CIAR Program currently in its second or third quinquennium and for new programs it would receive from Task Forces struck by the Research Council proposals for new programs, and weigh the desirability of initiating such programs in relation to continuing the current CIAR programs whose strategic importance has been assessed.’68

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Early in 2000, when the research council was reminded that three programs would be reviewed in 2001, members debated whether the strategic review committee should begin its work before or after the three program reviews. Scott Tremaine, director of the Cosmology Program, told the members that the program directors thought it important that it should, in all cases, do its work regarding any program only after the program had been reviewed by a review panel at the conclusion of a five-year term. Council agreed and now had a timetable for the strategic review committee’s work. Council also learned that John Kendall, a computer scientist from the University of Calgary, had agreed to chair the committee, and Carolyn Tuohy would join him as a member.69 In the summer of 2001, the strategic review committee met to consider the reviews of the Cosmology, Evolutionary Biology, and Economic Growth and Policy programs as well as a proposal for a new program in quantum information processing. Its report was given to the research council for consideration. That was the one and only time that the strategic review committee was used by the CIAR.70




In October 1988, the CIAR had held an all-programs meeting at MontSainte-Marie in Quebec. For the first time, the meeting brought the members of all the programs together with the research council, the board of directors, and CIAR staff. Mustard believed it was a big success. Ten years later, Stefan Dupré decided to hold a second all-programs meeting. At a meeting of the executive committee of the board on 9 June 1998, it was announced that the All-Programs Congress would take place in Banff, Alberta, 20–24 May 1999. The Max Bell Centre had been reserved for the occasion, and the institute’s program members, advisory committees, and research council had been notified of the event.71 The purpose of the meeting was to bring all program members together to ‘celebrate CIAR’s past, present and future’; to convey to all attendees, including media, government, and university representatives and other guests ‘the excitement of the work that is being done’; and to demonstrate the institute’s ‘scientific achievements.’ In addition, Dupré and his colleagues wanted to present the institute’s ‘vision for the future,’ to identify new areas of development, and to emphasize the possibilities for young people, including the many postdoctoral and doctoral students who were being invited.72 Each of the institute’s programs would make a two-hour presentation to the rest of the congress. A letter

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to program directors asked for their suggestions on the content and format of the event and told them that ‘we have to show how ‘CIAR works, the talent it gathers, the opportunities that it represents, and the position it provides for Canadian scientists alongside their international peers.’73 Carefully crafted letters from Dupré invited institute donors and the print and electronic media to join CIAR in Banff for the congress.74 The All-Programs Congress opened with a reception and dinner on the Thursday evening, 20 May. The keynote speaker, Peter Lougheed, former premier of Alberta, gave an address titled ‘Advanced Research Is an Investment, Not an Expenditure.’ The next day, the three ‘origins’ programs – Cosmology and Gravity, Earth System Evolution, and Evolutionary Biology – made their presentations to the congress, and the founding president, Fraser Mustard, gave the evening address. On Saturday, the social programs – Population Health, Human Development, and Economic Growth and Policy – held the stage. That evening, the chair of the board of directors, David Johnston, chaired a panel discussion titled ‘CIAR at the Edge of the Millennium.’ The third day opened with a brief introduction to a newly approved research program in nanoelectronics and program presentations by the Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces and Superconductivity programs. In the afternoon, Peter Nicholson chaired the ‘Science/Technology and Economic Growth’ panel. The congress closed on Sunday evening with dinner and remarks by the president.75 More than three hundred people attended the Banff congress. There was some disappointment that only fourteen of the forty-four members of the board of directors came. On the other hand, most of the program and advisory committee members, research council members, and CIAR staff were there, as well as fourteen government and university representatives, twenty-six guests and donors, ten representatives of Canadian and American media, and twenty-five postdoctoral and doctoral students from Canadian, United States, and European universities and research institutes.76 The institute had hoped that the congress would attract attention from the media, and it did. Three American outlets, Nature, New Scientist, and United Press International, carried stories and interviews from the congress. Canadian media coverage appeared on the Discovery Channel and CBC Radio and in University Affairs, Revue Interface, and major newspapers from Ontario, Quebec, and Alberta. Jeffrey Crelinsten of the Impact Group in Toronto, the institute’s own media adviser, issued a small blizzard of news releases and story leads before and during the congress.77

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A quick review of the congress by the research council on 24 May gave it overall high marks. There was some criticism of the varying quality of the presentations from program to program, but members believed another congress should be held in five years. For most members, a highlight was the opportunity to interact with other council members and with the institute’s members and supporters. A member singled out the seating arrangements at dinner, artfully designed by the institute’s staff, as ‘instrumental’ in promoting interaction.78 As he put it, they ‘saw something that is unthinkable in the university system – staff, researchers, government and donors all interacting.’79 A month later, Kathryn Hough reported to the executive committee of the board on the congress. It had been a success and had met the goals planned for it by the institute. ‘In sum,’ she said, ‘the congress was considered a great refresher course on the Institute’s programs.’80




During Dupré’s administration, there were several changes in personnel at the Institute’s headquarters in Toronto. In April 1997, Paula Driedger and Margaret Gorham were introduced to the research council as new administrative members of the program development section at the central office. Robert Cohen, who came to the institute with previous experience with the Southam organization and the Ontario government, was appointed CIAR’s new media and communications consultant.81 Kathryn Hough, after many years of experience as director of programs at the institute, was appointed vice-president, programs, early in Dupré’s administration. Martin Walker left the institute at the end of October 1997 and was replaced as vice-president, finance, by Christopher Torres, who been comptroller at the University of Toronto and vice-president, finance, at York University. Also in the fall of 1997, Marc Renaud, a member of the Population Health Program and CIAR regional vicepresident for Quebec, was appointed president of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and resigned his positions at CIAR. Pierre Fortin, a member of the research council, replaced Renaud in the post.82 In the summer of 1998, Jules Carbotte, who had retired from McMaster University and from his role as director of the institute’s Superconductivity Program, accepted an appointment as Dupré’s scientific adviser and began working directly with the president and Hough. David Johnston reported to the institute’s board that Carbotte’s ‘reputation as an outstanding physicist is matched by a rare abil-

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ity to explain science to non-scientists. He will serve an Institute need ... and greatly strengthen our capacity to sell science to prospective donors.’83 In the fall, Diana Crosbie of Crosbie Communications replaced Robert Cohen as the institute’s media relations consultant. The following spring, Crosbie was in turn replaced in the media relations post by Jeffrey Crelinsten of the Impact Group in Toronto.84 In addition to the major change of Johnston’s departure at the end of June 1999,85 more shifts in the senior administration took place that year. In June, Dupré told the board’s executive committee that Doug Todgham, after several years’ service to CIAR, would leave his position as vice-president, advancement, at the end of the year.86 Over the next several months, the new chair of the board, Tom Kierans, and the board’s advancement committee (the former development committee) searched for a replacement. In November, the committee reported that Robin Fowler had been appointed as the institute’s new director of advancement and that the search for a vice-president was continuing.87 Caldwell Partners was called in to assist. In April 2000, Kara Spence, an experienced development officer at the University of Toronto who most recently had led a very successful campaign at Trinity College, took up her appointment as the institute’s new vice-president, advancement.88 The most surprising and sudden change came at the very top of the CIAR administration. On 18 November 1999, at a meeting of the board of directors, Kierans announced with regret that the president, Stefan Dupré, had ‘decided to take early retirement’ and would be stepping down at the end of December. He noted the good management Dupré had given to the institute since Fraser Mustard’s retirement and especially singled out Dupré’s strong leadership of CIAR’s fundraising efforts. Kierans looked to the board for support in establishing a formal search process for a new president.89 In January 2000, Kierans told the executive committee that he ‘did not plan on a traditional search.’ He proposed that a search firm be hired to manage the process and that his goal was to have a new president in place within six months. In the meantime, Jules Carbotte had agreed to chair the institute’s research council until a new president was appointed.90 By February, Janet Wright of Janet Wright & Associates had been retained as search consultant to oversee the search process, and a search committee was being assembled that would include two members of the board.91 Kierans intended to seek the help of the research council in setting the criteria for the appointment but had strong views of his own. He said he wanted a person with ‘significant administrative and executive

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experience’ at a major research university. He also wanted the new president to be ‘a scientist, as opposed to a social scientist.’ He thought that repatriation ‘of a very prominent individual for this position would be nice’ and that the new president had to ‘act as a very articulate spokesman on each of the Institute’s programs’ and ‘to intrinsically understand that the Institute is here for all of the research universities in the country.’92 Kierans opened an extended discussion on the criteria for a new president at the February meeting of the research council. Two points stood out in Council’s response. First, both Jules Carbotte and Janet Wright raised the issue of whether it was important to have a natural scientist ‘as opposed to a social scientist’ as president. Several members replied, and one summed up the consensus of Council: ‘A candidate’s enthusiasm for knowledge, sense of excitement, breadth of capacity for understanding a diversity of fields, and nose for talent are more important than his or her disciplinary background.’ The other issue was the importance of senior administrative experience. Again council members had strong views. One who held the senior post at a major Canadian university commented that ‘holding a senior position is not necessarily an indicator of leadership skills.’ Another senior university administrator said that ‘demonstrated talent is more important than having held a particular position,’ adding that ‘we must look for academic entrepreneurship in someone who can work with the members of the Institute’s governing structures as colleagues.’ Yet another neatly summed up Council’s view of the importance of administrative experience: ‘CIAR should look for a successful pirate, not the admiral of the fleet.’93 The search committee held its first meeting on 12 April 2000. Later in the day, Kierans told the board of directors that the search process ‘will be conducted more like a corporate search, rather than an academic process.’ He hoped that the institute would have a new president by September. The issue of requiring candidates to have occupied a senior academic position came up again, and Kierans told the board that the search committee ‘felt very strongly that leadership abilities must be strong and that leadership abilities are more important than administrative abilities.’ A member added that the ideal candidate would ‘have both deep intellectual, inspirational leadership and charisma, along with administrative skills,’ but leadership was essential. Administrative skills, if lacking, could be made up by appointing a chief operating officer. Kierans summarized a long discussion, stating that the new president had to focus on ‘how the Institute will continue to nurture the

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best minds in the world to work together across disciplines and across universities.’94 The public advertisement announcing the search stated that CIAR ‘seeks a leader to provide both intellectual and institutional inspiration and creativity, in order to further the Institute’s current research programs and identify the next generation of research opportunities.’95 The search committee finished its work in September. It had begun with more than sixty potential candidates, and Janet Wright had conducted interviews and narrowed the group to thirteen. From these the Committee chose a short list of three to interview itself. At the research council meeting on 20 October 2000, Kierans announced that the unanimous choice of the committee was Chaviva Hošek. She would assume her duties as president of CIAR in January 2001.96 Hošek had had a distinguished and varied career as professor of English literature at the University of Toronto, president and executive member of the National Action Committee on the Status of Women, and minister of housing in the Ontario government. Most recently she had been director of policy and research for Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. Kierans told the council that Hošek ‘knows the Institute well, is committed to basic research, has an enormous amount of energy and excellent communication skills, and above all a tremendous breadth of intellectual curiosity.’ She was, he added, ‘a highly imaginative person’ who would be a ‘very effective’ president of the institute.97

17 Nanoelectronics

In the fall of 1996, one of Dupré’s priorities had been to find a way to revive the successful AIR program that Mustard had closed during the fiscal crisis of 1995. After the research council rejected a proposal for a program on collaborative systems, three council members, Robin Armstrong, Peter Nicholson, and Harry Rogers, began searching for areas where technology has ‘encountered bottlenecks that can only be resolved by reverting to fundamental research.’1 On 1 May 1997, the three had a teleconference with Dupré to sketch out the parameters of a research program. It needed to be in a research area ‘in which networking counts,’ an area marked by ‘dynamism and progress,’ one in which ‘a Canadian core of capability’ existed, one in which ‘bottleneck questions’ had arisen, and an area that could be addressed by a group ‘of reasonable size with reasonable resources over a reasonable period of time.’ Two other criteria sharpened the limits of such a research program. First, there should be ‘promise of ultimate utility in the form of wealth creation after 5, 7 or at most 10 years,’ and, second, it should be an area ‘in which CIAR has a comparative advantage in relation to industrial laboratories with major financial resources.’ That was going to be a substantial challenge, but there were a number of promising possibilities. Microelectronics, materials science, machine translations of ‘natural languages,’ data mining of complex databases, precision engineering, environmental topics, and biotechnology all were thought to have potential. Nicholson was going to explore the question with colleagues at Bell Canada and Nortel, and Rogers would do the same with his Precarn group. Beyond that, the group planned to ask applied scientists and engineers in industrial laboratories about bottlenecks.

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They would then place the bottlenecks ‘before fundamental scientists to see if they ignite “fire in the belly” to uncover feasible solutions.’2 Two weeks later, the group met again. This time, Gerald Heffernan from the board of directors joined them. There was a discussion of the ‘laundry list’ of potential areas for research. Armstrong agreed to scout out his contacts at the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, where he was a vice-president. The group also sounded a note of caution: they agreed that it was important that the institute ‘differentiate itself’ from the growing number of Networks of Centres of Excellence and that it ‘avoid duplicating proposals rejected by NCE’s.’ Beyond that, it was noted that André Salama, holder of the J.M. Ham Chair of Microelectronics at the University of Toronto and a leading figure in the development of power semiconductor devices and the design of integrated circuits, was an important person to contact, perhaps even ‘a potential source of one-stop shopping re bottlenecks in microelectronics.’ It was agreed that Armstrong and Dupré should meet with Salama.3 In September, the ‘ginger group,’ as they now styled themselves, met in Toronto and were joined by Salama. The group had also consulted Evan Evans from the Soft Surface Sciences and Interfaces Program and his UBC colleague Jeffrey Young. They had settled on nanotechnology as the research area and determined that beyond the University of Toronto, there was expertise at the National Research Council, Northern Telecom, McGill, Queen’s, the Université de Sherbrooke, and Simon Fraser University. Salama’s presentation to the group argued that there was an emerging bottleneck of great significance in the continuing development of transistors, a bottleneck that required breakthroughs in fundamental science.4 The problem was this. Moore’s Law, proposed in 1965, predicted that the number of transistors on a silicon chip would double every eighteen months. With the development of dynamic random access memories (DRAMs) and microprocessors, that prediction had come true. Computers and communication devices now had the capacity to compute data faster and better than a room-sized computer could do just a decade or so earlier. But the technologies used to develop and manufacture these microprocessors would reach their technological limits in the next decade. As Nicholson later put it, they ‘will hit a brick wall.’ To get beyond the barrier, and to do so at a reasonable cost of fabrication of still smaller but faster microprocessors, required the exploration of processes and materials on the scale of nanometres. Industrial research was working in the 250 to 500 nanometre ranges, stretching out the remain-

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ing capacity of the current technology for fabricating microprocessors but the challenge was to get to a much smaller scale, between 1 and 100 nanometres. (A nanometre is one-billionth of a meter. Put another way, the width of a human hair is 10,000 nanometres.)5 The ginger group concluded that it should be dissolved and replaced by a task force to explore a possible program in nanoelectronics. Armstrong, Heffernan, Nicholson, and Rogers would be the initial nucleus of the group, and Dupré would ask Salama to lead it.6 At the end of September, Salama agreed to assemble a multidisciplinary team to develop a proposal. He expected he could complete his report by the end of March 1998, and if his proposal was accepted, Salama anticipated that funding would be provided to start the program in July 1998. He expected that he would be appointed a fellow in the program, either as its ‘Team Leader or a major participant on the Team.’7 When Council met in November, Nicholson explained why the group had chosen nanoelectronics as a potential research program area. Council then approved a recommendation that Salama lead a task force on nanoelectronics and report at its spring 1998 meeting.8 In April 1998, Salama presented a feasibility study to Council. He explained that future prospects for miniaturization included further scaling down of existing transistor structures, the development of solid state quantum devices, and the exploration of molecular electron devices. Salama believed that the latter two options, solid state quantum and molecular electron devices, were most likely to ‘impact the development of electronic systems within the next ten years and allow the extension of Moore’s Law ... past the 2005 time frame.’ He proposed that CIAR fund a workshop to explore further the potential of a research program and other bridge funding to support developing a final version of a proposal. In addition, he urged Council to consider making a decision ‘as soon as a final proposal is presented,’ rather than wait for the fall 1998 council meeting.9 Salama answered several questions from council members before he left the meeting. In the discussion that followed, a number of concerns were expressed. Of critical importance, a member who had worked in the area for several decades was worried that Salama had minimized the importance of basic science questions that had to be resolved in this area. Salama had observed that several of the theoretical issues in the solid state quantum approach had been resolved, and ‘now the question is how to apply the theory.’ But in the molecular devices area, where using polymer materials was involved, ‘the theory is further behind.’

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When asked about his own involvement, Salama replied that he would be ‘more interested in a solid state focus; if the final decision is to focus on polymers, he would be less interested in being involved because of the longer time frame required to get results.’10 It was apparent in the discussion among council members, however, that they favoured a stronger focus on the molecular/polymer approach because it demanded more concentration on basic scientific issues and less on resolution, at the initial stage, of technological and developmental issues. In addition, Salama had told Council that he foresaw using a ‘top-down’ style of leadership in an institute research program, but several members objected that top-down leadership had not been and should not be a characteristic of CIAR programs. Finally, a number of members questioned the appropriateness of Salama’s proposed timetable for program approval. In the end, Council approved funding for a workshop and development of a proposal by Salama but left the decision about when to hear the program proposal up to Dupré.11 Salama returned to Council with a program proposal on 29 October 1998. In the interim, he had held two workshops, and the council members Howard Alper, Jules Carbotte, John Kendall, and Art McDonald had attended the latter one.12 Salama was joined at the meeting by four of the workshop participants, Martin Moskovits, chair of chemistry at U of T, Henri Pépin from the Université du Québec, Andrew Sachrajda from the National Research Council, and Jeff Young from UBC. Salama told Council that his proposal depended upon a strong multidisciplinary team and a multidisciplinary approach. The program addressed aspects of both fundamental and applied research in the field and would ‘offer a unique opportunity to integrate the knowledge and ideas of experts in novel and unconventional circuits and systems architectures with those of material and device scientists and engineers.’ He added that the program would have ‘a very high potential for success’ because of the strong ‘pool of research talent in Canada,’ good funding prospects, the availability of ‘excellent international investigators,’ and ‘potential industrial receptor capacity for this program in the future.’13 In response to a question, Salama noted that there were similar networks in Europe and Japan but that ‘this group would be more broadly interdisciplinary and more integrated.’ Salama had recommended a ten-year timeframe for the program, prompting a council member to ask if there would be a ‘defining moment in the next ten years.’ He replied that he foresaw ‘another funding scheme’ at the end of the ten years, ‘modeled along the lines of Precarn/Iris,’ which had developed

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out of the AIR program. After a brief discussion, Council recommended that a research program in nanoelectronics be approved, that Salama be offered the directorship of the program, and that he be appointed a fellow in the institute.14 The remaining task was to establish a strong advisory committee to work with the program. Dupré and Carbotte had been thinking about possible members before the November council meeting, and by the end of the year they had put together a sizeable list. Salama provided more names in early January 1999.15 Two weeks later, the job was done. David Litster, a professor of engineering physics and vice-president and dean of research at MIT, agreed to chair the committee. He was joined by Haroon Ahmed, an experimental physicist at the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, Francis J. DiSalvo, professor of materials science at Cornell University, David K. Ferry, an electrical engineer at Arizona State University, and John Kendall, computer scientist at Calgary and a member of the research council.16 After nearly two years of exploration and planning, a new research program was about to begin its work.




It did not go smoothly. The appointment of program members was delayed for months until Salama met with Litster and Kendall at the Banff congress late in May. There it was decided that seventeen potential members would be recommended to the advisory committee.17 In early June, the advisory committee recommended that nine of the seventeen be appointed as associates in the program.18 But by then, Salama had resigned. He had made an introductory presentation on the Nanoelectronics Program to the congress at the opening of the third day’s proceedings. His presentation did not go well and did not impress members from other institute programs in the audience. Then, as soon as he had finished, he left rather than staying for the remainder of the morning’s presentations and discussion. That precipitated a closed-door discussion of the issue at the research council meeting at the end of the congress. The earlier concerns about Salama’s style of leadership and commitment to the program and Council’s doubts about the program being led by an applied scientist were again rehearsed by council members who were particularly interested in the program. At a second meeting in Toronto, a few days later, it was decided that Dupré should bring the concerns to Salama’s attention. Dupré met Salama in the morning of 4 June. After hearing of Council’s concerns, Salama told Dupré,

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‘CIAR exhibits a science culture that has yet to assimilate the culture of engineering science.’ Later in the day, Salama resigned.19 Dupré informed the newly appointed program members that he hoped to find a new program director by September and that in the interim, Jules Carbotte would fill in.20 A few days after assuming the directorship, Carbotte invited all the people who had participated in Salama’s second workshop, in September 1998, to a two-day workshop in Toronto. He wrote that he looked forward to having a new director in place and announcing more appointments soon, but ‘in the meantime we need to move forward.’ The purpose of the meeting, Carbotte said, was ‘to focus better on who we are as a group and on what is the optimum direction the program may initially take. Each of you is invited to present your vision of what your contribution might be.’ He also hoped to ‘define more sharply common interests and even explore possible fruitful collaborations within the overall vision of the program.’21 Carbotte’s two-day workshop took place on Friday and Saturday, 20 and 21 August, in Toronto. Jimmy Xu from U of T led off the opening thematic session, ‘New Paths to Future Nanoelectronics.’ The first Friday afternoon session, ‘Novel Nanofabrication Techniques,’ was introduced by Martin Moskovits. Later, Jeff Young introduced a session called ‘Engineering Electrons and Photons at the Nanoscale.’ Jeff Dahn from Dalhousie opened Saturday morning’s session, ‘Unconventional Nanomaterials,’ and Peter Grütter from McGill introduced the final Saturday afternoon session, ‘Techniques at the Nanoscale.’ The workshop closed with a wrap-up discussion among the nine program members and a dinner for the members, the advisory committee, and officers of CIAR.22 The meeting successfully challenged the attendees to focus on themes and establish a momentum for the program. David Litster, the advisory committee chair, found it ‘very stimulating.’ One theme that struck him as making sense ‘given the talents and interests of our associates is “photonic materials,”’ he noted. But he and Dupré also had a second agenda: to find new leadership for the program. Both sought the views of the workshop participants. As Litster later recorded, ‘By the end of the meeting, it became fairly clear to us that the strongest leadership would come from the combined services of Martin Moskovits and Jeff Young.’23 It was Dupré’s job to get them aboard. By mid-September, he had persuaded Moskovits to be the program director and Young to be associate director.24 Moskovits told the research council at the end of October that the

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Nanoelectronics Program would build on the technologies that had been developed in the microelectronics industry, ‘but it will be starting the process one step below – members hope to add the molecular control that will lead to nanostructure, which will lead to microstructure, which in turn will lead to new devices.’ He added that the members had identified photonic band-gaps as a major research area, that several members were working in the area, and that the area would attract other people to the program. A race was on to create new materials, but Moskovits stressed that ‘getting the materials is not enough – researchers must understand the new materials, do the theory, and focus the synthesis along fruitful lines.’ He also noted that quantum computing was another area of interest for some members, including his associate director, Jeff Young. But he knew that CIAR was also evaluating quantum computing as a separate research program. It would be an important theme within the Nanoelectronics Program but was itself a very large field of exploration. He concluded that embedding quantum computing within his program ‘either would not do it justice or Nanoelectronics would have to become huge to cover all the many disciplines.’ Instead, he assured Council, if it adopted quantum computing as a program, Young and others in Nanoelectronics would ‘work very closely with the key people without turf wars.’25 The appointments of Moskovits and Young were approved at the October council meeting and at a meeting of the board of directors in November.26 Soon after, Moskovits and Young asked Litster and his colleagues to approve four more associates for the program: Jeff Dahn, the Dalhousie physicist who had led off one of the sessions of Carbotte’s workshop, Pawel Hawrylak, the leader of the Quantum Theory Group at the National Research Council, Douglas Perovic, the chair of materials science and engineering at U of T, and Andrew Sachrajda, the leader of the Quantum Physics Group at the National Research Council.27 Moskovits also prepared a new program description for the institute to use. He noted that the miniaturization of silicon chip technology was going to reach its limits in the next decade and that a worldwide effort was under way to find a replacement technology. Testing was already being done on derivatives of conventional semiconductor microelectronics, including molecular electronics and single-electron transistors. And ‘more radical concepts’ such as optically based parallel processors and quantum computers were being explored. Prominent researchers at a number of Canadian universities were

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making contributions to the field, and they would particularly benefit from the networking and interaction activities of CIAR. The associates in the program had expertise in four aspects of the field: novel device conceptualization and design, synthesis and fabrication, experimental determination of properties, and the theoretical treatment of new phenomena. The common goal of the program was to ‘identify promising new materials (metals, semiconductors, insulators, molecules, polymers, etc.), devices and/or principles that may form the basis of future nanoelectronics. Fundamental science would be the focus of the first phase of the program and it would be carried out by ... chemists who can synthesize novel materials; physicists to develop novel structures and evaluate their properties; theorists to guide in the choice of most promising areas, help explain and model observed phenomena; [and] material scientists to provide measurements needed to evaluate the provided structures.’ Then, in the later phase, the work would turn ‘toward more engineering issues.’28




Moskovits and Young then began organizing the first program meeting for Nanoelectronics. It was held at Banff over the weekend of 20–22 May 2000 and featured morning and afternoon sessions plus more work at ‘fireside discussions’ on Saturday and Sunday evenings. The members of the program, the advisory committee, Carbotte, and Kathryn Hough and Kara Spence from CIAR were joined by Canadian scientists who had participated in the earlier workshops and four eminent foreign scholars.29 By then, the first collaborative work was already under way. A highlight of the meeting was the announcement made by Sajeev John and Geoffrey Ozin, two University of Toronto scientists who worked in adjoining buildings on the St. George Campus but had never met before joining the Nanoelectronics Program. John, a theoretical physicist, and Ozin, a materials chemist, together with one of John’s colleagues, Henry van Driel, a laser physicist, had synthesized a silicon crystal that could ‘cage’ light. The work had been completed in November 1999, just as the program was getting organized, and it was published in Nature three days after the Banff meeting closed. The potential of this accomplishment was enormous. The structure they had created could lead to the development of an optical microchip that would control the flow of light the way conventional microchips controlled the flow of electrons.30 An important group decision taken at Banff to not

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participate in the branch of nanoelectronics ‘aimed at extending current silicon technologies to smaller dimensions’ was quickly endorsed by the advisory committee.31 Soon other collaborative projects were proceeding. Both Moskovits and Grütter at McGill began collaborations with Sachrajda, and Young started working with Hawrylak. The program entered a partnership with the National Research Council to add two research associates to Sachrajda’s and Hawrylak’s groups there. And Grütter’s group at McGill and Xu’s team at Brown made significant contributions during the first year of program work. 32 As with other institute programs, the program meetings were the core of interactivity and ‘the most exciting functions’ for the nanoelectronics group. Two meetings were held each year, with the focus on ‘in-depth discussion, challenging fundamental assumptions and trends and learning about issues outside the direct scope of current program activities.’ Moskovits reported that there were only a few presenters, half from the program and half guests, at each meeting. The emphasis was on discussion and ‘interruption is encouraged.’ As he put it, ‘It is better to get to the bottom of the issue than to the end of the lecture.’ The group encouraged its best graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to attend each of the meetings. In addition, as the program neared the close of its first cycle, pre-program meeting workshops, organized by the graduate students, were held. There the emphasis was on introductory lectures and, again, extensive discussion of the subject or theme of the program meeting.33 Together, the program members were a highly productive group. In the final two years of the program’s first cycle the members produced more than 230 publications, issued eight patents, and delivered more than 150 invited lectures. Members were also deeply involved in a number of related activities. Several were founding members of the new Canadian-European Initiative on Nanostructures. Moskovits had played a key role in founding the National Institute for Nanotechnology at the University of Alberta, a collaborative effort between the university and the National Research Council, and other members quickly became involved as well. Peter Grütter was appointed research director of the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council’s Nano Innovation Platform and several members played important roles at their universities in recruiting new appointments in the field. At U of T, Doug Perovic developed and chaired the first undergraduate degree program in the world in nanoengineering in the university’s highly regarded engineering science program. Soon after, Perovic and Jeff Young at UBC estab-

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lished student exchange programs focused on nanoelectronics research and applications.34 Looking back at the end of the first cycle, Moskovits was pleased with the program’s progress. The purpose of CIAR was to foster new collaborations, and from that perspective, Moskovits wrote in his report for the program’s review panel, ‘We believe we have chosen wisely.’ What lay ahead? ‘Having sown properly, we believe the best course in the next five years, first and foremost, is to harvest the benefits of these ambitious collaborations, which often combine novel materials synthesis with physical measurements and metrology, theory and rudimentary device development.’35 A number of the collaborations, he continued, dealt with structures that might emerge as basic building blocks in quantum information processing architectures. In a new cycle the program would concentrate on developing means for fabricating these nanostructures ‘and probing their fundamental physical properties, rather than using them as qubits [quantum binary units] per se.’ The program wanted to expand its membership by 50 per cent by including new associates and scholars from both Canada and abroad and to continue to promote recruiting of new faculty members in Canadian universities. It needed to flesh out its work in nanomaterials synthesis and also intended to expand the program ‘into biological nanosystems with nanoelectronic and nanophotonic impact.’36 Moskovits ended his report on a more personal note. In 2000, he had moved from the chair of chemistry at Toronto to the deanship of mathematical, life and physical sciences at the University of California, Santa Barbara. As the cycle came to a close, he informed his colleagues that he would be stepping down as director of the Nanoelectronics Program.37




The review panel met at the end of July 2003. Mark Ratner, a chemist at Northwestern University, chaired the panel. John Weaver from the Department of Materials Science at the University of Illinois and Eli Yablonovitch, an electrical engineer at the University of California, Los Angeles, were the other external reviewers. Howard Alper, vice-rector of research at the University of Ottawa, joined them as a member from the research council. The panel noted that there were nineteen program members: four in British Columbia, three in Alberta, five in Ontario, and one each in Manitoba, Quebec, and Nova Scotia, plus four members based at institutions in the United States. During the review, the

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panel interviewed Moskovits, Young, thirteen other program members, and David Litster and Michael Scott (chief technology officer at Bookham Technology in Kanata, Ontario) from the advisory committee. The review report described the particular challenges that confronted the research program: ‘The nanoscale is not only small; it is a “special” kind of small, because it poses important fundamental challenges. Forces acting on nanoparticles cause behaviours that differ substantially from the behaviour of macroscale objects like tennis balls and rocks – one example is the capillary force that permits flies to walk on walls. These fundamental challenges to our understanding and to our ability to create and manipulate nanoscale entities are the driving intellectual issue in nanoscience.’38 The panel was ‘impressed by the overall quality and integration of the program.’ It noted that some of the program’s foci had had a greater scientific impact than others and that some members had seized the opportunities of integrated research more eagerly than others. Members of the group working on photonic crystals had ‘effectively integrated’ theory, preparation, and characterization in a ‘world-leading effort,’ while another group working on nanomaterials had done fine work, but it was not as clearly integrated as the photonic crystals group. In the area of spin electronics and nanomagnetics, the group centred on the National Research Council members in Ottawa was widely recognized as ‘world class,’ but the international impact of the nanomagnetics work was less well known. The people working on scanning probe imaging and detecting were making ‘significant and novel contributions’ to the area. In molecular electronics, the CIAR members were among ‘the world’s leaders.’39 As was true of several other institute programs, the program meetings of Nanoelectronics were ‘a striking success,’ and the panel noted that members had described them as ‘open, constructive, intense, supportive and productive.’ The panel observed, ‘The fact that there are repeated meetings with essentially the same set of people means that significant collaborations can ensue – and they have.’ There were improvements to be made. Foremost among them was the inclusion in the program of younger researchers as scholars and of women. There was some evidence of concern about ‘transparency’ in the management of the program and the way in which appointments had been made. The panel ‘feels strongly that procedures for changing personnel and emphasis areas must be discussed in an open forum by all the investigators on the team.’ In addition, given new developments in nanoscience,

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the panel recommended that in the next cycle, the program ‘should include, starting at the very beginning, serious attention to and planning of’ a nanobiology component. The nano-bio effort would include contributions from several of the current team, but it must also bring in new members who will have complementary skills and experience.’40 But, overall, the report stated, the Nanoelectronics Program had achieved ‘a remarkable record of success. It has recruited an extraordinary group of researchers, has developed strong independent but mutually supportive focus areas, has engendered very significant new joint research programs, and has permitted individual researchers to bring new themes into their research.’41 Because of the breadth of the program’s agenda, the panel suggested its name be changed to Nanoscience and Nanotechnology ‘to better reflect the broad themes of the program.’ After hearing the recommendations of the program members and the advisory council members, it recommended that Peter Grütter be asked to assume leadership of the program. With that, the review panel ‘enthusiastically and unanimously recommends that the CIAR Program in Nanoelectronics be renewed.’42 The panel’s report was the first business item on the research council’s agenda at its September 2003 meeting. The recommendations of the panel had been considered by the advisory committee and the institute’s programs and research staff. The vice-president, research, Mel Silverman, summarized the highlights of the program’s achievements, endorsed the recommendation of the panel that Peter Grütter be appointed the program’s director, and recommended that Nanoelectronics be renewed for another five-year cycle. After a very brief discussion, the research council quickly approved the appointment of Grütter and the continuation of the Nanoelectronics Program.43

18 Renewal

Chaviva Hošek became president of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research on 1 January 2001. She was familiar with the institute and its work and had been a champion of federal funding for it during her years in Ottawa as policy adviser to Prime Minister Chrétien. But becoming CIAR’s chief executive officer demanded much more. She desired, and was expected, to be versed in each of its research programs; to get to know the program directors, advisory committee members, and as many program members as possible; to meet and know the institute’s public and private benefactors, and to master the arts of persuasion required in a skilled fundraiser. Much of the information about the institute’s programs could be gleaned from the several dozen program directors’ reports and the quinquennial peer reviews of CIAR programs. But Hošek wanted more, both for herself and for the research council, which, since 1998, had been rotating its membership, bringing in new people each year. The council meetings were the ideal occasions to keep everyone abreast of the latest news on programs and program proposals. From the earliest years, council had debated and endorsed program proposals and after quinquennial reviews had recommended whether programs should be continued. But Hošek added a new feature to the council agenda. Prior to each quinquennial review, the program’s director would make a detailed presentation to the council on the work that had been accomplished in the previous four to five years. This practice began at Hošek’s first council meeting with presentations by Elhanan Helpman on the Economic Growth and Policy Program and Scott Tremaine on the Cosmology and Gravity Program. At the same meeting, Patricia Baird outlined initial explorations for a program on ‘successful societies’; Jules

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Carbotte reported on a developing proposal on large data sets; and Jim Friesen sketched the beginnings of a proposal for physics in biology.1 In October 2001, the research council approved a new program on quantum information processing and Hošek reported on several emerging program initiatives.2 Council also received the review reports for Helpman’s and Tremaine’s programs and for Ford Doolittle’s program in evolutionary biology. Cosmology and Gravity and Evolutionary Biology were each renewed for five-year terms.3 The Economic Growth and Policy Program posed a more difficult problem. The review panel had recommended renewal, but Council’s strategic review committee did not agree. It unanimously concluded that ‘the program was not achieving the aims and goals it set out to do.’ A lengthy discussion took place without resolution, and a decision was put off.4 At the council meeting on 5 April 2002, Hošek announced that Economic Growth and Policy would be closing at the end of June. A group, led by Helpman, that had already begun exploring the relationship between economic growth and institutions would be funded for two more years. In addition, at the previous council meeting, members had suggested that the issue of ‘non-economic determinants of economic performance’ would be worth investigating. Hošek had followed up by asking George Akerlof, a 2001 Nobel laureate and long-time member of the Economic Growth and Policy Program, to lead the exploration of a possible new program on the intersection of economics and sociology.5 In addition, Council heard a pre-review presentation from Louis Taillefer, the director of the Superconductivity Program.6 During the first eighteen months of Hošek’s presidency, research council meetings were sharply focused on the institute’s program agenda, adopting one new program and hearing reports on several other developing initiatives, receiving pre-review presentations from program directors, and determining whether reviewed programs should be renewed or closed. That was a significant change from the last years of Fraser Mustard’s presidency, when most program matters were given less attention than the issue of the survival of the institute itself. In a sense, the research council returned to its traditional role in the governance of the institute. At the board of directors, even more change was made. The chair, Tom Kierans, a number of veteran board members, and Hošek were all convinced that a major restructuring effort was needed. Allan Taylor of the board’s governance committee agreed to prepare a report on board development and corporate governance. It was presented to an execu-

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tive committee meeting in September 2001, before going to the full board meeting in November. The most important item was a proposal to reduce the size of the board by more than half. At the time, there were forty-two members, and a member noted that the larger board that David Johnston had established ‘has not worked.’7 A board of eleven to fifteen members was too small because of the need for broadly based geographical representation, so a target was set for a renewed board of directors of about twenty members. In addition, Taylor’s report called for a ‘board of advisors’ to ensure ‘institutional memory.’ Kierans hoped the advisers would continue their personal involvement in programs that interested them and in the affairs of the institute, but ‘their day-to-day responsibilities would be lifted.’ He noted two categories of members: those who would ‘still enjoy an association with the Institute without assuming any more responsibility’ and ‘those who had essentially lent their names to the CIAR Board.’ ‘Renting names,’ he added, ‘hasn’t helped the Board to function as it should, or helped the Institute in general.’ But members who had an interest in a program and an understanding of how CIAR operated would be ‘effective ambassadors of the Institute, whether they continued to serve on the new Board or joined the Board of Advisors.’8 In November, the board of directors endorsed the proposed changes. The new group, now called the council of advisors, was established, and the number of board members was reduced to no less than twenty and no more than twenty-four. The new board would meet ‘a minimum of six times in the first year,’ and members would be expected to attend at least 75 per cent of the meetings. Another decision was that the executive committee ‘would not be necessary with a smaller board.’9 Forty-two members attended the November meeting. When the board met again, in February and April 2002, there were twenty members, including the chair and the president.10 Stefan Dupré had laid the foundation for financial stability at CIAR during his presidency. When Hošek attended her first executive committee meeting in February 2001, Chris Torres, the vice-president, finance, announced that the institute was ‘in a healthy financial position’ because of a significant appreciation of the value of its investments.11 There was more good news. Kierans told the members that the Ontario government had increased its annual commitment from $1.25 million to $1.5 million, that CIBC had increased its pledge, and that the Max Bell Foundation had pledged $500,000 over five years. Still, to finish the 2000–01 fiscal year in balance, more money was needed. Richard

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Ivey of the Ivey Foundation, chair of the advancement committee, explained that the private-sector goal for the year was $4.4 million. Of that amount, $1.1 million had been raised and $1.6 million was already pledged. Another $1.7 million was needed before the end of June. ‘We have a long way to go,’ he said.12 For the remainder of the fiscal year, prospects kept changing. As Hošek and Kierans searched for funds, a potential $200,000 surplus was forecast in April but turned to a shortfall and deficit in June.13 In September, when the final figures had been compiled, Kierans reported that the institute had done ‘better than break even.’15 It was beginning to look as if the years of fiscal insecurity were fading away and that, Hošek recalled, ‘was great for everybody.’15 The year 2002 began with even better news. Hošek told the board of directors that the federal government was proposing a new relationship with CIAR. The old one-for-two matching grant program was going to close at the end of March. Beginning 1 April, Ottawa would give CIAR a grant of $25 million over five years, with a provision that the institute raise a matching $25 million during the same period. The implications of the new agreement were enormous: the grant signalled strong recognition by the federal government of the importance of CIAR’s research programs to Canada. The new grant would also have a major positive impact on private sector fundraising and transform the framework of financial stability built by Dupré into a firm foundation for the future.16 A year earlier, Hošek had told the board that she looked forward to the day when the institute ‘could manage up to 12 programs.’17 That possibility had now become very real.




As Hošek looked to the future, she told the executive committee in February 2001 that she was ‘considering how to get young, bright researchers, who are not yet part of our network, involved in CIAR.’18 She recognized that the dynamic of CIAR, from its earliest days, had been sustained by attracting talented young people into its programs. In April 2001, at a board meeting, she noted that the Cosmology and Gravity and Superconductivity programs were ‘renewing themselves’ by adding younger scientists. More recently, CIAR fellows in the universities had received funding from the Canada Research Chairs program, which the federal government had established in 2000 to fund 2,000 research chair appointments in key academic fields by 2005. As the chairs were allocated, the institute had entered into partnerships with the universi-

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ties to assist them in hiring new young researchers. ‘If we are going to be competitive over the next 10 years,’ Hošek said, ‘we are going to have to think about how we can best use our resources to keep young people in Canada.’19 By the fall of 2001, Hošek had negotiated two other initiatives focused on young researchers. Precarn had agreed to provide funding for postdoctoral appointments in the Nanoelectronics Program, and the Network Centre of Excellence on the Mathematics of Information Technology and Complex Systems at Simon Fraser University would fund postdoctoral students to work in CIAR’s Quantum Information Processing Program.20 When the board of directors met in February 2002, Hošek reminded the members that the institute had entered its twentieth year. It was time, she said, ‘to look more closely at how to broaden our network and open the doors in intelligent ways to new ideas and new people.’21 Hošek’s enthusiasm for getting more young researchers involved with CIAR became part of a larger strategy she was developing. When she came to CIAR, she had been alarmed by the fragile morale of the headquarters staff. They had lived with the insecurity of fiscal crisis and annual worries about losing their jobs for years. Finishing the 2000–01 fiscal year without a deficit was a good boost, but not enough. Hošek wanted to recognize publicly the twentieth anniversary of the institute. By April 2001, she had decided that the institute should have another all-programs congress in 2002 and combine it ‘with a conference highlighting 20 of the brightest young minds.’ ‘This will help us create a new network of young people and a new generation of researchers,’ she told the research council in October, 2001.22 It would also set a goal for the institute’s staff. ‘We needed to celebrate twenty years, and this office needed to have a big project to do together that everyone had to work on,’ she told the author. ‘It would bring us together and give us a sense of achievement.’23 Susan Leclaire, Hošek’s special assistant, was asked to coordinate planning for the event. Organizing an all-programs congress was a large, complex assignment, but there was a recent precedent, the 1999 Banff congress. Selecting Canada’s top twenty young researchers was quite another matter. How could this be done? An idea from Scott Tremaine became a place to start. The institute would adopt a strategy modelled on the Frontiers of Science Program in the United States by trying to identify the winners of medals and prizes in the sciences and social sciences for the past five years who were forty years of age or younger.24 Soon a list of awards was assembled, including the Royal Society of Canada’s Rutherford Medal, the John L. Synge Award in mathematics, the

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Sloan and Humboldt Research Fellowship and the Steacie Fellowship.25 A list of three hundred young researchers who met a set of criteria established by the institute was gradually compiled.26 All the people identified were informed and asked to send references and supporting information to the institute. By October 2001, 112 had responded.27 Their files were sent to a panel of six judges for evaluation.28 By January 2002, the ‘top twenty’ had been chosen by the judges to receive the CIAR Young Explorers Award and be invited to attend and participate in the all-programs congress.29 Meanwhile, Leclaire was also organizing the congress itself. She anticipated a large attendance: perhaps as many as four hundred people once the institute’s program members, advisory committee people, research council, board of directors, and staff were counted and potential donors, government representatives, media, and the twenty young scientists added on. That dictated a site in an urban location, and by September 2001, Victoria was selected. It is an attractive city with an easily accessible conference centre connected to the Fairmont Empress Hotel.30 To plan the program, Leclaire consulted with the institute’s program directors. A consensus quickly developed among them. They wanted the program sessions focused on a few ‘big questions’ that reached beyond the particular issues being explored in a given program. ‘Really big questions,’ Louis Taillefer, director of the Superconductivity Program, remarked, ‘reconnect us with the wonder and curiosity of learning,’ and that is ‘the reason for CIAR.’ Elhanan Helpman, director of the Economic Growth and Policy Program, added, ‘We don’t need to answer the questions, because where there are no answers, it becomes an open issue, and the event should be about issues, as a way to celebrate knowledge and human curiosity.’ In addition, the program directors underlined Hošek’s emphasis that the program should ‘be focused on young people,’ both the top twenty young scientists and the younger members of their own programs.31 In the end, the first day of the conference was devoted to ‘origins,’ the second to ‘perspectives,’ and the third to ‘destiny.’ Like the first two, the third day would present a mix of young and senior people from several programs. Taillefer, Mark Reed, an associate in the Nanoelectronics Program, and Amanda Peet, a scholar in the Cosmology and Gravity Program, were in the first session. Then Ford Doolittle, director of the Evolutionary Biology Program, and Max Cynader of the Human Development Program would present the second morning session. After lunch, George Akerlof of the Economic Growth and Policy Program

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would present ‘Economics from the Bottom Up: From Used Cars to Unemployment.’ The session would close with a panel discussion by seven of the Young Explorers Award recipients.32 Early in 2002, Hošek sent letters of invitation to a long list of potential attendees. Titled ‘20*20 Vision,’ the conference ‘will look back on the past 20 years of intellectual leadership and will look forward to the most important research challenges of the next 20 years,’ she said. Unlike the two earlier all-programs congresses, which had been focused more directly on the work being done in individual programs, the Victoria Conference, Hošek hoped, would attract interest and attention from the public as well as from those closely associated with the institute. In April, she reported to the research council that ‘a surprising range of people have registered.’ She added, ‘The challenge for the presenters at this event is to deliver their talks in a way that will be inspirational and understandable to an intelligent, but not-expert audience.’33 The conference opened on Friday evening, 14 June, and did attract a great deal of interest from the public, from young people, and from members of the University of Victoria, which sponsored a reception at the Royal British Columbia Museum late Saturday afternoon. There had been national media coverage of the Young Explorers before the event, and there was a good deal of media coverage, especially by the local and Vancouver newspapers and by provincial television and radio, at the conference. Both the institute’s accomplishments and the emphasis on young researchers were highlighted.34 The day after the conference, the research council met. Members were ‘excited by the large number of young people attending the conference, and by the interchange of ideas across disciplines that took place among all participants. The young people seemed particularly inspired by the experience of interacting with the best of their peers in other fields.’35 Board members were equally impressed. One remarked that ‘20/20 Vision was the best three days she’d ever spent at a conference,’ and others commended the scope and quality of the presentations, the interaction with young researchers, and, as another put it, ‘a tremendous impression of the strength and stature of the Canadian science scene.’36




Four members of the original committee that Jim Ham appointed at the University of Toronto in September 1980 to study the feasibility of John Leyerle’s idea of an institute of advanced research attended the Victoria

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conference. They were Fraser Mustard, Stefan Dupré, David Strangway, and Craig Brown. In 1980, none of them could have foreseen the possibility that over three hundred people would attend a science-oriented conference in 2002 to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Of the four, only one, Mustard, could recall much about the official opening of the institute in the summer of 1982. But he had vivid recollections. He had taken his first sabbatical leave from McMaster University. He had a bit over $170,000 pledged or in hand to get started, thanks to the generous support of the Gordon Foundation, Joseph Peller of Andrés Wines, Bette Stephenson’s Departments of Education and Colleges and Universities in the Ontario government, and Spar Aerospace in Toronto. An ad hoc advisory committee was already exploring possible research areas, and Mustard was busy soliciting names for a research council with membership from across Canada. In modestly refurbished offices, a small, dedicated staff was beginning work. Mustard spoke with self-assurance of the financial and intellectual goals of the new venture. Judging by his statements in the press at the time, Canadians might have believed the institute’s smooth development was a sure thing. That ambitious confidence was characteristic of Fraser Mustard. Robin Armstrong, a founding member of the institute’s board of directors and long-time member of its research council, recalled that Mustard was the ideal person to start and build the institute precisely because he was a ‘larger than life enthusiast.’37 and Peter Munsche added that Mustard had ‘a firm belief that anything could be done.’38 Patricia Baird, an institute program member, a board member, and Mustard’s regional vice-president for British Columbia, seized on another aspect of his infectious appeal. ‘You can’t say no to Fraser,’ she told the author, adding that he is ‘a force of nature.’39 Bob Evans, founding director of the Population Health Program, echoed the point. He recalled Mustard trying to get him to take the position. Evans finally succumbed, ‘open to the messianic message that Fraser was bringing.’40 Similarly, Steve Suomi of the Human Development Program recalled his first meeting, across a dinner table, with Mustard. He ‘got me hooked in about twenty minutes,’ Suomi remarked.41 Mustard was the champion of every aspect of the institute’s mission and its most ardent salesman. But it was never an easy sell. Gaining the confidence of potential financial backers was a constant struggle. It took years to convince private donors and institutions that supporting basic research that held out no promise of a tangible product was worth doing.

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Gradually, with help from dedicated Board members like Larry Clarke, Peter Allen, Reva Gerstein, Allan Taylor, Gerald Heffernan, Leonard Bolger, and Gerald Hatch, an impressive list of corporations, foundations, and individuals gave support to the institute or one of its programs or sponsored a fellowship for a program member. With the notable exception of the government of Ontario, it took years to convince governments in Ottawa and the provinces that an institution that seldom had a positive balance sheet was worthy of support from the public purse. The institute seemed to stagger from crisis to crisis in its financial affairs, and Mustard, fervently determined to keep his research agenda going, later remarked, ‘One was always gambling.’42 A last campaign with Len Bolger, just before Mustard retired from the presidency, was a major success. The anonymous donation that it yielded underpinned the financial stability that marked Stefan Dupré’s administration. Gaining the confidence of Canada’s universities was somewhat easier, but not much. They were conservative, highly structured, complicated institutions; whether old or new, each had an impressive array of protective barriers around its faculties and departments. Building a ‘university without walls,’ an institution devoted to creating and maintaining interdisciplinary basic research programs, an institution that bound together individuals from several universities, Canadian and foreign, in common research endeavours – these were concepts that Canadian universities initially approached with the utmost caution. The research council was a major ally to the president in building the confidence of the universities. And, as Mustard quickly recognized, establishing a research program was an enormous asset to buttress both financial and intellectual support for the institute. David Strangway, the former president of the University of British Columbia, observed that the building of confidence was reciprocal. His university was a major benefactor of each of the institute’s first two programs, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, and Cosmology and Gravity. That, Strangway said, ‘was an enormous vote of confidence at the time ... The validation was tremendously important to us.’43 As the institute’s programs grew in number and size, and the number of universities involved multiplied, a firm partnership developed between CIAR and Canada’s universities. Nowhere was that more clearly demonstrated than when, in the financial crisis in the 1990s, Robert Prichard and Adel Sedra’s plan to offer CIAR a non-interest-bearing loan to keep the institute’s researchers in place and at work was quickly endorsed by all the other participating universities. Stefan Dupré

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regarded paying off the loans from all the universities except Toronto and UBC – coupled with quick agreement of those two institutions to write off the institute’s remaining indebtedness – as a highlight of his presidency.44 The critical element in creating confidence was the institute’s programs. At the beginning, CIAR desperately needed a program to transform high-minded potential into a research reality that would inspire support. The Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Society Program was a hastily constructed testing ground for the idea that an interdisciplinary program linking science and engineering with social science would work. It did not. The social science component never materialized, and AIRS became AIR. ‘It taught me that it is hard to build a cross-disciplinary program,’ Mustard remarked years later.45 But AIR engaged the strong support of Larry Clarke and his colleagues at Spar and soon of other private investors. AIR gave birth to the innovative Precarn consortium and, in time, the IRIS Network of Centres of Excellence. It also initiated the mission of recruiting scientists and scholars from abroad to take positions in Canadian universities. That role and the appointment of fellows supported by the institute in Canada’s universities became the bonds of partnership between CIAR and the universities. More than that, AIR attracted international attention and, in its quinquennial reviews, international peer recognition of its excellent research. Other programs followed: Cosmology and Gravity, Evolutionary Biology, Population Health, Economic Growth and Policy, and more. Each, perhaps predictably, was sui generis. Only some, like the Population Health and Human Development programs, fully lived up to the mandate of interdisciplinary research, and all programs found ways to challenge and defy the research council’s continuing quest for a definition of associate member status that fit all. Building successful programs, Mustard remembered, required ‘maximum flexibility.’46 So it remained through the twenty years from the founding of AIR to the end of the first cycle of Nanoelectronics. The impressive successes were paired with program failures. Several attempts to create a research program in the humanities collapsed, and a task force charged with finding a solution to the problem found its resting place in the institute’s archives. Economic Growth and Policy won critical acclaim as a social science program, but the long struggle of the Law and Society initiative ended in closing. Although most programs earned at least a first renewal, the Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces completed its mandate after an initial quinquennium of work. Nonetheless, when the con-

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ference convened in Victoria, 108 program members from the institute’s eight programs were present and shared the platform with the seventeen young scientists (Young Explorers) who had come to the meeting. Program members, whether fellows, associates, or scholars, had high regard for their association with CIAR. Alan Mackworth of the AIR program spoke for nearly all when he said CIAR made it possible for him and his colleagues ‘to do first class research we could not otherwise do.’47 Rosie Redfield, an associate in the Evolutionary Biology Program, singled out the promotion of interaction by CIAR as being especially important. ‘It’s influenced my teaching a lot,’ she reported.48 And Steve Suomi, an associate in the Human Development Program, told the author that membership in CIAR ‘not only broadened my perspectives but it also affected certain aspects of my research.’49 As CIAR matured, its influence and its contributions to Canadian science and Canadian policy formation grew impressively. The scientists at AIR made significant contributions to both artificial intelligence and robotics. Cosmology Program members and their allies at CITA at the University of Toronto brought theoretical cosmology in Canada to widely acknowledged world leadership in the field. The Evolutionary Biology members have played central roles in Canada’s Genome Project. Members of the Economic Growth and Policy Program drew international research attention to the Canadian economy and were frequent consultants to both the private and public sectors of Canadian economic life. And so it has been with every CIAR program. A common theme among CIAR programs has been international competition for highly regarded researchers. In 2001, Kathryn Hough reported to the executive committee that since its beginnings, the institute had brought forty-two ‘star’ researchers to Canada, of whom only eighteen had not stayed.50 Keeping the new people in Canada was a challenge. So, too, was retaining established Canadian scientists and scholars in the institute’s programs. CIAR worked with the Canadian universities to enhance the compensation of program members who had handsome offers from foreign institutions in their hands. At times there was success, at other times not. But even when the collaborations did not work, when a key researcher was lost to the Canadian university, that person was not lost to the institute. With very few exceptions, the scientists or scholars who took up positions abroad remained active contributing members of CIAR programs. Perhaps CIAR’s most influential impact on public policy emerged

Renewal

269

from the Population Health and Human Development programs. Together, these programs pioneered the development of new socially and economically oriented understandings of health and human development, and their work has been recognized and used far beyond Canada’s borders. Program members have played critical roles in establishing new institutions, both nationally and provincially, devoted to maintaining a healthy society. Their work in early childhood development, which Mustard took up as a cause when he assumed leadership of the Founders’ Network of CIAR, led to the publication of The Early Years Study, a groundbreaking report for the Ontario government, coauthored with Margaret McCain, the former lieutenant-governor of New Brunswick. McCain and Mustard concluded that ‘the period of early child development is equal to or, in some cases, greater in importance for the quality of the next generation than the periods children and youth spend in education or post secondary education.’51 When the two programs closed in 2003, CIAR signalled its continuing commitment by developing two new programs, Experience-based Brain and Biological Development, and Successful Societies. Mustard’s continuing promotion of early child development has influenced policy development in several Canadian provinces, in Australian states, and at the World Bank. Mustard and the CIAR programs also caught the attention of the Hungarian billionaire George Soros, who was building his Central European University in the early 1990s to promote pluralistic, democratic societies in the formerly Communist countries of eastern Europe. Soros flew to Toronto to visit Mustard, and a friendship developed that led Soros to commit $100 million to early childhood development initiatives in the eastern European states in a ‘Step by Step’ program that drew on CIAR’s research and aspects of the Head Start program in the United States.52 In July 1996, when Stefan Dupré took the helm, the influence of CIAR was firmly established in Canada and its reputation abroad was high. Dupré initiated several changes. He began a much-needed revitalization of the research council’s membership with the introduction of fixed terms of service. He and Kathryn Hough developed the concept and planning for the institute’s second all-programs congress at Banff in 1999. Both at headquarters in Toronto and in the programs, Dupré introduced a different style of presidency, a style that concentrated on management rather than Mustard’s characteristic dynamic leadership. With considerable exaggeration, Dupré said, in a conversation with the author, ‘I delegated everything.’53

270

A Generation of Excellence

But it was true that much of the detailed administration of CIAR in the Dupré years was led by his vice-presidents: Hough in research and programs, Torres in finance, and Todgham in advancement. Dupré focused on the fiscal problem. Both the federal government’s matching grant and the anonymous foundation’s money were due to terminate during his term of office. ‘What I was trying to achieve was to secure longer-term stability,’ he recalled. ‘That was what I was there for,’ he added, ‘to stabilize.’54 Dupré brought the costs of running the institute’s programs under control. The university loans were paid off or forgiven, and the accumulated debt of the institute eliminated. Dupré made major progress towards a new agreement with the federal government and, considering his mandate fulfilled, left the presidency in December 1999. Tom Kierans, chair of the board, provided interim leadership, along with the staff and Jules Carbotte, until January 2001, when Hošek assumed the presidency.




The Victoria conference drew the blueprints for Chaviva Hošek’s presidency. 20*20 Vision looked ahead. It forecast a renewed commitment to the research programs, a commitment to refreshing program membership by recruiting more of the young talent in Canada’s universities, research institutes, and hospitals, and a commitment to making the continuing achievements of CIAR accessible to all Canadians. 20*20 Vision also looked to the past. It celebrated a brief but remarkable history of testing, trial, and accomplishment. 20*20 Vision commemorated a generation of excellence in Canadian research inspired and led by the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

Appendix A CIAR Research Program Members 1982–2002

Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Belanger, Pierre Bibel, Wolfgang Brachman, Ronald Browse, Roger Buehler, Martin Caelli, Terrence Caines, Peter Cavanagh, Patrick Cercone, Nicholas Cynader, Max D’Eleuterio, Gabriele DeMori, Renato ElMaraghy, Hoda Fox, Mark Goldenberg, Andrew Goodale, Melvin Hinton, Geoffrey Hollerbach, John Holyoak, Keith Hunter, Ian Jepson, Allan Kahneman, Daniel Lawrence, Peter Lederman, Susan Levesque, Hector

Levine, Martin Lowe, David Mackworth, Alan Mendelzon, John Modi, Vinod Mylopoulos, John Pelletier, Jeffrey Perrault, Raymond Poole, David Poussart, Denis Pylyshyn, Zenon Reiter, Raymond Rosenschein, Stanley Schubert, Lenhart Stabler, Edward Stein, Richard Stepanenko, Yury Tatton, William Terzopoulos, Demetri Treisman, Anne Tsotsos, John van Emden, Maarten Woodham, Robert Zames, George Zucker, Steven

272 Appendix A

Cosmology and Gravity Affleck, Ian Bond, J. Richard Carlberg, Raymond Chen, Mark Choptuik, Matthew Couchman, Hugh Efstathiou, George Ellis, Richard Frolov, Valeri Fukugita, Masataka Hawking, Stephen Israel, Werner Kaiser, Nicholas Kallosh, Renata Kaspi, Victoria Kofman, Lev Lilly, Simon Linde, Andrei Lubin, Philip

Myers, Robert Navarro, Julio Netterfield, Barth Page, Donald Peacock, John Peebles, P. James E. Peet, Amanda Pen, Ue-Li Silk, Joseph Starkman, Glenn Stebbins, Albert Susskind, Leonard Szalay, Alexander Thompson, Christopher Tremaine, Scott Unruh, William Wald, Robert Wise, Mark Zurek, Wojciech

Evolutionary Biology Altman, Sidney Archibald, John Beckenbach, Andrew Bertrand, Helmut Bonen, Linda Brown, Gregory Bryant, David Burger, Gertraud Cavalier-Smith, Thomas Cavender, James Cedergren, Robert Charlebois, Robert Collins, Richard A. Daniels, Charles Davies, Julian

Day, William Delwiche, Charles Dennis, Patrick Doolittle, W. Ford Douglas, Susan Drouin, Guy Ellington, Andy El-Mabrouk, Nadia Felsenstein, Joseph Fournier, Maurille Gaasterland, Terry Glickman, Barry Gogarten, Peter Golding, Brian Gray, Michael

CIAR Research Program Members 273 Gutell, Robin Haynes, Robert Hickey, Donal Keeling, Patrick Konisky, Jordan Kushner, Donn Lang, B. Franz Leander, Brian Lee, Robert Lemieux, Claude Li, Wen-Hsiung Littlejohn, Tim Liu, Paul Xiang-Qin Logsdon, John Martin, William E. Matheson, Alastair E. McFadden, Geoff Mevarech, Moshe Michnick, Stephen Moreira, David Müller, Miklós O’Kelly, Charles Otto, Sarah P.

Pace, Norman R. Palmer, Jeffrey Pearlman, Ronald Pfeifer, Felicitas Ragan, Mark Rannala, Bruce Redfield, Rosemary Roger, Andrew Sankoff, David Sensen, Christoph Simpson, Alastair Smith, Michael Sogin, Mitchell Steel, Michael Susko, Edward Tillier, Elisabeth Turmel, Monique Waterman, Michael Woese, Carl Wolstenholme, David Wong, Jeffrey Zillig, Wolfram Zuker, Michael

Population Health Baird, Patricia A. Barer, Morris Contandriopoulos, André-Pierre Corin, Ellen Evans, Robert G. Frank, John Hertzman, Clyde Heymann, Jody Kalimo, Esko Kaplan, George Kolb, Bryan Lavis, John Lock, Margaret

Lomas, Jonathan Marmor, Theodore Marmot, Michael Mustard, Cameron Pless, Barry de Pouvourville, Gérard Power, Christine Renaud, Marc Roos, Leslie Roos, Noralou Stoddart, Gregory Wolfson, Michael

274 Appendix A

Law and Society Arthurs, Harry W. Asch, Michael Belley, Jean-Guy Buchanan, Ruth Friedland, Martin Hagan, John Jensen, Jane Macdonald, Roderick

Mansell, Robin Merry, Sally Engle Reed, Paul Salter, Liora de Sousa Santos, Boaventura Trebilcock, Michael Wolfe, David

Superconductivity Affleck, Ian Anderson, Philip Berlinsky, John A. Birgeneau, Robert Bonn, Doug Bourbonnais, Claude Brewer, Jess Buyers, William Carbotte, Jules P. Dodge, Steven Dynes, Robert C. Fisk, Zachary Fournier, Patrick Franz, Marcel Gaulin, Bruce Gingras, Michel Greedan, John E. Hardy, Walter Jérome, Denis John, Sajeev Kallin, Catherine Kee, Hae-Young Kiefl, Robert

Kim, Yong Baek Kivelson, Steve Laughlin, Robert Liang, Ruixing Luke, Graeme Maeno, Yoshiteru Marsiglio, Frank Mason, Thomas McKinnon, Ross Millis, Andrew Moler, Kathryn Preston, John Ruckenstein, Andrei Sawatzky, George Sonier, Jeff Stamp, Philip Taillefer, Louis Timusk, Thomas Tremblay, André-Marie Walker, Michael Wei, John Yamazaki, Toshimitsu

CIAR Research Program Members 275

Economic Growth and Policy Acemoglu, Daron Aghion, Philippe Akerlof, George Baldwin, John Beaudry, Paul Eaton, Curtis Fortin, Pierre Harris, Richard Helpman, Elhanan Howitt, Peter Lipsey, Richard G. Lloyd-Ellis, Huw Mowery, David Murphy, Kevin

Puga, Diego Riddell, W. Craig Roberts, Joanne Romer, Paul Rosenberg, Nathan Safarian, A. Edward Shleifer, Andrei Taylor, M. Scott Trajtenberg, Manuel Trefler, Daniel von Hippel, Eric Wolfson, Michael Young, Alwyn

Earth System Evolution Albeverio, Sergio Barnes, Christopher Beaumont, Christopher Braun, Jean L.M.F. Fowler, Anthony Hayes, John M. Hoffman, Paul Jacobsen, Stein Lambeck, Kurt Lasaga, Anthony Mayer, Bernhard

Mitrovica, Jerry Schrag, Daniel Cloetingh, Sierd Sleep, Norman Strauss, Harald Tirozzi, Brunello Veizer, Jan Walker, James C.G. Whiticar, Michael Willet, Sean Zachos, James

Human Development Barr, Ronald Bereiter, Carl Bouchard, Camil Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne Case, Robbie

Coe, Christopher Cynader, Max Frost, Barrie Gunnar, Megan Hertzman, Clyde

276 Appendix A Keating, Daniel P. Offord, David R. (Dan) Pence, Alan Power, Christine Rohlen, Thomas

Scardamalia, Marlene Suomi, Stephen Tremblay, Richard E. Willms, J. Douglas

Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces Beveridge, Terrance Bloom, Myer Boal, David Cullis, Pieter Evans, Evan Gast, Alice Mouritsen, Ole Narla, Mohandas

Noolandi, Jaan Parsegian, Adrian Prost, Jacques Sackmann, Erich Tirrell, David van de Ven, Theodorus Wortis, Michael Zuckermann, Martin

Nanoelectronics Dahn, Jeff Eigler, Donald Freeman, Mark Grütter, Peter Hawrylak, Pawel Heinrich, Bret John, Sajeev Kirczenow, George Moskovits, Martin Ozin, Geoffrey

Perovic, Douglas Reed, Mark Sachrajda, Andrew Salama, André Stamp, Philip Thomson, Douglas Wolkow, Robert Xu, J.M. (Jimmy) Young, Jeff

Appendix B CIAR Advisory Committees 1982–2002

Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Armstrong, Robin Belanger, Pierre Bourns, Arthur N. Bruneau, Angus Caelli, Terrence Caughey, Michael Frost, Barrie George, Peter Holland, John Kanade, Takeo Larkin, Peter

Levesque, Hector Lindseth, Roy Lozano-Perez, Tomas MacDonald, John MacNabb, Gordon M. McCullough, J. Ron Manning, Eric G. Pashler, P.E. Perrault, Raymond Richards, Whitman

Cosmology and Gravity Armstrong, Robin Blandford, Roger Fowler, William Hartle, James Hartwick, David Horowitz, Gary McDonald, Arthur B. Morton, Donald C. Peebles, P. James E.

Pritchet, Chris Racine, René Silk, Joseph Steinhardt, Paul Stoicheff, Boris Strangway, David Tremaine, Scott Wheeler, John White, Simon

278 Appendix B

Evolutionary Biology Belfort, Marlene Bowman, Clement DeLong, Edward Doolittle, Russell F. Evans, John B. Feldman, Marcus Felsenstein, Joseph

Fournier, Robert Friesen, James Gilbert, Walter Haynes, Robert Roberts, Richard J. Siminovitch, Louis Smith, Michael

Population Health Banting, Keith Black, Sir Douglas Coombs, John W. Culyer, Anthony J. Elgie, Robert Evans, John R. Gerstein, Reva Jackson, E. Sydney Levine, Sol McKeown, Thomas McLeod, Lionel

Millar, John S. Mustard, J. Fraser Rochon, Jean Sullivan, Terrence J. Syme, Leonard Tremblay, Marc-Adelard Turcotte, Fernand White, Kerr Wilk, Martin B. Wolfson, Alan

Law and Society Adams, Mr. Justice George Arthurs, Harry W. Chevrette, François de Sousa Santos, Boaventura Elgie, Robert Evans, John B. Goudge, Stephen Johnston, David L. Marsden, Lorna R. Mashaw, Jerry L. McLaughlin, Wade

Merry, Sally Engle Mohr, Johan Prichard, J. Robert S. Rocher, Guy Sachs, Harriet Shilton, Elizabeth Stuart, Mr. Justice Barry Sugarman, David Trebilcock, Michael Trubek, David

CIAR Advisory Committees 279

Materials Science† Armstrong, Robin Berlinsky, John A. Caillé, Alain Emery, Victor Jelinski, Lynn W. Kenny-Wallace, Geraldine Klein, Michael

Ling, Victor Litster, J. David Noolandi, Jaan Norton, Peter R. Orenstein, Joseph Pashler, P.E.

Superconductivity Armstrong, Robin Batlogg, Bertram Caillé, Alain Cave, Julian Emery, Victor

Litster, J. David Norman, Michael Orenstein, Joseph Pashler, P.E. Sawatzky, George

Economic Growth and Policy Arrow, Kenneth Arthur, Brian Bolger, Leonard F. Davenport, Paul Ham, James Holland, John Krugman, Paul Lacroix, Robert Marsden, Lorna R.

Mokyr, Joel Nicholson, Peter J. Ostry, Sylvia Rosenberg, Nathan Safarian, A. Edward Scheinkman, José Soete, Luc Summers, Robert

Earth System Evolution Clowes, Ronald Cooper, Allan Franklin, James M. †

Fyfe, William S. Hatch, Gerald G. Malpas, John

Became Superconductivity Advisory Committee and Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces Advisory Committee

280 Appendix B Price, Raymond Strong, David

Van der Voo, Robert

Human Development Baltes, Paul Bronfenbrenner, Urie Ceci, Stephen Entwisle, Doris Gardener, Howard Grier, David D.E. Hicks, Peter Lipsitt, Lewis

Manciaux, Michel Martin, Freda Pearson, Landon Petros-Barvazian, Angèle Picard, Richard Schanberg, Saul Werner, Emmy

Population Health/Human Development Baird, Patricia A. Ceci, Stephen Lipsitt, Lewis Mustard, J. Fraser

Sullivan, Terrence J. Syme, Leonard Tarlov, Alvin Zeesman, Allen

Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces Armstrong, Robin Berlinsky, John A. Klein, Michael Ling, Victor

Lubensky, Tom C. Norton, Peter R. Steck, Theodore L.

Nanoelectronics Ahmed, Haroon DiSalvo, Francis J. Ferry, David K.

Kendall, John Litster, J. David Scott, Michael G.

Appendix C CIAR Research Council 1982–2002

Alper, Howard Armstrong, Robin Arthurs, Harry W. Baird, Patricia A. Barber, Clarence Bell, Robert E. Bolger, Leonard F. Bourns, Arthur N. Boyle, Willard Briggs, Jean L. Brown, R. Craig Bruneau, Angus Caldwall, W. Glen E. Cameron, David M. Chandler, Marsha Cloutier, Gilles Cox, Edward Davis, Natalie Z. Dempster, Michael Dray, William Dupré, J. Stefan Fortin, Pierre Fraser, John A. Fraser, Roderick D. Friesen, James Frost, Barrie Fyfe, William S.

Gauvin, W. H. Gervais, Michel Hare, Kenneth Haynes, Robert Henripin, Jacques Holling, Crawford S. (Buzz) Hošek, Chaviva Kendall, John Kerwin, Larkin Kreisel, Henry Kushner, Eva Lacoste, Louise Larkin, Peter Leyerle, John E. Lipsey, Richard G. Maclachlan, Gordon MacNabb, Gordon M. Madden, John C. Maheu, Louis Maranda, Pierre Marsden, Lorna R. McBride, Barry McCulloch, Ernest A. McDonald, Arthur B. McLaren, Digby J. Munroe-Blum, Heather Mustard, J. Fraser

282 Appendix C Myers, Hal Naimark, Arnold Neatby, H. Blair Nicholson, Peter J. Pashler, P.E. Penelhum, Terrence Petch, Howard Picard, Robert R. Racine, René Renaud, Marc Rocher, Guy Rogers, Harry G. Ross, Malcolm Samson, John C. Sedra, Adel Simeon, Richard E.B.

Siminovitch, Louis Spence, Matthew Stairs, Denis Stoicheff, Boris Strong, David Tarassoff, Peter Trebilcock, Michael Tremaine, Scott Tuohy, Carolyn Whalley, John Wien, Fred Wieler, Paul Wilk, Martin B. Wolfson, Michael Zeidler, Eberhard

Appendix D CIAR Board of Directors 1982–2002

Aird, John Allen, Peter A. Armstrong, Robin Baird, Patricia A. Balfour, St. Clair Bandeen, Mona H. Barford, Ralph Bélanger, Michael Bentley, Peter J.G. Blundell, William R.C. Bolger, Leonard F. Brennan, Beverly A. Canfield, Brian A. Casgrain, M. Philippe Church, Robert Clarke, Larry D. Cooper, Sydney C. Crawford, Allan R. Crawford, H. Purdy Culver, David M. Decter, Michael B. Delorme, Jean-Claude Dexter, Robert P. Dupré, J. Stefan Eyton, J. Trevor Farwell, Peter M. Fell, Anthony S.

Ferguson, John T. Fierheller, George A. Fleck, James D. Flemming, Brian Fortin, Pierre Geddes, Eric George, Richard L. Georgetti, Kenneth V. Gerstein, Reva Gillani, Badru Gold, Charles C. Gotlieb, Allan E. Guthrie, H. Donald Hallward, Hugh G. Ham, James Hatch, Gerald G. Hawkins, Kerry L. Heffernan, Gerald R. Hobbs, Gerald H.D. Hošek, Chaviva M. Ivey, Richard W. Jackson, E. Sydney Johnston, David L. Kempston-Darkes, Maureen Kerr, David W. Kierans, Thomas E. Korthals, Robert W.

284 Appendix D Lamoureux, Claude Lau, Arthur LeClair, J. Maurice Lee, Paul V. Leyerle, John E. Lippert, Martin J. Lortie, Pierre Macdonald, Ruth Maurice, Peter C. Mauro, Arthur McCulloch, Ernest A. McLean, William Mitchell, Bruce H. Murray, Fraser Mustard, J. Fraser Nicholson, Peter J. Parkinson, Roger P. Peller, Joseph A. Pomeroy, Fred W. Rae, Barbara J.

Rae, Robert K. Renaud, Marc Ross, Alastair Royer, Raymond Saucier, Guylaine Segal, Hugh D. Sinclair, Helen K. Sparrow, Barbara J. Stanley, C. William Stephenson, Bette Stuart, Mary Alice Sulzenko, Andrei Taylor, Allan R. Webster, Norman E. Williams, Charles M. Wilson, John C. Wilson, Lynton R. Wright, Douglas T. Young, Victor L.

Appendix E CIAR Staff 1982–2002

Presidents of the Institute Mustard, J. Fraser 1982–96 Dupré, J. Stefan 1996–99 Hošek, Chaviva M. 2001–

Chairs of the Board of Directors Aird, John Allen, Peter Gerstein, Reva

Johnston, David L. Kierans, Thomas E. Wilson, John

Vice-Presidents Baird, Patricia A. Bolger, Leonard F. Burton, C. Bruce Fortin, Pierre Godfrey, John F. Hough, Kathryn

Renaud, Marc Spence, Kara M. Todgham, Douglas Torres, Christopher I. Walker, J. Martin

Office of the President Baboo, Patti

Bagnullo, Laura

286 Appendix E Bourns, Arthur N. Carbotte, Jules P. Chiswell, Wendy Cornell, Pamela Fitzpatrick, Patricia Green, Elizabeth Ham, James Hrica, Sally-Anne Karim, Farida Kustaski, Colleen Lawless, Cathy Leclaire, Susan

McDonald, Wendy McKinnon, Dorothy McMillan, Marilyn Munsche, Peter Mustard, Christine Nelles, Nora Oki, Diane Paterson, Robert Pember, Susan Tulk, Milena Whitby, Rosalind

Office of the Chair of the Board Brodie, Ann Salmon, Elizabeth

Vaz, Joyce

Programs/Research Bell, Glenda Burke, Dorothy Cosgrave, David Driedger, Paula Dunn, Lori Gerrits, Elizabeth Gordon, Suzanne Gorham, Margaret Hough, Kathryn

Nelson, Barbara O’Dwyer, Tammy Rowan, Susanna Schenk, Susan Sipek, Andrea Steeg, Carol Sutherland, Caroline Taylor, Stuart Vink, Helli-May

Finance Burton, Bruce Glidden, Robin Paterson, Christopher Phillips, Margaret

Torres, Christopher I. Van Straaten, Lucille Walker, J. Martin

CIAR Staff 287

Advancement/Communications Belzak, Leslie Buchanan, Kay D’Avila, Ana Digby, Phillip Enkin, Rebecca Fowler, Robin Garbutt, Kara Heft, Harold Herzog, Bernice Kelly, Megan Larche, Gail Macdonald, Ruth

Penfold, Judith Prodanou, Anna Rogers, Joan Shunglu, Amita Smiley, Ann Spence, Kara M. Stock, Heidi Todgham, Douglas Track, Barbara Vetere, Frank Wentzell, James

Library Adler, Andrea Burnham Cook, Carol

Wignall, Gaye

Founders’ Network Mustard, J. Fraser McKinnon, Dorothy

Mooney, Cheryl Majekodunmi, Norda

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Notes

The following abbreviations are used in the notes AC AIR AIRS AR File BD CG CIAR EB EC (BD) EC (RC) EGP ESE ‘Financial History’ FN HD IAS File JL Papers LSO NE PH PHHD PPC RC

advisory committee Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Society Advanced Research File, Box 003, 1984–85, A92–0024 board of directors Cosmology and Gravity Canadian Institute for Advanced Research Evolutionary Biology executive committee of the board of directors executive committee of the research council Economic Growth and Policy Earth System Evolution J. Fraser Mustard, ‘Institute’s Financial History,’ prepared for the Founders’ Network in 1998 Founders’ Network Human Development Institute of Advanced Studies File, Box 010, A87–0020, Papers of the Office of the President John Leyerle Papers Law and Social Order Nanoelectronics Population Health Population Health and Human Development planning and priorities committee research council

290 Notes to pages ix–5 RCB Papers 7 RCB Papers 8 SC SFUA SSSI UTA

Box 007, B85-0024, Robert Craig Brown Papers Box 008, B85-0024, Robert Craig Brown Papers Superconductivity Simon Fraser University Archives Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces University of Toronto Archives

Preface 1 Leyerle to Ham, 20 November 1978, JL Papers, FN. 2 AIR Review, June 1988, p. 9, AIR Reviews, FN.

1. Leyerle’s Idea 1 Friedland, University of Toronto, p. 481. 2 Leyerle interview, 15 February 2002. Leyerle had a Connaught Fellowship from the university for the fall term and did not take up the deanship until January 1979. 3 Leyerle to Ham, 20 November 1978, JL Papers, FN. 4 ‘Proposal for a Centre for Advanced Studies, University of Toronto,’ n.d., JL Papers, FN. (Marginal comments from Francess Halpenny, one of the senior professors consulted by Leyerle, indicate that this document is an early draft of the proposal.) Those attending the luncheon included the president, Jim Ham; Robertson Davies, master of Massey College; Adrian Brook, chair of the research board; John Polanyi of the Chemistry Department; Lou Siminovitch of the Faculty of Medicine; Lee MacLaren, director of development; the deans of the Graduate School; and Jean Lengellé from SSHRC. 5 Ibid. 6 Memorandum, Ham to A. Brook, A. Cameron, D. Chant, J. Dainty, A. Dalzell, H.C. Eastman, J.B. French, J. Leyerle, J. McConica, T. Melcher, W. Michelson, and G.A.B. Watson, 4 December 1978, JL Papers, FN. 7 Ham to Leyerle, 7 December 1978, JL Papers, FN. 8 James Ham was appointed president effective 1 July 1978. 9 University of Toronto Bulletin, 16 January 1978, p. 1. ‘The University is at the edge of decline,’ Ham told the governing council in 1979; Friedland, University of Toronto, p. 581. On the fiscal crisis of these years and Ham’s response, see Friedland, University of Toronto, pp. 581–84. 10 Years later, John Leyerle recalled this period: ‘If I hadn’t had a certain perse-

Notes to pages 5–8 291

11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

vering interest in it, it wouldn’t have survived in the face of multiple obstacles. It probably would have died in that period.’ Leyerle interview, 15 February 2002. ‘Proposal for a Centre for Advanced Study, University of Toronto,’ 28 January 1979,’ JL Papers, FN. Ibid. See also Leyerle to ‘Dear Colleague,’ March 1979, JL Papers, FN. Between March and July, Leyerle received twenty-eight responses, twenty-five of which were positive. See letters in 1979 File, JL Papers, FN. Hare to Leyerle, 14 March 1979, JL Papers, FN. Fernie to Leyerle, 22 March 1979, JL Papers, FN. Thomas Hutchinson, chair of the Botany Department, also believed that ‘the sciences could definitely benefit from involvement’; Hutchinson to Leyerle, 20 March 1979, JL Papers, FN. Clarkson to Leyerle, 9 April 1979, and Leyerle to Clarkson, 18 April 1979, JL Papers, FN. ‘Draft No. 2 (May ’79) Approved by Council SGS May 15, 1979,’ JL Papers, FN. On the closing of the Faculty of Food Sciences, see Friedland, University of Toronto, pp. 576–77. J.R. deJ. Jackson to Leyerle, 15 May 1979, JL Papers, FN. Victoria University is affiliated with the University of Toronto. Victoria College is its undergraduate college. Leyerle to Ham, 1 October 1979, and H.C. Eastman to Leyerle, 29 October 1979, IAS File, UTA; Minutes of Council Meeting of 16 September 1979, SGS File, 1979–81, School of Graduate Studies Papers, A86–0021, UTA. ‘[President French] met with me and the line went dead.’ Leyerle interview, 15 February 2002. Meetings of 21 March, 19 September, and 12 December 1979 and 21 May 1980, business affairs committee, Governing Council Papers, UTA. Leyerle to Ham, 1 October 1979, IAS File, UTA. ‘Without teaching, it [a research institute] becomes a hollow shell.’ Leyerle interview, 15 February 2002. ‘Notes on IAS Working Group Meeting,’ 16 November 1979, JL Papers, FN. Ibid. Mustard interview, 12 February 2002. ‘Notes on IAS Working Group Meeting,’ 16 November 1979, JL Papers, FN. Mustard to McCulloch, 27 December 1979, JL Papers, FN. Dr. John R. Evans, a long-time friend and colleague of Mustard’s, would be appointed shortly after the conversation Mustard refers to as dean of medicine at McMaster; later he was president of the University of Toronto.

292 Notes to pages 8–13 31 Mustard interview, 12 February 2002. 32 McCulloch to Leyerle, 31 December 1979, JL Papers, FN. 33 Laurie Edwards to Siminovitch, ‘A Critique of the Paper on a Proposed Institute of Advanced Studies,’ 28 December 1979, JL Papers, FN. 34 Leyerle interview, 15 February 2002. 35 Memorandum, Leyerle to Armstrong, Marsden, and McCulloch, 9 April 1980, JL Papers, FN. See also Davies to Leyerle, 11 April 1980, JL Papers, FN, and Davies to Ham, 10 April 1980, IAS File, UTA. 36 Minutes of the Graduate Council, 15 April 1980, SGS File, 1979–81, School of Graduate Studies Papers, A86–0021, UTA, and McCulloch to author, 19 March 2002. 37 Wilson, ‘Confidential: Comments on the March Memorandum on a Toronto Institute for Advanced Studies,’ 21 April 1980, JL Papers, FN. 38 Wilson to Leyerle, 7 May 1980, JL Papers, FN. 39 Eastman to Ham, 2 April 1980, Memorandum, Eastman to Ham, 7 April 1980, and Eastman to Ham, 21 May 1980, IAS File, UTA. 40 Chant to Ham, n.d., IAS File, UTA. 41 Chant to Ham, 8 May 1980, IAS File, UTA. 42 Ham to Leyerle, 25 April 1980, IAS File, UTA. 43 Ibid. Also Leyerle to Chant, 24 June 1980, Chant to Leyerle, 30 June 1980, and Leyerle and Strangway to Ham, 14 August 1980, IAS File, UTA. See also Leyerle and Strangway to Ham, 10 July 1980, JL Papers, FN. 44 ‘Announcement of a Presidential Feasibility Study for an Institute of Advanced Studies,’ 16 September 1980, RCB Papers 7, UTA. 45 Ibid. 46 IAS Meeting no. 2, 20 October 1980, RCB Papers 7, UTA. 47 ‘Strategic Plan for Organization of an Institute of Advanced Studies,’ 30 October 1980, RCB Papers 7, UTA; and ‘IAS Model #1,’ 20 October 1980, JL Papers, FN. 48 IAS meeting, 3 November 1980, RCB Papers 7, UTA; and Mustard, ‘What Would Be Useful,’ n.d. [prepared for IAS meeting, 15 December 1980?], JL Papers, FN. 49 See, for example, French to Armstrong, 4 December 1980, JL Papers, FN. 50 IAS subcommittee on university relations, Working Paper no. 4, prepared for the committee meeting of 12 January 1981, JL Papers, FN. 51 Mustard, ‘What Would Be Useful,’ n.d. [prepared for IAS meeting, 15 December 1980?], JL Papers, FN. 52 IAS subcommittee on function, Working Papers nos. 3 and 4, IAS subcommittee on university relations, Working Paper no. 3, and IAS meeting, 15 December 1980, RCB Papers 7, UTA.

Notes to pages 13–19 293 53 ‘Institute for Advanced Studies: Funding Requirements and Strategies,’ January 1981, RCB Papers 7, UTA; and ‘The Establishment of a Canadian Institute of Advanced Studies,’ 4 February 1981, JL Papers, FN. 54 Ham’s notes of a meeting with Armstrong, 3 March 1981, IAS File, UTA. 55 Wilson to Ham, 9 March 1981, IAS File, UTA; and Wilson to N.D. Guthrie, 27 February 1981, JL Papers, FN. 56 Munsche interview, 19 February 2002. Munsche had recently earned his doctorate in history at the University of Toronto. 57 Mustard interview, 12 February 2002. 58 Report to the President of the University of Toronto, n.d. [April 1981], RCB Papers 7, UTA. 59 Armstrong interview, 31 January 2002. 60 Report Number 182 of the Academic Affairs Committee, 11 June 1981, IAS File, UTA. 61 Ham to Mustard, 2 November 1982, IAS File, UTA. ‘He was relieved,’ Mustard later recalled. ‘He wouldn’t have known what to do with the report.’ Mustard interview, 12 February 2002. 62 Those present were Wilson, Leyerle, Mustard, Armstrong, Balfour, French, Siminovitch, Strangway, and McCulloch. 63 Meeting of the charter board, Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, 4 May 1981, JL Papers, FN. 64 Ibid. The members of the finance committee were Wilson (chair), Balfour, Leyerle, McCulloch, and Mustard. Mustard (chair) was joined by Armstrong, Brown, Marsden, Siminovitch, and Strangway on the priorities committee. The director’s search committee was chaired by Leyerle and Dupré; French and McCulloch were its other members. 65 Ibid. and Mustard interview, 12 February 2002. See also Founders’ Network, ‘Meet the Founders,’ http://www.Founders.net/fn/Entropy. 66 Meeting of the subcommittee on priorities and objectives, 15 May 1981, JL Papers, FN. 67 Leyerle to Wilson, 28 July 1981, JL Papers, FN. 68 Inaugural BD meeting, 27 August 1981, JL Papers, FN.

2. Getting Started 1 2 3 4

BD meeting, 30 September 1981, JL Papers, FN. Ibid. Ibid. Crawford interview, 23 May 2002. Of that first meeting, Crawford said, ‘You

294 Notes to pages 20–7

5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12 13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21 22

23 24

can’t help but be tremendously impressed with him. The guy sat down and gave me a lecture.... “Here’s what I think,” and you know how he talks at machine-gun speed and intense as heck.... And he was dead right’ about the hospital governance issue. The respect that Canadian university scientists had for Crawford was signalled by his election as president of the Canadian Association of Physicists in 1982. Ibid. Mustard to Crawford, 8 October 1981, JL Papers, FN. Munsche interview, 19 February 2002. ‘The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research: An Idea in Progress,’ October 1981, JL Papers, FN. Munsche interview, 19 February 2002. BD meeting, 30 September 1981, JL Papers, FN. BD meeting, 9 December 1981, JL Papers, FN. Attached to the minutes of the meeting is a list of the five foundations Wilson had approached (McLaughlin Foundation, Bickell Foundation, McConnell Foundation, Physicians Services Incorporated Foundation, and Associated Medical Services, Inc.) and twenty others ‘which we must approach.’ BD meeting, 17 February 1982, JL Papers, FN. BD meeting, 30 March 1982, JL Papers, FN. BD meeting, 7 June 1982, JL Papers, FN. BD meeting, 10 May 1982, JL Papers, FN. Stephenson sent the cheque to Wilson on 28 July. See Stephenson to Wilson, 28 July 1982, and Wilson to Stephenson, 30 July 1982, JL Papers, FN. BD meeting, 7 June 1982, and ad hoc advisory committee meeting, 11 June 1982, JL Papers, FN; Crawford interview, 8 October 2002. Munsche to Mustard, 14 May 1982, JL Papers, FN. Mustard to Ham, 14 July 1982, JL Papers, FN. ‘The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research: An Idea in Progress,’ October 1981, p. 7, JL Papers, FN. BD meeting, 20 October 1981, JL Papers, FN. Leyerle to graduate school deans of Canadian universities, draft, 18 December 1981 (the final letter was dated 8 January 1982), JL Papers, FN. They were Alberta, Bishop’s, Calgary, Concordia, Dalhousie, Guelph, Lakehead, Memorial, Moncton, Montreal, New Brunswick, Technical University of Nova Scotia, Ottawa, St. Francis Xavier, Saskatchewan, Victoria, Wilfrid Laurier, and York. ‘Summary of Nominations to the Research Council from the Graduate Deans,’ 24 March 1982, JL Papers, FN. Hogan to Leyerle, 11 February 1982, JL Papers, FN. Leyerle to Hogan, 23 February 1982, JL Papers, FN.

Notes to pages 27–34 295 25 26 27 28

BD meeting, 17 February 1982, JL Papers, FN. Ad hoc advisory committee meeting, 24 March 1982, JL Papers, FN. Ad hoc advisory committee meeting, 28 April 1982, JL Papers, FN. Ad hoc advisory committee meetings, 26 May and 11 June 1982, JL Papers, FN. 29 Ad hoc advisory committee meetings, 6 and 19 July 1982, JL Papers, FN. ‘Research council’ became the group’s formal title. 30 Hamilton Spectator, 29 June 1982, p. 7. See also University of Toronto Bulletin, 26 June 1982, pp. 1 and 7.

3. First Business 1 Ad hoc advisory committee meetings, 6 and 29 July 1982, JL Papers, FN. Gotlieb attended the latter meeting and outlined the potential of ‘man and machines’ as a research theme. The committee decided to send a revised outline to the research council, which might then recommend a development task force. 2 Ad hoc advisory committee meeting, 19 July 1982, JL Papers, FN. At this meeting, Munsche presented a brief on Canadian legal history, and the committee decided to put a proposal to the research council at a later date. Leyerle also recommended that the research council be charged with exploring possible theme areas in the humanities. 3 Ad hoc advisory committee meetings, 1 and 23 August 1982, JL Papers, FN. 4 Henriksen and Martin, with the support of the Canadian Astronomical Society, ‘A CIAR Sponsored Centre for Theoretical Astrophysics (CTA),’ 22 September 1982, RCB Papers 7, UTA. 5 Ad hoc advisory committee meeting, 25 August 1982, with attachments, JL Papers, FN. Another meeting with the advisory committee took place on 9 September, where several statements on different aspects of a potential program were reviewed; Peter Munsche’s files on Population Health, author’s collection. 6 Mustard had issued seventeen invitations and only one, that to Professor Thérèse Gouin-Decarie of the Université de Montréal, was not accepted because of other commitments. The invited members were the economist Clarence Barber from the University of Manitoba, the physicist Robert Bell from McGill, the anthropologist Jean Briggs from Memorial University, the historian Craig Brown from Toronto, the engineering consultant Angus Bruneau from St. John’s, the physicist Gilles Cloutier from the Alberta Research Council, the demographer Jacques Henripin from the Université de Mont-

296

7 8 9

10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

19 20

Notes to pages 35–9

réal, Larkin Kerwin of the National Research Council, the biologist Peter Larkin of the University of British Columbia, the philosopher Terrence Penelhum from the University of Calgary, the physicist Howard Petch from the University of Victoria, the English professor Malcolm Ross from Dalhousie, the political scientist Richard Simeon from Queen’s, the lawyer Michael Trebilcock from the University of Toronto, the social work professor Fred Wien from Dalhousie, and the Toronto architect Eberhard Zeidler. Henripin, Kerwin, Petch, Ross, Simeon, and Zeidler were not able to attend the meeting. RC meeting, 30 September 1982, items 1–4, JL Papers, FN. Ibid., items 5–9. The other members of the fellowship committee were Briggs, Petch, Simeon, and Trebilcock. Cloutier, Henripin, Larkin, Siminovitch, and Zeidler joined Bell on the planning and priorities committee. A few weeks later, William Dray, a noted philosopher from the University of Ottawa, was added to the committee as a humanities representative. Barber, Kerwin, Ross, and Wien were the other members of the nominating committee. ‘Committees of the Research Council,’ n.d., JL Papers, FN. About the Dray appointment, see also EC (RC) meeting, 8 November 1982, item 3d, JL Papers, FN; and Mustard to Brown, 15 October 1982, RCB Papers 7, UTA. The participants were the electrical engineer Ian Blake of the University of Waterloo, the philosopher Patricia Churchland of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, the computer scientists Kelly Gotlieb and Ray Perrault of the University of Toronto, the neuroscientist John Stevens of the Playfair Institute, Toronto, and the electrical engineer Steven Zucker of McGill. William Tatton chaired the group. Task Group on People and Machines, 1 November 1982, JL Papers, FN. PPC meeting, 22 November 1982, JL Papers, FN. Ibid. Fellowship committee meeting, 24 November 1982, JL Papers, FN. Ibid. BD meeting, 23 November 1982, JL Papers, FN. RC meeting, 30 November and 1 December 1982, items 3 and 4, JL Papers, FN. Ibid., items 7 and 8. Ibid., item 5. The Tatton task force’s paper is ‘A Preliminary Proposal Supporting a Major Program in the Area of Artificial Intelligence,’ 1 December 1982, RCB Papers 7, UTA. RC meeting, 30 November and 1 December 1982, items 5 and 6. PPC meeting, 20 January 1983, items 1 and 3, JL Papers, FN.

Notes to pages 40–6 297 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

Ibid., item 2. The special fellow category was not created. Fellowship committee meeting, 16 February 1983, JL Papers, FN. RC meeting, 16–17 February 1983, item 2, JL Papers, FN. Ibid., item 4, and ‘Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Society,’ prepared for RC meeting, 16–17 February 1983, p. 5, JL Papers, FN. When Tatton was formally appointed by the board in June, it was as a senior fellow; BD meeting, 7 June 1983, item 7, JL Papers, FN. RC meeting, 16–17 February 1983, items 8.3–8.5, JL Papers, FN. Ibid., item 8.6. Ibid., item 7.

4. The AIRS Program 1 Mustard to Tatton, 20 June 1983, AIR File, JL Papers, FN. The recommendation from the research council in February had been for appointment as an associate fellow, but, as Mustard explained to the board of directors in May, the appointment as senior fellow became possible when it was clear that Tatton would devote ‘full time’ to the AIRS program. BD meeting, 7 June 1983, item 7, JL Papers, FN. 2 Development Budget for the Program in Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Society, 15 April 1983, JL Papers, FN. 3 BD meeting, 7 June 1983, item 6, JL Papers, FN. 4 Spar Aerospace, ‘Spar Funds R & D Robotics Research,’ news release, 17 May 1983, and RC meeting, 29 September 1983, item 4.4, RCB Papers 7, UTA. Tatton to Mustard, 10 August 1983, AI 4 File, Box 1, CIAR; and RC meeting, 25 November 1983, item 3.2, JL Papers, FN. 5 BD meeting, 7 June 1983, item 6.4, JL Papers, FN. 6 Press release documents for 12 October 1983 launch of AIRS in Toronto, JL Papers, FN. 7 PPC meeting, 1 November 1983, item 1.1, JL Papers, FN. 8 Press release documents for 12 October 1983 launch of AIRS in Toronto, JL Papers, FN. 9 Meeting of the social science and humanities advisory panel, 13 May 1983, JL Papers, FN. Members of the group were Jacques Brazeau, a sociologist at Université de Montréal; William Dray, a prominent philosopher of history at the University of Ottawa; Frank Milligan, director of the Canada Council; Polly Winsor, historian of science at the University of Toronto; John Leyerle, Lorna Marsden, Terrence Penelhum, and Richard Simeon from the research council; and Fraser Mustard and William Tatton. Research council member

298 Notes to pages 46–9

10 11 12 13 14

15 16 17 18 19

20 21

22 23

24

25

Richard Lipsey from Simon Fraser University was unable to attend the meeting. Ibid., item 3.1. Ibid., items 4.1–4.4. EC (RC) meeting, 22 July 1983, items 5.1 and 5.3, JL Papers, FN. RC meeting, 29 September 1983, item 6.1, RCB Papers 7, UTA. Report of the fellowship committee, 11 November 1983, JL Papers, FN. On the prospective appointments at Toronto, see Mustard to David Strangway, 7 November 1983, AI 3 File, Box 1, CIAR. RC meeting, 25 November 1983, item 4, RC Binders, FN. Ibid., items 4–11. BD meeting, 12 December 1983, item 3.3, JL Papers, FN; and RC meeting, 14 December 1983, item 2.1, RCB Papers 7, UTA. RC meeting, 14 December 1983, items 2.2–2.13, RCB Papers 7, UTA. EC (RC) meeting, 4 January 1984, items 2.1–2.3, JL Papers, FN. See also Munsche to Mackworth, Reiter, Treisman, and Robert Woodham, 13 February 1984, and Mackworth to Munsche, 25 February 1984, JL Papers, FN. Mustard to George Pedersen, 19 January 1984, and Mustard to Robert Smith, 19 January 1984, JL Papers, FN. Hector Levesque accepted an appointment at U of T in the spring of 1984 and took it up in October; Tatton, Report on the Development of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Society, March–June 1984, item 3, JL Papers, FN. EC (RC) meeting, 4 January 1984, items 3.1–3.3, JL Papers, FN. RC meeting, 29 February 1984, items 6.2–6.6, JL Papers, FN; Tatton, Report on the Development of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Society, March– June 1984, item 3, JL Papers, FN; and RC meeting, 16 October 1984, President’s Report to Council, item 3, JL Papers, FN. The node coordinators were Ray Reiter at UBC, Mylopoulos at U of T, and Zucker at McGill. The five associates were Pierre Belanger, dean of engineering, McGill; Max Cynader, a visual neuroscientist in psychology at Dalhousie; Daniel Kahneman, a cognitive psychologist at UBC; Richard Stein, a neurophysiologist at the University of Alberta; and John Stevens, a visual neuroscientist at the Playfair Institute in Toronto. EC (RC) meeting, 29 March 1984, item 6.1; EC (RC) meeting, 30 August 1984; Mylopoulos to Tatton, 10 September 1984; and RC meeting, 16 October 1984, item 7, JL Papers, FN. Mustard to Larkin, 4 September 1984, AIR File, Box 1, CIAR. Mustard added that the Vancouver Foundation, which had agreed to fund the Hildreth and Grimson appointments, would support two other junior fellows at UBC if they were appointed to the program.

Notes to pages 49–54 299 26 RC meeting, 16 October 1984, items 4.1–4.4, JL Papers, FN. 27 CIAR Report 1, no. 1 (September 1984): p. 6. See also ‘Research Institute Launches Artificial Intelligence Program,’ Globe and Mail, Report on Business, 27 July 1984, Technology page. 28 RC meeting, 14–15 June 1983, item 4.6, JL Papers, FN. 29 RC meeting, 29 September 1983, item 4.5, JL Papers, FN. 30 Program coordinators’ meeting, 24 January 1984, p. 4, AI 3 File, Box 1, CIAR. 31 EC (RC) meeting, 19 March 1984, item 6.4, JL Papers, FN; and ‘Summary of Presentations on Social Impacts of Artificial Intelligence on Society,’ 30 May 1984, AI 3 File, Box 1, CIAR. 32 RC meeting, 13 June 1984, items 3.1–3.7, JL Papers, FN. 33 ‘Meeting with the Chairman [board of directors],’ 20 June 1984, JL Papers, FN. 34 ‘Notes from Meeting with Three Wise Persons,’ 8 August 1984, Meeting Notes, FN; EC (RC) agenda, 30 August 1984, JL Papers, FN; and RC meeting, 16 October 1984, item 6.8, JL Papers, FN. 35 Bourns interview, 4 November 2002. 36 RC meeting, 16 October 1984, item 6.3, JL Papers, FN. 37 Mustard to Tatton, 20 June 1983, AIR File, JL Papers, FN. 38 Tatton to Fell, 18 June 1984, Tatton File, Box 2, CIAR. 39 Memorandum, meeting with Tatton, 13 August 1984, Tatton File, Box 2, CIAR; and EC (RC) meeting, 30 August 1984, item A (ii), RCB Papers 8, UTA. Arthur Bourns was the chair of the advisory committee. Other members were Angus Bruneau, Peter Larkin, John MacDonald of MacDonald Dettwiler, Ron McCullough from Spar Aerospace, and Robin Armstrong. See also Memorandum, meeting with F. Lowy et al., 28 August 1984, AI 3 File, Box 1, CIAR. 40 Tatton to Mustard, 24 September 1984, Tatton File, Box 2, CIAR. The citations in this paragraph are from attachments to Tatton’s letter and Canadian Artificial Intelligence Newsletter, September 1984. 41 Tatton to Mustard, 24 September 1984, Tatton File, Box 2, CIAR. Daniel Kahneman won the Nobel Prize in Economics in 2002. He and his wife, Ann Treisman, moved from British Columbia to the University of California, Berkeley, and left the AIR program in 1986. 42 Memorandum, Mustard to Bourns, 1 October 1984, and Mustard to Tatton, 2 October 1984, Tatton File, Box 2, CIAR. 43 Bourns interview, 4 November 2002. 44 Mustard to Zucker (and others), 22 October 1984, Tatton File, Box 2, CIAR.

300 Notes to pages 54–8 45 Tatton to Mustard, 24 September 1984, Tatton File, Box 2, CIAR; BD meeting, 7 May 1985, item 8.1, BD Binders, FN; and Canadian Banker, June 1985, p. 9, Press Binders, FN. 46 Bourns interview, 4 November 2002. 47 RC meeting, 8 June 1985, item 5.2, RC Binders, FN. 48 RC meeting, 25–26 February 1985, item 4.1, RC Binders, FN; and BD meeting, 7 May 1985, item 8.2, BD Binders, FN. 49 Mustard to Dennis Smith, dean, Faculty of Social Science, University of Western Ontario, 8 July 1985, AI 4 File, Box 1, CIAR. 50 BD meeting, 15 September 1983, BD Binders, FN. 51 BD meeting, 12 December 1983, item 4.1, BD Binders, FN. 52 Notes from Vancouver visit, 9–11 April 1984, Meeting Notes, FN. When Hildreth and Grimson decided not to go to UBC, the foundation agreed to maintain its commitment to support two junior fellows in that node. See Mustard to Larkin, 4 September 1984, AI 4 File, Box 1, CIAR. 53 Notes from Montreal, lunch with Charles Bronfman, 16–17 April 1984, Meeting Notes, FN. 54 Mustard interview, 27 February 2003. 55 RC meeting, 13 June 1984, RC Binders, FN. 56 ‘Meeting with the Chairman [board of directors],’ 20 June 1984, Meeting Notes, FN. 57 Memorandum, Mustard to Wilson and Macdonald, 9 August 1984, Meeting Notes, FN; and RC meeting, 16 October 1984, item 3.1, RC Binders, FN. 58 Connell’s notes of a meeting with Mustard, 21 November 1984, AR File, UTA. 59 Report to the CIAR board of directors, p. 12, AR File, UTA. 60 Memorandum, Connell to vice-presidents, 15 December 1984, AR File, UTA. 61 BD meeting, 7 December 1984, BD Binders, FN. ‘The AIRS program was very attractive to [Larry Clarke]’; Mustard interview, 17 December 2002. See BD meeting, 7 December 1984, item 9, BD Binders, FN, for the fellows appointed at this meeting. 62 Meeting with Stephenson, 8 March 1985, Meeting Notes, FN. ‘She is going to ask for $3M and hope that she gets $2M.’ 63 BD meeting, 7 May 1985, item 3.1, BD Binders, FN; and RC meeting, 25–26 February 1985, item 2.1, RC Binders, FN. 64 RC meeting, 5 November 1985, item 2.2, RC Binders, FN. 65 RC meeting, 12 May 1985, item 2.2, RC Binders, FN. 66 ‘Financial History,’ pp. 1–2, FN. 67 ‘Tentative Schedule, October 5, 1983 – Workshop on Robotics,’ AI 4 File, Box 1, CIAR.

Notes to pages 58–61 301 68 Node coordinators’ meeting, Vancouver, 24 January 1984, AI 3 File, Box 1, CIAR; and ‘Agenda for Ottawa Conference, 26 and 27 March 1984,’ RCB Papers 8, UTA. 69 Allan Borodin to Mustard, 1 June 1984, AI 4 File, Box 1, CIAR; Tatton, Report on the Development of Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Society, March–June 1984, JL Papers, FN; Coordinating committee meeting, 12 June 1984, AI 3 File, Box 1, CIAR; and ‘Artificial Intelligence Program, Attachment A,’ RCB Papers 8, UTA. Cynader was quickly appointed an associate in the AIR program and in 1986 became a fellow in the program. In 1993, he became a fellow in CIAR’s Human Development Program. 70 RC meeting, 16 October 1984, items 6.5–6.6, RC Binders, FN. 71 Bourns interview, 4 November 2002. 72 Bourns interview, 4 November 2002. ‘For me L’Esterel was an historic meeting,’ Bourns noted many years later, ‘because this was the first time I really watched them as a group trying to interact.’ 73 L’Esterel meeting, final plenary session, 18 December 1984, AI 3 File, Box 1, CIAR. 74 Mackworth interview, 14 September 2005. 75 RC meeting, 25–26 February 1985, item 3.2, RC Binders, FN. 76 Program meeting, 23–25 October 1987, AIR Records, FN. 77 AIR Annual Report, 1984–85, and Report to the Advisory Committee, February 1986, AI 4 File, Box 1; Pylyshyn, Report on the Program, July–December 1986, and Memorandum to AIR Program, 15 January 1987, AI 2 File, Box 1, CIAR. 78 BD meeting, 7 June 1985, item 4.4, BD Binders, FN; RC meeting, 8 June 1985, items 6.1–6.5, RC Binders, FN; and ‘Preparation of Position Paper by CIAR on Canada’s Participation in Space Station Project,’ AIR advisory committee meeting, 27 June 1985, AI 4 File, Box 1, CIAR. 79 The Canadian Encyclopedia, Year 2000 edition, s.v. ‘Space Technology, Canadian Space Agency.’ 80 Canada, House of Commons, Minutes of the Standing Committee on External Affairs and Defence, 12 December 1985, p. 55:17. 81 Mustard interview, 27 December 2003; and The Canadian Encyclopedia, Year 2000 edition, s.v. ‘Space Technology, Manned Space Programs Canadarm.’ For press coverage of CIAR’s report, see Globe and Mail, 4 November and 12 December 1985, and Toronto Daily Star, 4 November and 1 December 1985 and 29 November 1986. 82 Canada, House of Commons, Minutes of the Standing Committee on External Affairs and Defence, 12 December 1985, p. 55:16. 83 Bourns interview, 4 November 2002.

302 Notes to pages 62–8 84 Tsotsos to Mustard, 7 February 1986, and Report to Spar on the Program in Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, February 1986, AI 4 File, Box 1, CIAR. 85 RC meeting, 13 March 1986, items 3.2–3.3, RC Binders, FN. 86 Bourns interview, 4 November 2002. 87 BD meeting, 10 December 1986, item 5.4, BD Binders, FN; RC meeting, 26–27 January 1987, items 5.1–5.4, RC Binders, FN; and Gordon MacNabb, ‘Robotics and Intelligent Systems,’ Entropy 1, no. 2 (winter 1998). 88 RC meeting, 21–22 May 1987, RC Binders, FN; and ‘Bristol Flies with HighTech Research Group,’ Winnipeg Free Press, 1 May 1987, p. 26, Press Binders, FN. 89 ‘Knowledge-Sharing Consortium Formed by Private Sector,’ Financial Post, 26 October 1987, p. 50, Press Binders, FN. 90 ‘Precarn Associates Inc.: Its Organization and Objectives,’ 25 September 1987, Precarn File 1, Box 1, CIAR. 91 MacNabb, ‘Robotics and Intelligent Systems,’ Entropy 1, no. 2 (winter 1998). 92 RC meeting, 26 September 1986, RC Binders, FN. 93 RC meeting, 26–27 January 1987, item 4.6, and RC meeting, 21–22 May 1987, item 4.5, RC Binders, FN. 94 Munsche to file, 3 February 1987, AI 2 File, Box 1, CIAR; and RC meeting, 21–22 May 1987, items 4.1–4.2, RC Binders, FN. 95 RC meeting, 26–27 January 1987, items 2.5 and 4.2, RC Binders, FN. 96 AIR Review, 1988, app. 1, AIR Reviews, FN. 97 Ibid., p. 7 and app. V. 98 Ibid., pp. 9 and 14. 99 Ibid., pp. 9–10. 100 Ibid., pp. 9–11 and 14. 101 Ibid., pp. 9–14. Interestingly, when AIR and the advisory committee organized the review, not a single representative from industry was included in the lists of people to be interviewed. See AIR Review, 1988, app. V, AIR Reviews, FN. 102 ‘The Advisory Committee’s Assessment of the Fellows of the Programme in Artificial Intelligence,’ 12 December 1988, p. 2, AIR Records, FN. 103 Ibid., pp. 3–5. 104 AIR Review, 1988, p. 14.

5. Expansion of the Mandate 1 BD meeting, 15 September 1983, Report of the President, p. 4, JL Papers, FN.

Notes to pages 68–74 303 2 Ibid., p. 5. 3 BD meeting, 23 June 1987, Report of the President, pp. 2–4, BD Binders, FN. The American universities were MIT, Yale, Princeton, Penn State, Chicago, University of Illinois, California Institute of Technology, University of Southern California, and University of California, Berkeley. See also RC meeting, 22 September 1987, items 2.1–2.2, RC Binders, FN. 4 BD meeting, 23 June 1987, Report of the President, p. 9, BD Binders, FN. 5 ‘Research in Population Health is concerned with the identification of factors which determine human health and, in light of that knowledge, with the assessment of the value of interventions to improve human health in a given population.’ Report of the Task Group on Population Health, 10 May 1983, item 1.1, RCB Papers 7, UTA. 6 Ibid., pp. 1–5. 7 RC meeting, 14–15 June 1983, items 6.1–6.8, RCB Papers 7, UTA. 8 Summary, Symposium on Population Health, 28 September 1983, and RC meeting, 29 September 1983, items 3.1–3.6, RCB Papers 7, UTA. 9 RC meeting, 25 November 1983, item 6.1, and BD meeting, 12 December 1983, item 3.4, JL Papers, FN. 10 RC meeting, 26–27 January 1987, item 8.1, RC Binders, FN. The donor was Manufacturers Life Insurance Company. It provided $100,000 a year for five years. 11 RC meeting, 21–22 May 1987, items 7.1–7.7, RC Binders, FN; and BD meeting, 23 June 1987, items 3.4 and 4.1, BD Binders, FN. Ted Marmor, a citizen of the United States, was the first person to be appointed a fellow who was not a resident of Canada. 12 RC meeting, 16–17 February 1983, item 8.3, JL Papers, FN. 13 Ibid. and Bourns interview, 4 November 2002. 14 Unruh interview, 16 June 2002; EC (RC) meeting, 22 July 1983, item 4.1, and EC (RC) meeting, 25 August 1983, item 4.1, JL Papers, FN. 15 Unruh interview, 16 June 2002. 16 RC meeting, 25 November 1983, items 7.1–7.4, and BD meeting, 12 December 1983, item 3.5, JL Papers, FN. 17 Staff meeting, 1 May 1984, item III; and ‘Notes from Meeting with Three Wise Persons,’ 8 August 1984, item 6, Meeting Notes, FN. 18 ‘Origin of the Universe and Astronomical Structure,’ Report of the Cosmology Task Force, RC meeting, 16 October 1984, RC Binders, FN. 19 Unruh interview, 16 June 2002. 20 RC meeting, 16 October 1984, items 2.1–2.6, RC Binders, FN. 21 RC meeting, Munsche to research council, 23 January 1985, RC Binders, CIAR.

304

Notes to pages 74–9

22 Ibid. 23 RC meeting, 25–26 February 1985, items 5.1–5.7, RC Binders, FN. The ‘first stage’ of Cosmology, to ‘show whether an Institute program in this area could make an impact,’ was approved by the board of directors in May 1985; BD meeting, 7 May 1985, item 8.4, BD Binders, FN. 24 RC meeting, 8 June 1985, items 7.1–7.3, RC Binders, FN; Report on the Program in Cosmology, June 1985, Box 1, CIAR; Unruh interview, 16 June 2002. 25 Mustard interview, 11 March 2003. 26 ‘Financial History,’ pp. 1–2, FN; and RC meeting, 5 November 1985, items 4.1–4.2, RC Binders, FN. 27 ‘Scientists Seek a TOE Hold on the Universe,’ Vancouver Sun, 31 January 1986, Press Binders, FN. 28 RC meeting, 16–17 February 1983, item 8.4, JL Papers, FN. 29 EC (RC) meeting, 22 July 1983, item 4.2, JL Papers, FN. 30 PPC meeting, 1 November 1983, items 4.1–4.3, JL Papers, FN. 31 Agenda, Symposium on Genetics, Evolution and Society, EB Records, FN; and RC meeting, 13 June 1984, items 7.1–7.4, RC Binders, FN. 32 RC meeting, 16 October 1984, item 8.2, RC Binders, FN. 33 RC meeting, 25–26 February 1985, item 7.4, RC Binders, FN. 34 Doolittle to Mustard, 18 October 1985, and Agenda, EB meeting, 22–23 October 1985, Box 1, CIAR. 35 RC meeting, 5 November 1985, item 7.3, and RC meeting, 8 June 1985, item 9.4, RC Binders, FN. 36 Meeting notes, 2 and 30 December 1985; Ford Doolittle to Cedergren, Woese, Dennis, Hickey, Russell Doolittle, Haynes, and Siminovitch, 4 February 1986; and Agenda, EB meeting, 14 February 1986, Box 1, CIAR. 37 RC meeting, 13 March 1986, items 6.1–6.2, RC Binders, FN. Formal recommendation of Doolittle’s appointment took place in the May 1986 meeting of the council; RC meeting, 12 May 1986, item 4.2, RC Binders, FN. The board approved the appointment in June 1986; BD meeting, 19 June 1986, item 5.1, BD Binders, FN. 38 RC meeting, 26–27 January 1987, items 7.1–7.4, RC Binders, FN. 39 RC meeting, 16–17 February 1983, item 8.5, JL Papers, FN. 40 EC (RC) meeting, 22 July 1983, item 3.1, JL Papers, FN. 41 Ibid., items 3.2–3.4. See also EC (RC) meeting, 25 August 1983, item 4.2, and RC meeting, 25 November 1983, items 6.3 and 6.4, JL Papers, FN. 42 RC meeting, 29 February 1984, items 7.1–7.3, JL Papers, FN. 43 Ibid., items 7.4–7.5. 44 Penelhum to Mustard, 5 March 1984, JL Papers, FN. 45 EC (RC) meeting, 19 March 1984, item 5, JL Papers, FN. John Leyerle urged

Notes to pages 79–85 305

46 47 48 49

50

51 52 53 54 55 56

57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

66 67 68

the executive committee to drop understanding and values as the focus of the institute’s humanities program and adopt semiotics in its place. Mustard would not exclude semiotics from consideration but still wanted a program description for fundraising and to take to the council. Staff meeting, 1 May 1984, Meeting Notes, FN. EC (RC) meeting, 30 August 1984, app. B, RCB Papers 8, UTA. RC meeting, 16 October 1984, items 8.3–8.4, RC Binders, FN. RC meeting, 25–26 February 1985, item 7.1, RC Binders, FN. RC meeting, 5 November 1985, item 7.2, RC Binders, FN; and Munsche, Memorandum on trip to Vancouver and Banff, 5 February 1986, Cosmology File, Box 1, CIAR. RC meeting, 13 March 1986, items 5.1–5.2, RC Binders, FN. See also Penelhum’s paper, ‘Our Technology and Our Moral Resources,’ attached to the minutes of this meeting. RC meeting, 13 March 1986, items 5.2–5.7, RC Binders, FN. RC meeting, 26 September 1986, items 4.1–4.3, RC Binders, FN. Ibid., items 5.1–5.7. RC meeting, 26–27 January 1987, item 8.4, RC Binders, FN. RC meeting, 21–22 May 1987, item 2.2, RC Binders, FN. RC meeting, 25 November 1983, item 6.1, RC Binders, FN; and RC meeting, 29 February 1984, item 8.2, RCB Papers 8, UTA. See also BD meeting, 12 December 1983, item 3.4, BD Binders, FN. RC meeting, 13 June 1984, items 4.1–4.4, RC Binders, FN. Prichard to Mustard, 27 July 1984, RCB Papers, UTA; and ‘Notes from Meeting with Three Wise Persons,’ 8 August 1984, item 6, Meeting Notes, FN. RC meeting, 16 October 1984, items 5.1–5.3, RC Binders, FN. RC meeting, 25–26 February 1985, items 8.1–8.8, RC Binders, FN. Ibid., items 2.1–2.5, and Report of the Task Force on Law, June 1985, RCB Papers 8, UTA. RC meeting, 25–26 February 1985, items 2.6–2.10 and 4.1–4.5, RC Binders, FN. RC meeting, 5 November 1985, items 6.1–6.4, RC Binders, FN. RC meeting, 13 March 1986, item 7.1, RC Binders, FN; and BD meeting, 19 June 1986, item 5, BD Binders, FN. ‘Discussions with Marty Friedland,’ 10 October 1986, Meeting Notes, FN. Sanctions and Rewards in the Legal System: A Multidisciplinary Approach, edited by Friedland, was published by the University of Toronto Press in 1989. RC meeting, 21–22 May 1987, items 8.1–8.7, RC Binders, FN. RC meeting, 22 September 1987, items 5.1–5.3, RC Binders, FN. RC meeting, 25–26 February 1985, items 7.1–7.3, RC Binders, FN.

306

Notes to pages 85–91

69 RC meeting, 5 November 1985, items 8.1–8.2, RC Binders, FN. 70 Semioticians also emphasized links with artificial intelligence, but Zenon Pylyshyn told Council in November 1985 that ‘although semiotics was one of the progenitors of artificial intelligence, it was not held in very high regard by most A.I. researchers.’ RC meeting, 5 November 1985, item 8.3, RC Binders, FN. 71 RC meeting, 12 May 1986, items 6.1–6.6, RC Binders, FN. 72 Ibid., items 8.1–8.7. 73 RC meeting, 26–27 January 1987, items 9.1–9.9, RC Binders, FN. 74 RC meeting, 21–22 May 1987, item 2.3, and RC meeting, 22 September 1987, RC Binders, FN. 75 RC meeting, 26–27 January 1985, item 7.5, RC Binders, FN. 76 RC meeting, 8 June 1985, item 9.3, RC Binders, FN. 77 RC meeting, 5 November 1985, item 7.1, RC Binders, FN; Munsche, Memorandum on trip to Vancouver and Banff, 5 February 1986, Cosmology File, Box 1, CIAR. In Vancouver, C.S. Holling, former head of the International Institute for Advanced Systems Analysis in Vienna, a member of the research council, and member of the UBC Institute for Animal Resource Ecology, eagerly supported the seminar idea but warned Mustard that there were a ‘large number of mediocre people and charlatans that worked on Technology and Change.’ 78 RC meeting, 26–27 January 1987, item 8.5, RC Binders, FN; BD meeting, 10 December 1986, item 5.6, BD Binders, FN. 79 RC meeting, 26–27 January 1987, item 8.2, RC Binders, FN. 80 RC meeting, 21–22 May 1987, items 9.1–9.7, RC Binders, FN. 81 RC meeting, 21–22 September 1987, items 6.1–6.9, RC Binders, FN. 82 BD meetings: 7 May 1985 (item 7), 20 November 1985 (item 2.1), 10 December 1986 (item 2.1), and 23 June 1987 (item 7.1), BD Binders, FN; and RC meeting, 8 June 1985, item 3.5, RC Binders, FN. 83 EC (RC) meeting of 30 August 1984, RCB Papers 8, UTA. 84 BD meeting, 19 June 1986, item 7.5, BD Binders, FN. Aird had to resign from the board in November 1987, and the members program lagged without his leadership. In 1998, when Mustard prepared a sketch of the financial history of the institute, membership in the category had dropped to thirtytwo; ‘Financial History,’ pp. 5–6, FN. 85 EC (RC) meeting, 30 August 1984, RCB Papers 8, UTA. 86 RC meeting, 8 June 1985, item 8.1, RC Binders, FN. 87 RC meeting, 26 September 1986, item 2.3, RC Binders, FN. Brown had left earlier, in September 1985. 88 RC meeting, 22 September 1987, item 2.3, RC Binders, FN.

Notes to pages 91–6 307 89 Meeting in Toronto, 4 June 1984, Meeting Notes, FN. 90 Meeting in Montreal, 28–29 August 1984, Meeting Notes, FN. 91 RC meeting, 16 October 1984, item 3.2, RC Binders, FN; and ‘Financial History,’ p. 2, FN. 92 Ottawa Citizen, 13 August 1986, and Toronto Star, 12 August 1986, Press Binders, FN. 93 RC meeting, 26 September 1986, item 2.6, RC Binders, FN. 94 RC meeting, 21–22 May 1987, item 2.1, RC Binders, FN. 95 RC meeting, 22 September 1987, item 2.4, RC Binders, FN; and BD meeting, 23 June 1987, item 3.6, BD Binders, FN.

6. Origins: The Universe and the Tree of Life 1 ‘Original Proposal to the Research Council of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research,’ September 1984, p. 1, CG Records, FN. 2 William Unruh, ‘What Is Cosmology?’ Entropy 1, no. 2 (winter 1998). 3 Ibid. 4 Unruh to Mustard, 19 June 1985, Munsche to Unruh, 2 July 1985, and Mustard to Unruh, 29 July 1985, CG Records, FN. 5 Unruh interview, 16 June 2002. The non-military aspects of NATO fall generally under article 2, the ‘Canadian article,’ of the North Atlantic Treaty. See C.P. Stacey, Canada and the Age of Conflict, vol. 2, 1921–1948 (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), pp. 416–18, and James Eayrs, In Defence of Canada: Growing Up Allied (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1980), pp. 119–28 and 175–89. 6 Unruh interview, 16 June 2002. 7 Affleck left Princeton for UBC in 1987. 8 Notes of meeting, 22 August 1986, Cosmology File, CG Records, FN. 9 Memorandum to file, 3 September 1986, Cosmology AC, and AC meeting, 14 January 1987, CG Records, FN. 10 AC meeting, 19 October 1988, item 2, CG Records, FN. 11 Director’s Report, 27 December 1986, CG Records, FN. 12 Director’s Report, March 1990, p. 11, Cosmology Background File, Box 6, CIAR. 13 AC meeting, 22 June 1987, CG Records, FN. 14 Director’s Report, March 1990, p. 11, Cosmology Background File, Box 6, CIAR. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid., p. 13.

308

Notes to pages 97–104

17 Ibid., p. 15. 18 Ibid., p. 16. 19 Tremaine to Mustard, 22 June 1989, Tremaine and Unruh to Fang Li Zhi, 22 June 1989, John Polanyi to Mustard, 12 June 1989, Mustard to Connell, 22 June 1989, and Fang Li Zhi to Tremaine and Unruh, 8 July 1989, CG Records, FN. 20 AC meeting, 24 October 1989, items 5.2–5.5, Cosmology Background File, Box 6, CIAR. 21 Ibid., items 5.6–5.8. 22 Cosmology Review, 24 August 1990, p. 2, CG Reviews, FN. 23 Director’s Report, March 1990, pp. 18–20, Cosmology Background File, Box 6, CIAR. 24 Cosmology Review, 24 August 1990, p. 3, CG Reviews, FN. 25 Ibid., p. 4. 26 Ibid., pp. 5–7. 27 Ibid., Confidential Attachment to the President, pp. 12–15. 28 Ibid., p. 9. 29 Ibid., p. 10. 30 Meeting with John McDonald, dean of science, University of Alberta, 27 April 1990, Meeting Notes, FN; RC meeting, 19 September 1990, item 7, RC Binders, FN; and BD meeting, 21 November 1990, item 8, BD Binders, FN. 31 Ford Doolittle, ‘Evolutionary Biology Leads to Genomics,’ Entropy 2, no. 1 (spring 1999). 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 34 ‘A Chronology of the Evolutionary Biology Program,’ File 1, Box 4, CIAR. 35 Director’s Report, June 1991, EB Background File, Box 6, CIAR. 36 Notes of meeting, White Point Beach Lodge, 11–12 September 1987, EB Records, FN. 37 RC meeting, 4 December 1989, items 8.1–8.3, RC Binders, FN. 38 Director’s Report, June 1991, EB Background File, Box 6, CIAR. The seven associates were Linda Bonen at Ottawa, Greg Brown at McGill, James Cavender at Colorado, Charles Daniels at Ohio State, William Day at Memorial University of Newfoundland, Robert Lee at Dalhousie, and Monique Turmel at Laval. 39 Doolittle to Ham, 10 August 1989, and Director’s Report, 1989, Siminovitch File, EB File, Box 10, CIAR. 40 RC meeting, 4 December 1989, item 8.2, RC Binders, FN. 41 Smith to Mustard, 10 August 1988, EB Records, FN 42 Director’s Report, June 1991, EB Background File, Box 6, CIAR.

Notes to pages 105–12 309 43 44 45 46

Ibid. EB Five-Year Review, [June 1991], EB File, Box 5, CIAR. Ibid. RC meeting, 15 October 1991, item 4.4, RC Binders, FN; and BD meeting, 4 December 1991, item 5, BD Binders, FN.

7. Population Health 1 R.G. Evans, ‘Where Did I Come From? From RDX1 to Population Health,’ October 1988, PH Records, FN. 2 Evans interview, 8 April 2003. 3 Ibid. 4 R.G. Evans, ‘Where Did I Come From? From RDX1 to Population Health,’ October 1988, PH Records, FN. 5 ‘Population Health Program Members,’ n.d., PH Records, FN; RC meetings, 16 February 1988 (item 5.4), 17 June 1988 (item 5.3), and 24 January 1989 (item 5.4), RC Binders, FN. 6 Evans and Mustard, ‘The Population Health Program,’ October 1988, 1982–89 Correspondence, PH Records, FN. Ellen Corin, an anthropologist at McGill, joined the program in 1991. That same year, Frank and Hertzman were appointed fellows in the program. See RC meeting, 25 March 1991, item 4.2, RC Binders, FN. 7 Evans interview, 8 April 2003. 8 Ibid. 9 Hertzman interview, 16 September 2004. 10 Meeting with Evans, 9 June 1990, Meeting Notes, FN. 11 ‘Meetings of the Population Health Program,’ [1992], 1990–92 Correspondence, PH Records, FN. 12 Evans and Mustard, ‘The Population Health Program,’ October 1988, 1982–89 Correspondence, PH Records, FN. 13 ‘Population Health,’ 28 February 1990, 1990–92 Correspondence, PH Records, FN. 14 Ibid. 15 ‘The book created for the world the common framework of understanding’ about population health, Hertzman told the author. Hertzman interview, 16 September 2004. 16 ‘Meetings of the Population Health Program,’ [1992], 1990–92 Correspondence, PH Records, FN. 17 Notes of meeting, Little Moose Lodge, Old Forge, New York, 27–30 Septem-

310 Notes to pages 112–20

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39

40 41 42

ber 1990, item 5, PH Background File, Box 6, CIAR; and PH meeting, 27–30 September 1990, PH Meeting Notes 1990–96, PH Records, FN. Notes of meeting, Winnipeg, 27–29 September 1991, PH Meeting Notes 1990–92, PH Records, FN. Evans interview, 8 April 2003. Program Director’s Report, 1992, p. 7, PH Reviews, FN. PH meeting, 9–10 March 1989, Session II: Manitoba Test Linkage, 1987–89 Correspondence, PH Records, FN. Program Director’s Report, 1992, p. 20, PH Reviews, FN. PH meeting, 18–19 December 1989, Census Data Linkage, PH Background File, Box 6, CIAR. Program Director’s Report, 1992, p. 31, PH Reviews, FN. Ibid., p. 32. Notes of meeting, 26 October 1990, Development Council and Other Meetings 1990–91, Box 6, CIAR. RC meeting, 15 October 1991, item 4.3, RC Binders, FN. Program Director’s Report, 1992, pp. 27 and 40, PH Reviews, FN. Ibid., p. 41. Ibid., p. 18. Ibid., p. 16. Ibid., pp. 40 and 43. Ibid., pp. 28–30. Ibid., pp. 12–14. Marc Renaud, ‘How the CIAR Changed My Idea of “Canadian,”’ Entropy 2, no. 1 (spring 1999): pp. 8–9. Program Director’s Report, 1992, p. 40, PH Reviews, FN. Hertzman interview, 16 September 2004. Program Director’s Report, 1992, PH Reviews, FN. PH Review, 1992, pt. I, app. II, PH Reviews, FN. The panel was chaired by Guy Rocher, a social scientist from the Université de Montréal and member of the research council. Other members were Anthony Culyer, vice-chancellor and economist at the University of York, Robert Elgie, director of the Health Law Institute at Dalhousie, Philip Lee of the School of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, D. Morton Low, president of the Health Science Center of the University of Texas at Houston, Fernand Turcotte of the Faculty of Medicine at Laval, and Len Syme of the School of Public Health at University of California, Berkeley. Ibid., pp. 4–5. Ibid., pp. 10–13. Ibid., p. 17.

Notes to pages 120–8 311 43 Ibid., pp. 19–21, pt. II, Confidential Report to the President. 44 RC meeting, 27 October 1992, item 3.7, RC Binders, FN. The board of directors endorsed the renewal recommendation; BD meeting, 19 January 1993, item 6, BD Binders, FN.

8. Superconductivity 1 Director’s Report, May 1992, p. 1, and ‘Program in Superconductivity,’ n.d. [1989?], p. 1, SC Records, FN. 2 ‘Let us get going,’ Bourns urged Armstrong. Bourns to Armstrong, 14 August 1987, SC Records, FN. 3 Director’s Report, May 1992, pp. 5–6, SC Records, FN. 4 Carbotte, ‘Present Status and Future Development of the CIAR Program on Superconductivity,’ n.d., p. 1, and AC meeting, 11 April 1988, item 2c, SC Records, FN. 5 Carbotte, ‘Present Status and Future Development of the CIAR Program on Superconductivity,’ n.d., pp. 1–2, SC Records, FN; and RC meeting, 11 June 1988, item 5.4, RC Binders, FN. 6 ‘Program in Superconductivity,’ n.d., pp. 2–5, SC Records, FN. 7 AC meeting, 9 January 1989, items 2.1–2.4, SC Records, FN. Berlinsky, from the advisory committee, would become manager of the National Centre of Excellence program if the proposal was accepted, and Carbotte would be the program chair. Carbotte to Mustard, 23 January 1989, SC Records, FN. 8 RC meeting, 25 March 1991, ‘Materials Science’ item, RC Binders, FN. 9 Note to file on program meeting, TRIUMF, 29 April 1989, and AC meeting, 15 May 1989, item 3, SC Records, FN. 10 Carbotte to Mustard, 23 January 1991, SC Records, FN. See also Director’s Report, May 1992, p. 16, SC Records, FN. 11 RC meeting, 25 March 1991, ‘Materials Science’ item, RC Binders, FN 12 Carbotte to Mustard, 23 January 1991, SC Records, FN. 13 Ibid. 14 ‘Superconductivity Program Overview,’ n.d. [1992], p. 3, SC Records, FN. 15 RC meeting, 15 October 1991, item 4.6, RC Binders, FN. 16 Members’ meeting, 18 January 1992, Vancouver, SC Records, FN. 17 Director’s Report, May 1992, p. 15, SC Records, FN. 18 Ibid., p. 18. 19 SC Review, September 1992, vol. 1, pp. 1–6, SC Reviews, FN. 20 Ibid., pp. 12–13. 21 Ibid.

312 22 23 24 25 26

Notes to pages 128–37

Ibid., p. 14. Ibid., pp. 17–18. RC meeting, 27 October 1992, item 3.4, RC Binders, FN. AC meeting, 27 August 1993, SC Records, FN. Ibid.

9. Years of Testing 1 ‘Financial History,’ p. 3. 2 BD meeting, 26 November 1987, item 3, BD Binders, FN. 3 EC (RC), 16 June 1988, item 2, and RC meeting, 17 June 1988, item 2, RC Binders, FN. 4 BD meeting, 20 June 1989, items 1–5, BD Binders, FN. 5 BD meetings, 3 April, 24 May, 26 June, 6 September, and 12 November 1990 and 13 February, 19 April, and 4 December 1991, BD Binders, FN. 6 EC (RC) meeting, 30 June 1989, item 2, and RC meeting, 20 July 1989, item 2.1, RC Binders, FN; BD meeting, 21 November 1990, items 2, 4, and 8, BD Binders, FN. 7 Financial Post, 10 February 1992, Press Binders, FN. 8 Summary of Income and Expenditure for the Year Ended June 30, 1988–1996, ‘Financial History,’ FN. At the end of the cycle, 30 June 1992, the annual cost of programs other than AIR and Evolutionary Biology were Cosmology, $597,000; Population Health, $597,000; and Superconductivity, $231,000. CIAR spent $411,000 on the development stage of Economic Growth and Policy in that year, $212,000 on the ‘emerging’ Law in Society program, and $91,000 on the development phase of Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces. 9 Ibid., p. 3. The corporations were Alcan International, Canadian Pacific, General Motors, Imperial Oil, MacMillan Bloedel, Manulife Insurance, Noranda Incorporated, Royal Bank, Shell Canada, and Spar Aerospace. 10 Ibid., pp. 4–6. 11 Ibid., p. 4; BD meetings, 26 June and 6 September 1990, BD Binders, FN. 12 Toronto Star, 15 October 1989, Press Binders, FN. 13 Toronto Star, 19 May 1990, Press Binders, FN 14 BD meeting, 15 December 1988, items 3.4–3.9, BD Binders, FN; EC (RC) meeting, 23 February 1989, RC Binders, FN. 15 Meeting with Sally Brown, Prime Minister’s Office, 8 March 1990, Meeting Notes, FN. 16 BD meeting, 3 April 1990, item 2.2, BD Binders, FN.

Notes to pages 137–42 313 17 BD meeting, 3 July 1991, item 5.3, BD Binders, FN. 18 BD meeting, 30 September 1991, item 5.1, BD Binders, FN. 19 RC meeting, 15 October 1991, item 3.2, RC Binders, FN; and Summary of Income and Expenditure for the Year Ended June 30, 1988–1996, ‘Financial History,’ FN. 20 Meeting with Prichard, 17 April 1990, Meeting Notes, FN. 21 RC meeting, 17 June 1988, item 3.2, RC Binders, FN. 22 Ibid. Hollerbach moved to McGill as NSERC/CIAR Professor of Robotics in 1989. That same year, Terzopoulos joined the Computer Science Department at U of T. The board of directors approved the program renewal and the new appointments: BD meeting, 21 June 1988, items 7–8, BD Binders, FN. 23 Mustard to AIR members, 29 August 1989, AIR Records, FN. 24 RC meeting, 24 January 1989, item 5.1, RC Binders, FN. Frost reported in December that the members of the development committee were Pylyshyn, Alan Mackworth (vision), Hector Levesque (knowledge representation), and John Hollerbach (robotics); RC meeting, 4 December 1989, item 4.1, RC Binders, FN. The committee studying the role of associates included Jim Ham, Barrie Frost, chair of the AIR advisory committee, and research council members Arthur Bourns, John Madden, and Gordon MacNabb. 25 Financial Post, 15 January 1990, p. 10, and UBC Reports, 8 March 1990, p. 3, Press Binders, FN. Hunter’s status was changed from scholar to fellow by the board in November 1990; BD meeting, 21 November 1990, ‘Appointments,’ BD Binders, FN. 26 Doolittle to Ham, 25 February 1989, Carbotte to Ham, 27 February 1989, Unruh to Ham, 14 March 1989, and Pylyshyn to Ham, 17 March 1989, Task Force on Associates File, Box 5, CIAR. 27 ‘Associate’s Category Committee,’ 10 March 1989, Task Group on Associates File, Box 8, CIAR. 28 Ibid. and ‘Report of the Task Group on the Associate’s Category of Institute Appointment,’ n.d. [May 1989], Task Group on Associates File, Box 8, CIAR. 29 EC (RC) meeting, 30 June 1989, item 4, RC Binders, FN. 30 RC meeting, 20 July 1989, item 3.1, RC Binders, FN. 31 EC (RC) meeting, 13 November 1987, item 3, and RC meeting, 16 February 1988, item 6.1, RC Binders, FN. 32 RC meeting, 16 February 1988, items 4.1–4.5, RC Binders, FN. 33 ‘Science, Technology and Institutional Change in the Global Economy: A Proposal to the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research,’ June 1988, p. 1, and ‘List of Attendees at Meeting on Technology, Change and Society, April 5–6, 1988, Toronto,’ Richard Lipsey Papers, SFUA.

314

Notes to pages 142–8

34 RC meeting, 17 June 1988, item 7, RC Binders, FN. 35 RC meeting, 24 January 1989, item 6.2, RC Binders, FN; and Meetings with Lipsey, 25 October and 2 November 1988, and with David Grier (Royal Bank), 21 November 1988, Meeting Notes, FN. 36 Lipsey, ‘Intellectual Autobiography,’ p. xviii. 37 RC meetings, 24 January, 20 July, and 4 December 1989, and EC (RC) meetings, 23 January, 30 June, and 31 October 1989, RC Binders, FN. 38 Another materials science proposal that had won quick acceptance and was being developed was the program on superconductivity. See chapter 8. 39 RC meeting, 20 July 1989, item 4, RC Binders, FN. 40 RC meeting, 19 September 1992, item 9, RC Binders, FN. 41 RC meeting, 27 October 1992, item 3.5, RC Binders, FN. 42 RC meeting, 16 February 1988, item 3, RC Binders, FN. 43 EC (RC) meetings, 16 June 1988 (item 8), 30 June 1988 (item 6), and 31 October 1989 (item 4); and RC meetings, 17 June 1988 (item 9) and 20 July 1989 (item 9), RC Binders, FN. 44 RC meeting, 4 December 1989, item 10, RC Binders, FN. 45 Meeting with Veizer, Ottawa, 20 December 1990, Meeting Notes, FN. 46 RC meeting, 13 March 1992, pp. 10–11, RC Binders, FN; and BD meeting, 18 March 1992, item 4, BD Binders, FN. 47 Mustard to the author, Memorandum on the Human Development Program, 4 December 2003, 48 Meeting with Keating, 1 May 1991, Meeting Notes, FN. 49 Meeting with Case, 6 August 1991, Meeting Notes, FN. 50 RC meeting, 13 March 1992, pp. 3–6, RC Binders, FN. 51 BD meeting, 18 March 1992, item 4, BD Binders, FN. 52 BD meeting, 7 July 1992, item 4, BD Binders, FN; and RC meeting, 27 October 1992, item 3.9, RC Binders, FN. 53 Workshop on Economic Growth and Policy, 26–27 January 1990, pp. 1–5, Richard Lipsey Papers, SFUA. 54 RC meeting, 19 September 1990, item 5, RC Binders, FN. 55 Edward Safarian to the author, 26 May 2004. 56 RC meetings, 25 March 1991, p. 3, and 15 October 1991, item 4.5, RC Binders, FN; and BD meeting, 18 March 1992, item 4, BD Binders, FN.

10. Origins II 1 Ottawa Citizen, 2 February 1992, Press Binders, FN.

Notes to pages 149–52 315 2 ‘Program in Earth System Evolution,’ n.d. [1992–93], p. 1, ESE Records, FN. 3 Beaumont was appointed a fellow with some teaching release support from a donation by the Henry Kinnear Foundation at the end of 1992. A donation from Inco gave Beaumont full fellow support starting 1 July 1994. See BD, 19 January 1993, p. 6, BD Binders, FN; and Notes of meeting, 11 August 1994, ESE Records, FN. 4 By 1998, when the program had its first review, three more associates had joined the program. They were Kurt Lambeck, a geophysicist at Australian National University, Jerry Mitrovica, a geophysicist at the University of Toronto, and James Zachos, an oceanographer and geochemist at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In addition, the program then was supporting five scholars: Jean L.M.F. Braun at ANU, appointed 1993; Harald Strauss at RuhrUniversität, 1993; Sean Willet at Penn State University, 1995; Daniel Schrag at Princeton, 1997; and Bernhard Mayer at University of Calgary, 1997; Director’s Report, 1998, pp. 18–19, ESE Records, FN. The program’s advisory committee was chaired by David Strong, the president of the University of Victoria. Its members were Ron Clowes of the Geological Sciences Centre at UBC, Allan Cooper, the former director of geochemistry at Newmont Mining in Tucson, Arizona, William Fyfe of the Geology Department at UWO, Gerald Hatch from the board of directors, John Malpas, the head of the Earth Sciences Department at the University of Hong Kong; and Ray Price of the Geology Department at Queen’s. Earth System Evolution Program Overview, n.d. [1993–94], p. 3, ESE Records, FN. 5 Director’s Report, 1998, pp. 22–23, ESE Records, FN. 6 Ibid. 7 Notes of meeting, 25 May, 11 October, and 1 December 1995, ESE Records, FN. 8 Director’s Report, 1998, p. 36, ESE Records, FN. 9 Ibid., p. 27. Emphasis in original. 10 Ibid. Emphasis in original. 11 ESE Review, August 1998, pt. I, app. I, ESE Reviews, FN. 12 Ibid., p. 4. 13 Ibid., p. 7. 14 Ibid., p. 11–12. 15 Globe and Mail, 24 April 1992, Press Binders, FN. 16 Maclean’s, 4 May 1992, Press Binders, FN. 17 Director’s Report, October 1994, pp. 5 and 12, CG Records, FN. New theory associates were Andrei Linde (appointed 1992) and Leonard Susskind (1994) at Stanford. Glenn Starkman, a new program scholar at CITA,

316

18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43

Notes to pages 153–61

became an associate member when he moved to Case Western Reserve University in 1995. Ibid. Ibid., pp. 1–2 and 8. Ibid., pp. 10–11. Ibid., pp. 3–4. Director’s Report for the Review Committee, n.d. [August 1995, pp. 21–22, CG Records, FN. Ibid., pp. 23–37. Cosmology: 10 Year Review, May 1996, vol. 1, pp. 18–19, CG Reviews, FN. Ibid. Unruh’s retirement as director had been discussed with the advisory committee and Mustard at various times for more than a year before the review panel’s report. AC meeting, 22 April 1995, and Meetings of Mustard, McKinnon, and Unruh, 25 January and 29 May 1996, CG Records, FN. Cosmology: 10 Year Review, May 1996, vol. 1, pp. 20 and 21. Program Director’s Report, 25 August 1995, pp. 5–6, EB Records, FN. Emphasis in original. Ibid., pp. 6–7. Director’s Report to the Review Committee, November 1996, pp. 27–28, EB Reviews, FN. Ibid., pp. 7–10. Ibid., pp. 3–4. Doolittle did a survey of the program fellows and scholars and found that on average each member was producing seven to eight papers each year, ‘of which a third are in what I consider premier journals for molecular biology.’ Ibid., p. 1. Ibid., p. 30. Ibid., p. 29. RC meeting, 26 October 1994, p. 13, RC Binders, FN. Director’s Report to Review Committee, November 1996, pp. 19–20, EB Reviews, FN. Ibid., pp. 29–30 and 46. Ibid., pp. 7–10. See EB Review, 1996, vol. 1, Box 5, CIAR; and Director’s Report to Review Committee, November 1996, p. 10, EB Reviews, FN. EB Review, 1996, vol. 1, app. V, EB Reviews, FN. Ibid., pp. 5–6. Ibid., p. 6. Ibid., p. 7. Ibid., pp. 7–8.

Notes to pages 162–6 317 11. Economic Growth and Policy 1 RC meeting, 27 October 1992, item 3.3, RC Binders, FN. 2 Lipsey, ‘Intellectual Autobiography,’ pp. xix. For the Nelson and Winter work, see their paper, ‘The Schumpeter Tradeoff Revisited,’ American Economic Review 72, no. 1 (1982), pp. 114–32. 3 Lipsey to Eric von Hippel, 18 December 1991, 1991–92 Correspondence, and Meetings with Brian Arthur, Kenneth Arrow, and Nate Rosenberg at Stanford University, 17 January 1992, Meeting Notes, EGP Records, FN. The other advisory committee members were Paul Krugman from MIT, Jose Sheinkman from the University of Chicago, Sylvia Ostry from the University of Toronto, and Paul Davenport, the president of the University of Alberta. Luc Soete, professor of international economics at the University of Maastricht, joined the committee in 1994. 4 Following the meeting, Lipsey observed, ‘I think we have gained a lot from being exposed to the wide diversity of approaches and of knowledge already represented in our group.’ Lipsey to program members, 13 April 1993, 1993 Correspondence, EGP Records, FN. 5 AC teleconference call, 7 July 1993, 1993 Correspondence, EGP Records, FN. 6 Mustard, notes of 28 July 1993, 1993 Program Notes, and Mustard, ‘Follow up Notes,’ 28 July 1993, 1993 Meeting Notes, EGP Records, FN. 7 Mustard, notes of 28 July 1993, 1993 Program Notes, EGP Records, FN. 8 Lipsey, Economic Growth. 9 Memorandum, Lipsey to Mustard, Nicholson, and Safarian, 8 September 1993, 1993 Correspondence, EGP Records, FN. 10 Ibid. 11 Mustard, notes of 17 September 1993, Meeting Notes, EGP Records, FN. 12 Ibid. 13 Lipsey, memorandum, ‘The EGPP in Years Three to Five,’ 20 September 1993, 1993 Correspondence, EGP Records, FN. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Romer to program members, 7 October 1993, 1993 Correspondence, EGP Records, FN. 17 Lipsey to Mustard, 25 October 1993, 1993 Correspondence, EGP Records, FN. 18 Meeting in Tel Aviv, 1–4 November 1993, 1993 Meeting Notes, EGP Records, FN. 19 Ibid. Eleven years later, Ed Safarian vividly remembered the trip and the

318 Notes to pages 166–9

20

21

22 23 24 25 26 27 28

29 30

31

agreement among the members, on the bus trip to Masada, that Helpman was the person to assume the leadership of the program. Conversation with the author, 14 April 2004. Meeting in Tel Aviv, 1–4 November 1993, 1993 Meeting Notes, EGP Records, FN. The advisory committee agreed with the appointments at its meeting on 7 December 1993. Officially, Helpman would assume his post on 1 March 1994. AC meeting, 7 December 1993, 1993 Correspondence, EGP Records, FN. See also EC (BD) meeting, 21 December 1993, BD Binders, FN. Mustard to Lipsey, 29 December 1993, 1993 Correspondence, EGP Records, FN. Lipsey was not pleased. He remained deeply disappointed that the program members had not adopted the research plan he had advocated. ‘I am going to stay with the Group,’ he wrote to Mustard in mid-January 1994. ‘Indeed I am very glad to be a member of it. I have no doubt that I will get a lot out of it, but I would get almost the same from a dinner club where we all met 3–4 times a year.’ Lipsey to Mustard, 24 January 1994, 1994–97 Correspondence, EGP Records, FN. Mustard, Notes of meeting, 14–16 March 1994, Meeting Notes, EGP Records, FN. EC (RC) meeting, 14 July 1994, p. 12, RC Binders, FN. AC meeting, Banff, 26 June 1995, Director’s Report, p. 5, 1994–97 Correspondence, EGP Records, FN. Mustard, Note to file, 4–7 November 1994, and Hough, Note to file, 5 November 1994. 1994–97 Meeting Notes, EGP Records, FN. Hough, Notes of 29 December 1994, 1994–97 Meeting Notes, EGP Records, FN. RC meeting, 26 October 1994, item 6, RC Binders, FN. Modern Perspectives on Economic Growth was published with support from Industry Canada. See EC (BD) meeting, 6 February 1996, p. 3, BD Binders, FN. Mustard, Notes of 26–29 March 1995, and Hough, Notes of 28 March 1995, 1994–97 Meeting Notes, EGP Records, FN. AC meeting, Banff, 26 June 1995, 1994–97 Correspondence, EGP Records, FN. The book, General Purpose Technologies and Economic Growth, was published by MIT Press in 1998. AC meeting, Banff, 26 June 1995, p. 6, 1994–97 Correspondence, EGP Records, FN. Constraints on the CIAR budget in 1995 limited the membership growth potential of the program; Young to Helpman, 2 May 1995, 1994– 97 Correspondence, EGP Records, FN. Harris explained the work of the three program areas in a meeting with officials from Canadian Pacific, which

Notes to pages 169–74 319

32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

42

sponsored his fellowship; Notes of meeting, 7 February 1996, 1994–97 Meeting Notes, EGP Records, FN. AC meeting, Banff, 26 June 1995, p. 7, 1994–97 Correspondence, and Notes of meeting, 7 February 1996, 1994–97 Meeting Notes, EGP Records, FN. EC (BD) meeting, 16 April 1996, BD Binders, FN. Five Year Review, Director’s Report, August 1996, p. 8, EGP Reviews, FN. Ibid., p. 11. Five Year Review, October 1996, vol. I, annexes 1 and 3, EGP Reviews, CIAR. Ibid., pp. 10–11. Ibid., p. 9. Ibid. Ibid., p. 12. Ibid., p. 14. Lipsey was very unhappy about the recommendation to reduce the emphasis on micro work on technology and innovation. ‘I am sure I don’t need to tell you how sad I am at the turn of events,’ he wrote to David Mowery, a member of the micro group. ‘One of my most basic ideas in setting up the program was to expose theorists and macro measurers to people who really know something about technology and technological change.’ Lipsey to Mowery, 4 March 1997, Lipsey Papers, SFUA. During 1997, Mowery, John Baldwin, Ed Safarian, Eric von Hippel, and Michael Wolfson all left the program. Five Year Review, vol. I, October 1996, pp. 13–14, EGP Reviews, CIAR.

12. Human Development 1 HD program meeting, 5 August 1992, HD Records, FN. Dan Offord from the McMaster Medical School and Barrie Frost, chair of the AIR Program and a psychologist at Queen’s University, were unable to attend. 2 Ibid. 3 AC meeting, 21 October 1992, HD Records, FN. The members of the advisory committee were Robert Picard from Shell Canada (chair), David Grier from the Royal Bank, Senator Landon Pearson, Doris Entwisle from the Department of Sociology at Johns Hopkins University, and Michel Manciaux from the Faculté de Médecine, Nancy, France. Mustard and John Godfrey, an institute vice-president, were also in attendance. 4 RC meeting, 27 October 1992, item 3.9, RC Binders, FN. 5 ‘The Learning Society and Canada’s Future,’ 17 June 1993, note 6, PHHD File, HD Records, FN.

320 Notes to pages 174–9 6 ‘The Learning Society and Canada’s Future,’ 17 June 1993, PHHD File, HD Records, FN; Keating to Hough, 11 June 1993, and ‘Overview of Goals for the Human Development Program: Advisory Committee Briefing,’ 23 June 1993, HD Records, FN. 7 EC (BD) meeting, 19 July 1993, BD Binders, FN. 8 BD meeting, 5 October 1993, ‘Programs – Appointments,’ BD Binders, FN. 9 Program meeting, 30 November and 1 December 1993, HD Records, FN. 10 ‘Program in Human Development,’ 17 January 1994, HD Records, FN. 11 Ibid. 12 Director’s Report, 26 September 1994, Correspondence File, HD Records, FN. 13 RC meeting, 26 October 1994, item 5, RC Binders, FN. In the spring of 1995, Robert Picard resigned as chair of the advisory committee. Lewis Lipsitt, a psychologist at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island, replaced him as chair of the advisory committee in August. Notes of meeting, 7 July 1995, and AC meeting, Emerald Lake, 23 August 1995, HD Records, FN. 14 Dorothy McKinnon to Joy Kennedy, 11 March 1995, HD Records, FN. On Frost’s appointment as Max Bell Fellow, see RC meeting, 14 July 1994, p. 12, RC Binders, FN. 15 Notes of meeting, 2 August 1995, HD Records, FN. 16 Program meeting, 29 April 1995, Correspondence File, HD Records, FN. 17 AC meeting, 23 August 1995, Correspondence File, HD Records, FN. 18 Ibid. and program meeting agenda, 24 August 1995, HD Records, FN. 19 Mustard, Notes of meeting, 27 August 1995, HD Records, FN. 20 Memorandum, Keating to Hough, Mustard, and Lipsitt, 20 December 1995, Correspondence File, HD Records, FN. 21 Keating, ’1996 Report to CIAR Research Council,’ April 1996, app. 2, HD Records, FN; and Human Development Program: Symposium Series and Related Presentations, 14th Biennial Conference, International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development (ISSBD), Quebec City, August 1996. 22 Mustard and Armstrong, Notes of meeting, 26 September 1995, and Announcement of the CIAR/UNB Fellow in Human Development, University of New Brunswick, 29 November 1995, HD Records, FN. The research centre became the Canadian Research Institute for Social Policy Initiatives, with Willms as its director. 23 Keating to Mustard and Hough, 12 April 1996, Correspondence File, p. 2, HD Records, FN 24 Grier, ‘CIAR Human Development Program ? Some Comments,’ 8 November 1996. Grier kindly gave a copy of this document to the author in April 2004.

Notes to pages 180–6 321 25 Director’s Report to the Review Panel, September 1997, pp. 4–5, HD Reviews, FN. 26 Hertzman explains that ‘biological embedding’ sits ‘at the crossroads of child longitudinal research and biological process,’ where experience ‘gets under the skin and leads to gradients in health, well-being and competence.’ Hertzman interview, 16 September 2004. 27 Director’s Report to the Review Panel, September 1997, pp. 9–11, HD Reviews, FN. Christopher Coe joined the program as a foreign associate in July 1996. 28 Ibid., pp. 11–14. The book, Development Health and the Wealth of Nations, edited by Keating and Hertzman, was published by Guilford Press in 1999. 29 Ibid., pp. 13–14. 30 Ibid., pp. 17–19. 31 Five Year Review, October 1997, vol. 1, annex 3, HD Reviews, FN. 32 Ibid., pp. 3–7. 33 Ibid., pp. 12–13. 34 Ibid., pp. 20–29. 35 RC meeting, 7 November 1997, p. 6, RC Binders, FN. 36 Ibid. 37 Ibid., pp. 7–8. 38 Ibid., p. 7. 39 Ibid., p. 8. A final motion specified that the development of more joint projects between Human Development and Population Health be ‘used as an evaluative measure over the next 5 years.’

13. The Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces 1 The initial advisory committee for the program was a subset of the Materials Science advisory committee, which was also responsible for the Superconductivity Program. The SSSI committee members were Robin Armstrong, chair; Myer Bloom; John Berlinsky of the Institute for Materials Research at McMaster University; Victor Ling of the Ontario Cancer Institute and Princess Margaret Hospital in Toronto; and the chemist Peter Norton of the University of Western Ontario. ‘Canadian Institute of Advanced Research Program in the Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces,’ n.d., www.physics. brocku.ca/faculty/sternin/CIAR.html. 2 RC meeting, 27 October 1992, item 3.5, RC Binders, FN. 3 ‘Canadian Institute of Advanced Research Program in the Science of Soft

322 Notes to pages 186–92

4 5 6 7 8 9 10

11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Surfaces and Interfaces,’ n.d., www.physics.brocku.ca/faculty/sternin/ CIAR.html. ‘Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces Program: Overview,’ 27 January 1997, p. 2, Program Summary File, SSSI Records, FN.. Ibid. ‘A List of Potential “Applications” of Soft Surface Science,’ n.d., Correspondence File, SSSI Records, FN. Bloom to Mustard, 19 May 1993, Correspondence File, SSSI Records, FN. Notes of meeting, Ladysmith, B.C., 28 April 1996, p. 1, SSSI Records, FN. Ibid. and Notes of meeting, Vancouver, 25 January 1996, SSSI Records, FN. AC meeting, 20 June 1996, Correspondence File, SSSI Records, FN. Also see Notes of meeting with Barry McBride, 15 May 1996, Meeting Notes, FN; and EC (BD) meeting, 25 June 1996, p. 5, BD Binders, FN. McBride was also a member of the institute’s research council from 1994 to 1998. Memorandum, Bloom to SSSI advisory committee, 12–14 April 1996, p. 3, Correspondence File, SSSI Records, FN. AC meeting, 20 June 1996, Correspondence File, SSSI Records, FN. Memorandum, Bloom to SSSI advisory committee, 12–14 April 1996, pp. 6–12, Correspondence File, SSSI Records, FN. AC meeting, 20 June 1996, Correspondence File, SSSI Records, FN. Ibid. Ibid. Ibid. Five Year Review, August 1999, app. 3, SSSI Reviews, CIAR. Ibid., p. 3. Ibid., p. 5. Ibid., pp. 3–4. Ibid., pp. 3–5. Ibid., pp. 4–5. Ibid., pp. 7–8. AC meeting, 26 October 1999, pp. 1–6, SSSI Records, CIAR. RC meeting, 30 October 1999, item 5, p. 2, RC Binders, CIAR. Dupré to Beveridge, 24 November 1999, Closing File, SSSI Records, CIAR. Duplicate letters went to all the other program members.

14. The Knife Edge 1 ‘Research Council and Directors meeting re Funding,’ 22 September 1993, ‘Expenditure by University, 1983–1993’ table, Box 2, CIAR.

Notes to pages 193–201 323 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

34

RC meeting, 27 October 1992, items 2.2 and 2.5, RC Binders, FN. Ibid., item 2.3. Ibid., item 2.1. Ibid., items 2.3 and 2.4. BD meeting, 19 January 1993, item 6, BD Binders, FN. EC (BD) meeting, 8 April 1993, item 3, BD Binders, FN. EC (BD) meeting, 19 July 1993, items 3–6, BD Binders, FN. EC (BD) meeting, 2 September 1993, item 4, BD Binders, FN. Ibid., item 5. Ibid. RC meeting, 22 September 1993, p. 2, RC Binders, FN. Ibid., p. 5. BD meeting, 5 October 1993, pp. 2–5, BD Binders, FN. EC (BD) meeting, 8 April 1993, items 3 and 5, BD Binders, FN. EC (BD) meeting, 15 April 1994, item 2, BD Binders, FN. Notes of meeting, 13 April 1994, Meeting Notes, FN. Notes of meeting, 4 May 1994, Meeting Notes, FN. See also Notes of meeting, 16–20 May 1994, Meeting Notes, FN. Notes of meeting, 14 September 1994, Meeting Notes, FN. BD meeting, 2 November 1994, item III, BD Binders, FN. EC (BD) meeting, 25 April 1994, p. 2, BD Binders, FN. EC (RC) meeting, 14 July 1994, p. 13, RC Binders, FN. EC (RC) meeting, 26 October 1994, item 1, RC Binders, FN. RC meeting, 26 October 1994, item 1, RC Binders, FN. Notes of meeting, 27 March 1994, Meeting Notes, FN. Notes of meeting, 15 July 1994, Meeting Notes, FN. Notes of meeting, 13 September 1994, Meeting Notes, FN. Notes of meeting, 4 October 1994, Meeting Notes, FN. BD meeting, 2 November 1994, items II.1 and II.2, BD Binders, FN. Johnston to Mustard, 12 December 1994, RC Binders, FN. BD meeting, 28 February 1995, item 2, and EC (BD) meeting, 26 April 1995, items 2 and 4, BD Binders, FN. Notes of meeting, 30 March 1995, Meeting Notes, FN, and EC (BD) meeting, 26 April 1995, item 3, BD Binders, FN. BD meeting, 28 February 1995, item 6, BD Binders, FN. The other members of the task force were Marc Renaud from Population Health, Ford Doolittle from Evolutionary Biology, Alan Mackworth from AIR, Pierre Fortin from Economic Growth, Martin Wilk and Lorna Marsden from the research council, and board members Leonard Bolger and Gerald Hatch. Paterson to Mustard, ‘Development 1995,’ 16 January 1995, Miscellaneous

324

35

36 37 38

39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51

52 53

54 55 56 57 58

Notes to pages 201–8

File, Box 5, CIAR; and EC (RC) meeting, 16–17 February 1995, item 2, RC Binders, FN. EC (RC) meeting, 9–10 May 1995, items 1 and 3, RC Binders, FN. See also ‘Outreach: The Recommendation of the Task Force of the Research Council,’ May 1995, Outreach Reports, RC Binders, FN. EC (BD) meeting, 26 April 1995, item 3a, BD Binders, FN. EC (BD) meetings, 3 October 1995, items 3–5, and 1 November 1995, item 3, BD Binders, FN. BD meeting, 19 January 1993, item 5, and EC (BD) meeting, 8 April 1993, BD Binders, FN. For the publication, see Daedalus (Journal of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences) 123, no. 4 (fall 1994). EC (RC) meetings, 14 July 1994, item 2, and 20 December 1994, item 3, p. 10, RC Binders, FN. RC meeting, 22 November 1995, item 5, RC Binders, FN; and EC (BD) meeting, 30 May 1995, item 6, BD Binders, FN. BD meeting, 19 January 1993, BD Binders, FN. EC (RC) meeting, 14 July 1994, item 3, RC Binders, FN. RC meeting, 26 October 1994, item 2, RC Binders, FN. RC meeting, 22 November 1995, item 4, RC Binders, FN. Mackworth to Mustard, 28 November 1995, AIR Records, FN. EC (BD) meeting, 6 February 1996, BD Binders, FN. Hatch interview, 16 April 2004. Notes of meeting, 20 April 1995, Meeting Notes, FN. Notes of meeting, 19 July 1995, Meeting Notes, FN; and Mustard interview, 24 February 2004. EC (BD) meeting, 3 October 1995, items 3 and 5, BD Binders, FN. BD meeting, 9 November 1995, item 4c, BD Binders, FN. The other members of the committee were David Johnston, Bette Stephenson, Gerald Heffernan, and Gerald Hatch. Mustard was an ex officio member but took no part in the succession process. ‘Notes for meeting with Cliff Rae,’ 16 September 1995, Green Files, FN. Memorandum, Doug Todgham to Len Bolger, 22 June 1999, with attachments: Dupré to Rae, 23 July 1999, and Todgham to Dorothy McKinnon, 28 July 1999, Green Files, FN. The foundation is referred to in CIAR records as the ‘anonymous donor.’ EC (BD) meeting, 6 February 1996, item 7, BD Binders, FN. EC (BD) meeting, 2 April 1996, BD Binders, FN. EC (BD) meeting, 15 April 1996, item 3, BD Binders, FN. EC (BD), 15 April 1996, Report to the Board of Directors, BD Binders, FN. RC business meeting, 16 April 1996, RC Binders, FN. The texts of the pro-

Notes to pages 208–12 325 gram presentations have been preserved in a binder in the possession of the author. 59 EC (BD) meeting, 25 June 1996, item 1, BD Binders, FN. Mustard frequently referred to the Founders’ Network as ‘the Grey Brigade’; Mustard interview, 24 February 2004. 60 Materials for RC meeting, 22 November 1995, table 4, RC Binders, FN. 61 EC (BD) meeting, 25 June 1996, item 7, BD Binders, FN.

15. The Law Program 1 RC meeting, 16 February 1988, item 6.3, RC Binders, FN. 2 RC meeting, 17 June 1988, RC Binders, FN. 3 Meeting with Friedland in Toronto, 25 October 1988, Meeting Notes, FN. Many years later, Rod Macdonald reflected, ‘Nobody knew what the object of the exercise was. At least three different ideas were floating around. One was the idea that the programme should be about methodology – hence there were those who simply wanted to focus on empirical research of any type. Another was that the program should be interdisciplinary – hence there were those who simply wanted to focus on getting people from different disciplines – history, sociology, anthropology, economics, political theory – working together. Another was that the programme should be instrumental – get good intellectual framework, design studies, exploit data sets, produce policy recommendations ... Marty,’ Macdonald added, ‘had the totally unenviable task of trying to hold these three directions together.’ Macdonald to author, email message, 10 March 2005. 4 Meeting with Kathryn Hough, 10 January 1989, Meeting Notes, FN. 5 RC meeting, 23 January 1989, items 4.1–4.4, RC Binders, FN. When Macdonald was asked to become program director, he told Mustard that he had just accepted a commission from the government of Quebec to chair a task force on access to justice, beginning in June 1989, and that he was committed to spending January to June 1990 in Australia. ‘Fraser told me to do what I could and take the first year to scout out the terrain and explore the possibilities.’ Macdonald to author, email message, 10 March 2005. 6 EC (RC) meeting, 23 February 1989, item 4, RC Binders, FN. 7 RC meeting, 4 December 1989, item 7, RC Binders, FN. 8 Friedland to author, email message, 31 March 2005. 9 Rod Macdonald to author, email message, 10 March 2005. 10 Program meeting notes, 23 April 1990, Law and Society 1989–93 File, Box 5, CIAR.

326

Notes to pages 212–20

11 Meeting of Mustard, Dorothy McKinnon, and Rod Macdonald, 27 August 1990, Meeting Notes, FN; and BD meeting, 6 September 1990, item 3, BD Binders, FN. 12 ‘Notes for Report to the CIAR Research Committee,’ 14 October 1991, pp. 1–3, Law and Society 1989–93 File, Box 5, CIAR; and RC meeting, 15 October 1991, item 4.2, RC Binders, FN. 13 RC meeting, 19 September 1990, item 6, RC Binders, FN. 14 Notes of meeting, 27 February 1991, Meeting Notes, FN. 15 AC meeting, 14 February 1992, item 3, Law and Society 1989–93 File, Box 5, CIAR. 16 BD meeting, 7 July 1992, items 2 and 4, BD Binders, FN. 17 RC meeting, 10 February 1993, item 5, RC Binders, FN; and EC (BD) meeting, 19 July 1993, item 2, BD Binders, FN. 18 ‘Final Report of the Outgoing Director (1989–1994),’ January 1995, pp. 21 and 37, LSO Records, FN. 19 Ibid., p. 35. 20 Hough, Note to file, 1 June 1994, LSO Records, FN. 21 EC (RC) meeting, 14 July 1994, p. 13, RC Binders, FN. 22 RC meeting, 26 October 1994, item 7, p. 16, RC Binders, FN. 23 ‘Final Report of the Outgoing Director (1989–1994),’ January 1995, pp. 21–22, LSO Records, FN. 24 Ibid., p. 25. 25 Ibid., p. 26. 26 Ibid., p. 28. 27 Salter, Report to the Research Council, 1 February 1995, p. 1, LSO Records, FN. 28 Ibid., p. 1. 29 Ibid., p. 4. 30 Ibid., p. 5. 31 Ibid., p. 6. 32 EC (RC) meeting, 9–10 May 1995, item 7, p. 17, and RC meeting, 22 November 1995, RC Binders, FN. 33 EC (RC) meeting, 16–17 February 1995, item 3, pp. 1–3, RC Binders, FN. 34 RC meeting, 12–14 April 1996, LSO Program Report, app. B, RC Binders, FN. 35 Ibid., tables 5A and 5B and app. C. 36 RC meeting, 12–14 April 1996, LSO Program Report, p. 7, RC Binders, FN. 37 BD meeting, 15 April 1996, attachment 1, p. 4, BD Binders, FN. 38 RC meeting, 16 April 1996, item 6, RC Binders, FN. 39 Adams to Mustard, 18 April 1996, LSO Records, FN.

Notes to pages 220–7 327 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

Notes for meeting, 28–29 April 1996, Meeting Notes, LSO Records, FN. Notes of meeting, 25 May [1996], Hough Files, Law Records, CIAR. Ibid. Salter to Mustard, 2 June 1996, LSO Records, FN. Asch to Salter, 23 June 1996, LSO Records, FN. Mustard to Salter, 27 June 1996, LSO Records, FN. Salter to Dupré, 28 June 1996, LSO Records, FN.

16. New Leadership 1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9 10 11 12

13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Memorandum, Dupré to EC (BD), 10 July 1996, LSO Records, FN. Ibid. Adams to advisory committee, 10 July 1996, LSO Records, FN. Memorandum, Dupré to EC (BD), 10 July 1996, LSO Records, FN. Dupré to J.W. Mohr (a member of the program’s advisory cmmittee), 26 August 1996, LSO Records, FN. In mid-October Kathryn Hough told Dupré that the closing costs would be $170,000 in 1996–97 and $90,321 in 1997–98. Hough to Dupré, 16 October 1996, Hough files, Law Records, CIAR. RC meeting, 29 November 1996, item 1a, RC Binders, CIAR. Memorandum, Dupré to EC (BD), 10 July 1996, LSO Records, FN. Notes of conference call on the AIR program, 2 October 1996, Meeting Notes, FN. Mackworth interview, 14 September 2004. AIR program meeting, 4 November 1996, Meeting Notes, FN. BD meeting, 28 November 1996, item 5, p. 3, BD Binders, CIAR. RC meeting, 29 November 1996, item 4, p. 4, RC Binders, CIAR. See also an appendix to the meeting notes, ‘Science and Technology of Collaborative Systems: A Proposal for a New CIAR Program,’ by C.R. Perrault, P.E. Cairns, A.K. Mackworth, and R. Reiter. RC meeting, 29 November 1996, item 4, pp. 4–7, RC Binders, CIAR. Mackworth interview, 14 September 2004. Meeting of Dupré, Mustard, and Hough, 8 January 1997, Meeting Notes, FN. RC meeting, 4 April 1997, item 9, pp. 6–7, RC Binders, CIAR. Ibid. Meeting of Dupré, Mustard, and Hough, 8 January 1997, Meeting Notes, FN. BD meeting, 28 November 1996, item 5, p. 3, BD Binders, CIAR. BD meeting, 17 April 1997, items 2 and 7, BD Binders, CIAR. EC (BD) meeting, 4 September 1997, EC Binders, CIAR. BD meeting, 20 November 1997, item 4, pp. 2–3, BD Binders, CIAR. At the

328 Notes to pages 228–32

23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

board meeting in April 1998, the vice-president, finance, reported that the loans to all the universities except U of T and UBC had been paid, the accumulated deficit had been eliminated, and the institute had an accumulated surplus of $2.3 million at the end of the third quarter of the fiscal year. BD meeting, 16 April 1998, item 5, pp. 5–6, BD Binders, CIAR. Piper to Dupré, 19 November 1998, and Sedra to Dupré, 19 November 1998, Administration/Financial Files, University Drawer, CIAR. EC (BD) meeting, 9 June 1998, item 5, pp. 5–6, EC Binders, CIAR. BD meeting, 22 April 1999, item 5, p. 5, BD Binders, CIAR. Ibid., item 4, p. 4. Ibid. BD meeting, 18 November 1999, item 5, p. 4, BD Binders, CIAR. BD meeting, 28 November 1996, p. 1, BD Binders, CIAR. Ibid., item 3, p. 2. Nominating committee meeting, 10 November 1997, item 3, p. 2, BD Binders, CIAR. Ibid. Mandate Committee Report, n.d. [spring 1998], p. 2, BD Binders, CIAR. The committee also recommended that the nominating committee be replaced by a governance committee, chaired by a non-officer director, and with four to six other members. The chair of the board and the president might attend meetings from time to time but would not be ex officio members of the committee. It also recommended appointing an audit committee, chaired by a non-officer director and with three to five other members. EC meeting, 20 February 1998, item 3, p. 2, EC Binders, CIAR. Ibid. See lists of members attending and absent in the minutes of each of the spring and fall board meetings, 1995–2000. Mandate Committee Report, n.d. [spring 1998], p. 1, BD Binders, CIAR. BD meeting, 16 April 1998, item 4, p. 5, BD Binders, CIAR. EC meeting, 9 June 1998, item 3, p. 2, EC Binders, and Governance Committee Report, 20 May 1998, item VIII, p. 3, BD Binders, CIAR. BD annual meeting, 23 November 2000, item 1, pp. 1–2, BD Binders, CIAR. Chair’s message to board members, 11 August 1998, BD Binders, CIAR. BD meeting, 22 April 1999, item 3, p. 2, BD Binders, CIAR. EC (BD) meeting, 15 June 1999, item 1, EC Binders, CIAR. Press release, 9 September 1999, Press Release Binders, CIAR. RC meetings, 1996–99, RC Binders, CIAR. The 3 April 1998 minutes include a list of members with their dates of retirement. By the spring of 2002, the membership had been reduced from thirty to twenty, exclusive of ex officio members.

Notes to pages 233–40 329 45 RC meeting, 29 November 1996, item 5, pp. 7–9, RC Binders, CIAR. During the third term, Tremaine moved to Princeton University. He remained director of the program until the end of the term, after which Richard Bond of the University of Toronto was appointed as his successor. 46 Ibid. 47 Redfield interview, 16 September 2004. 48 RC meeting, 4 April 1997, RC Binders, CIAR. 49 RC meeting, 4 April 1997, item 6, pp. 2–4, RC Binders, CIAR. 50 RC meeting, 7 November 1997, items 2a–2e, pp. 2–5, RC Binders, CIAR. 51 Ibid., item 3, pp. 5–8. 52 Documents from Patricia Baird and Fraser Mustard on the membership and proceedings of the joint advisory committee, 1998–2002, are in the author’s files. 53 RC meeting, 24 May 1999, item 8b, p. 6, RC Binders, CIAR. Council gave quick approval. 54 RC meeting, 3 April 1998, item 4, pp. 2–4, RC Binders, CIAR. 55 Ibid. 56 RC meeting, 29 November 1998, item 4, pp. 6–8, RC Binders, CIAR. 57 RC meeting, 30 October 1999, item 5, p. 2, RC Binders, CIAR. When Council next met, there was no presentation or discussion of any new research opportunities; RC meeting, 29 February 2000, item 3, p. 1, RC Binders, CIAR. 58 See RC meeting, 29 November 1996, items 2 and 3, p. 3, RC Binders, CIAR. 59 RC meeting, 7 November 1997, item 3e, pp. 4–5, RC Binders, CIAR. 60 RC meeting, 3 April 1998, item 5, pp. 5–8, RC Binders, CIAR. The other members of the committee, appointed after the meeting, were Arnold Naimark and Arthur McDonald. 61 RC meeting, 29 October 1998, item 6, pp. 9–11, and Report of the Committee on Program Longevity, fall 1998, RC Binders, CIAR. 62 BD meeting, 19 November 1998, item 4, pp. 3–5, BD Binders, CIAR. 63 Doolittle, ‘Comments on Report of the Committee on Program Longevity,’ n.d. [spring 1999], submitted to RC meeting, 24 May 1999, RC Binders, CIAR. 64 Tremaine, ‘Memorandum on Program Longevity Report,’ 18 February 1999, submitted to RC meeting, 24 May 1999, RC Binders, CIAR. 65 EC (BD) meeting, 6 June 1999, item 4, p. 3, EC Binders, CIAR. 66. RC meeting, 24 May 1999, item 5, p. 4, RC Binders, CIAR. 67 RC meeting, 30 October 1999, item 4, pp. 1–2, RC Binders, CIAR. 68 BD meeting, 18 November 1999, item 5, p. 5, BD Binders, CIAR. 69 RC meeting, 29 February 2000, item 7, pp. 9–11, RC Binders, CIAR. The remaining members of the strategic review committee were Michael A.H.

330 Notes to pages 240–3

70

71 72

73 74

75 76 77 78

79 80 81 82 83 84

Dempster, a council member who was director of research at the Judge Institute of Management at Cambridge University, Suzanne Fortier, a chemist and vice-principal at Queen’s University, Janet Rossant of the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, and Indira Samarasekera, vice-president, research, at the University of British Columbia. Strategic Review Committee Report, 9 September 2001, presented to RC meeting, 24 October 2001, item 5, CIAR. The institute found that the strategic review committee’s mandate blurred two well-established and separate responsibilities: that of the research council, to maintain the intellectual quality of institute programs, and that of the board of directors, which is responsible for allocating the institute’s financial resources; Paula Driedger to the author, email message, 19 November 2004. EC (BD) meeting, 9 June 1998, item 7, p. 8, EC Binders, CIAR. Meeting with Jules Carbotte, 14 August 1998, Banff Prep 1 Folder, Banff Congress CD, CIAR. See also ‘Objectives of the CIAR All-Program Congress,’ Banff Prep 2 Folder, Banff Congress CD, CIAR. Banff Prep 3 Folder, Banff Congress CD, CIAR. See Banff Prep 1 Folder (invitation to donors) and Banff Prep 4 Folder (invitation to media), Banff Congress CD, CIAR. The invitation to the media bore the heading ‘Knowledge Frontiers at the Edge of the Millennium.’ ‘Knowledge Frontiers at the Edge of the Millennium,’ official congress program, pp. 1–20, Banff Congress Records, CIAR. Banff 8 Folder (a detailed list of all attendees and their affiliations), Banff Congress CD, CIAR. Media Relations Report to the Executive Committee, [n.d.], Banff Congress Records, CIAR. Ibid. For dining arrangements, see Banff 9 Folder and Banff 10 Folder, Banff Congress CD, CIAR. For example, the members of the research council were assigned to nineteen tables, the board of directors to eleven tables, staff to sixteen tables, and the Evolutionary Biology Program members to twentyone tables. RC meeting, 24 May 1999, item 3, p. 2, RC Binders, CIAR. EC (BD) meeting, 15 June 1999, item 6, p. 7, EC Binders, CIAR. BD meeting, 17 April 1997, item 7, p. 8, BD Binders, and RC meeting, 4 April 1997, item 2, p. 1, RC Binders, CIAR. EC (BD) meeting, 4 September 1997, EC Binders, and Meeting of Dupré and Hough, 31 October 1997, Meeting Notes, CIAR. Johnston to board members, 11 August 1998, BD Binders, CIAR. BD meetings, 19 November 1999, item 3, p. 3, and 22 April 1999, item 4, p. 2, BD Binders, CIAR.

Notes to pages 243–8 331 85 BD meeting, 19 November 1998, item 2, p. 3, BD Binders, CIAR. 86. EC (BD) meeting, 15 June 1999, item 4, p. 3, EC Binders, CIAR. Kierans announced in November that Todgham had agreed to stay on until his replacement was appointed in the spring. 87 EC (BD) meeting, 18 November 1999, item 11, p. 12, EC Binders, CIAR. 88 EC (BD) meeting, 21 February 2000, p. 1, EC Binders, and BD meeting, 12 April 2000, item 8, p. 9, BD Binders, CIAR. The executive committee and the research council learned of Spence’s appointment in February, but the public announcement was delayed until formal appointment by the board in April. 89 BD meeting, 18 November 1999, item 4, p. 2, BD Binders, CIAR. 90 EC (BD) meeting, 11 January 2000, EC Binders, CIAR. 91 The search committee members were Kierans, Patricia Baird, Gerald Hatch, and Bruce Mitchell from the board of directors, Matt Spence from the research council, Alvin Tarlov from the joint advisory committee for Population Health and Human Development, Ford Doolittle, director of the Evolutionary Biology Program, and Rob Prichard, president of the University of Toronto. 92 EC (BD) meeting, 21 February 2000, item 4, pp. 2–3, EC Binders, CIAR. 93 RC meeting, 29 February 2000, item 5, pp. 2–4, RC Binders, CIAR. 94 BD meeting, 12 April 2000, item 3, pp. 2–5, BD Binders, CIAR. 95 ‘The Canadian Institute for Advanced Research is seeking a President,’ n.d., Paula Driedger to author, 14 January 2005. 96 RC meeting, 20 October 2000, item 2, p. 1, RC Binders, CIAR. 97 Ibid. See also ‘Chaviva Hošek named President and CEO of the Canadian Institute of Advanced Research (CIAR),’ press release, 20 November 2000, Press Release Binders, CIAR. 17. Nanoelectronics 1 RC meeting, 4 April 1997, item 9, p. 6, RC Binders, CIAR. 2 ‘Teleconference meeting 1,’ 1 May 1997, NE Records, CIAR. 3 ‘Teleconference meeting 2,’ 16 May 1997, NE Records, CIAR. Salama was also the founder of Canadian Microelectronics Corporation and of Micronet, a National Centres for Excellence network focusing on university-industry cooperative research. 4 ‘Meeting 6,’ 21 September 1997, NE Records, CIAR. 5 RC meeting, 7 November 1997, item 6, pp. 8–11, RC Binders, CIAR. 6 ‘Meeting 6,’ 21 September 1997, NE Records, CIAR. 7 Salama to Dupré, 30 September 1997, NE Records, CIAR.

332

Notes to pages 248–52

8 RC meeting, 7 November 1997, item 6, p. 1, RC Binders, CIAR. 9 RC meeting, 3 April 1998, item 8, p. 10, RC Binders, and Salama, ‘CIAR Nanoelectronics Initiative Feasibility,’ March 1998, BD Binders, CIAR. 10 RC meeting, 3 April 1998, pp. 10–13, RC Binders, CIAR. 11 Ibid., pp. 13–14. 12 Notes from discussion with Jules Carbotte, Nanoelectronics Workshop 2, 17 September 1998, Program Files, NE Records, CIAR. 13 RC meeting, 29 October 1998, item 3, pp. 1–6, RC Binders, CIAR. 14 Ibid. The board of directors gave its approval to the program and its leadership in November 1998; BD meeting, 19 November 1998, item 8, pp. 9–10, BD Binders, CIAR. 15 Memorandum, Salama to Dupré, 11 January 1999, AC Files, NE Records, CIAR. 16 ‘Advisory Committee Members,’ AC Files, NE Records, CIAR. 17 Notes of meeting, 3 June 1999, Program Files, NE Records, CIAR. 18 Dupré to Ahmed, 11 June 1999, and Dupré to Moskovits, 11 June 1999, AC Files, NE Records, CIAR. The nine members were Mark Freeman, Physics, University of Alberta; Peter Grütter, Physics, McGill; Sajeev John, Physics, University of Toronto, George Kirczenow, Physics, Simon Fraser; Martin Moskovits, Chemistry, University of Toronto; Geoffrey Ozin, Chemistry, University of Toronto; Douglas Thomson, Electrical Engineering, University of Manitoba; J.M. (Jimmy) Xu, Electrical Engineering, University of Toronto; and Jeff Young, Physics, University of British Columbia. During the summer, Xu moved from Toronto to Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. 19 Notes of meeting, 3 June 1999, Salama to Dupré, 4 June 1999, and Dupré to Salama, 7 June 1999, Program Files, NE Records, CIAR. 20 Memorandum to program members, n.d. [June 1999], Program Files, NE Records, CIAR. 21 Margaret Gorham to program members and advisory committee, 17 June 1999, Program Files, NE Records, CIAR. 22 Program meeting agenda, 20–21 August 1999, Program Files, NE Records, CIAR. 23 Litster to advisory committee, Carbotte, Hough, and Moskovits, 7 December 1999, AC Files, NE Records, CIAR. 24 EC (BD) meeting, 14 September 1999, President’s Report, EC Binders, CIAR. The appointments were approved by the research council on 30 October and by the board of directors on 19 November 1999. 25 RC meeting, 30 October 1999, item 6, pp. 2–3, RC Binders, CIAR. A program on quantum information processing was approved by the research council in October 2001.

Notes to pages 252–9 333 26 Moskovits and Young were appointed fellows. The remaining program members were associates and scholars. 27 Litster to advisory committee, Carbotte, Hough, and Moskovits, 7 December 1999, AC Files, NE Records, CIAR. 28 ‘New Program in Nanoelectronics,’ 20 January 2000, NE Records, CIAR. 29 Ibid., ‘Nanoelectronics Program Meeting, Attendee List.’ 30 ‘Harnessing the Speed of Light,’ Maclean’s, 21 August 2000, www.macleans.ca/topstories. 31 Memorandum, Hough to advisory committee and program members, 7 June 2000, Program Files, NE Records, CIAR. 32 Director’s Report, 1999–2000, Program Files, NE Records, CIAR. 33 Director’s Report, May 2003, ‘The Past, Present and Future of the Program,’ pp. 1–4, Program Files, NE Records, CIAR. 34 Ibid., pp. 1 and 20. 35 Ibid., p. 20. 36 Ibid., p. 21. 37 Ibid. Moskovits continued as an active, productive member of the program. Also see Director’s Report, May 2003, ‘Supplement: The Next Five Years of the CIAR Nanoelectronics Program,’ Program Files, NE Records, CIAR. 38 NE Review, July 2003, p. 4, NE Reviews, CIAR. 39 Ibid., pp. 6–7. 40 Ibid., pp. 7–8. 41 Ibid., p. 7. 42 Ibid., pp. 8–9. 43 RC meeting, 23 September 2003, item 2, pp. 1–3, RC Binders, CIAR.

18. Renewal 1 RC meeting, 3–4 April 2001, item 2 (pp. 1–5), item 4 (pp. 5–8), item 5 (pp. 8–9), item 6 (p. 11), and item 8 (pp. 12–15), RC Binders, CIAR. 2 RC meeting, 23–24 October 2001, items 3a–3f and 5d, pp. 3–6 and 13–14, RC Binders, CIAR. 3 Ibid., items 5a, pp. 7–9 (Cosmology and Gravity), and 5b, pp. 9–10 (Evolutionary Biology). The Evolutionary Biology Program’s renewal was for a final five-year term. 4 Ibid., item 5c, pp. 10–13. 5 RC meeting, 5 April 2002, item 3, p. 6, RC Binders, CIAR. 6 Ibid., item 2, pp. 1–5. The review, the program’s third, took place in May 2002, and Council recommended a fourth cycle for Superconductivity at

334 Notes to pages 260–3

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

27 28

its June meeting; RC meeting, 18 June 2002, item 4, pp. 3–6, RC Binders, CIAR. EC (BD) meeting, 24 September 2001, item 2, p. 3, EC Binders, CIAR. Ibid., pp. 2–4. EC (BD) meeting, 22 November 2001, items 3–4, pp. 2–4, EC Binders, CIAR. EC (BD) meetings, 12 February and 9 April 2002, EC Binders, CIAR. EC (BD) meeting, 13 February 2001, item 5, p. 6, EC Binders, CIAR. Ibid., items 2 (pp. 1–2) and 4 (p. 5). BD meeting, 19 April 2001, item 5, p. 5, BD Binders, and EC (BD) meeting, 12 June 2001, item 3, p. 2, EC Binders, CIAR. EC (BD) meeting, 24 September 2001, item 2, p. 2, EC Binders, CIAR. Hošek interview, 1 April 2005. BD meeting, 12 February 2002, item 3, p. 2, BD Binders, CIAR. BD meeting, 19 April 2001, item 3, p. 4, BD Binders, CIAR. EC (BD) meeting, 13 February 2001, item 3, p. 3, EC Binders, CIAR. BD meeting, 19 April 2001, item 3, p. 4, EC Binders, CIAR. RC meeting, 23–24 October 2001, item 1, p. 1, RC Binders, CIAR. BD meeting, 12 February 2002, item 3, p. 2, BD Binders, CIAR. BD meeting, 19 April 2001, BD Binders, CIAR. Ibid. and Hošek interview, 1 April 2005. Hošek interview, 1 April 2005, and RC meeting, 23–24 October 2001, item 4, p. 6, RC Binders, CIAR. ‘FYI Award Amounts,’ n.d., Victoria Congress Disk 2, CIAR. See also ‘Planning for 2002,’ n.d., Victoria Congress Disk 3, CIAR. ‘Judges Letter,’ 18 August [2001], Victoria Congress Disk 2, CIAR. Among the criteria were a) research excellence, b) awards won, c) keynote and plenary lectures at international conferences, d) working at a Canadian university, hospital, or research institute, e) shows future promise, f) has more than one area of real strength, and g) ability to communicate complex ideas to a general audience. RC meeting, 23–24 October 2001, item 4, pp. 6–7, RC Binders, CIAR. ‘Judges Bios,’ Victoria Congress Disk 2, CIAR. The judges were Philip Ball, a science writer and consultant editor for Nature; Floyd Bloom, chair of the Neuropharmacology Department at Scripps Research Institute; Marye Anne Fox, chancellor of North Carolina State University and a researcher in physical organic chemistry; Sir Brian Heap, an endocrine physiologist who was master of St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge; Sir David Smith, a chemist and CEO of the British biotech company Whatman; and Ian Hunter of the Department of Mechanical Engineering at MIT, and a member of the Institute’s Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Program.

Notes to pages 263–70 335 29 ‘Congrats letter from CH,’ 30 January 2002, Victoria Congress Disk 1, CIAR. 30 ‘Planning for 2002: Things to Consider,’ n.d., Victoria Congress Disk 3, and EC (BD) meeting, 24 September 2001, item 3, p. 8, EC Binders, CIAR. 31 ’20th Anniversary Event, Notes of discussions with Program Directors,’ n.d., Victoria Congress Disk 2, CIAR. 32 ‘20*20 Vision, Victoria B.C., June 14–17, 2002,’ conference program, pp. 11–69, CIAR. 33 RC meeting, 5 April 2002, item 3, p. 9, RC Binders, CIAR. 34 See ‘A Selection of Press Coverage of CIAR’s 20th Anniversary Event,’ and other press clippings, at CIAR. 35 RC meeting, 18 June 2002, item 2, p. 1, RC Binders, CIAR. 36 BD meeting, 25 June 2002, item 3, pp. 6–7, BD Binders, CIAR. ‘Everyone who came was blown away,’ Hošek recalled. She knew how carefully the conference had been organized and what was going to happen but, she added, ‘I was blown away. It was so exciting!’ Hošek interview, 1 April 2005. 37 Armstrong interview, 31 January 2002. 38 Munsche interview, 19 February 2002. 39 Baird interview, 16 September 2004. 40 Evans interview, 8 April 2003. 41 Suomi interview, 24 February 2005. 42 Mustard interview, 21 February 2003. 43 Strangway interview, 15 June 2002. 44 Dupré interview, 10 February 2005. 45 Mustard interview, 21 February 2003. 46 Mustard interview, 12 January 2004. 47 Mackworth interview, 14 September 2004. 48 Redfield interview, 16 September 2004. 49 Suomi interview, 24 February 2005. 50 EC (BD) meeting, 24 September 2001, item 7, EC Binders, CIAR. 51 McCain and Mustard, Early Years Study. 52 Kaufman, Soros, pp. 259–63. 53 Telephone conversation with Dupré, 11 February 2005. 54 Dupré interview, 10 February 2005.

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Selected Bibliography

The records of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research are stored at two locations, the institute’s head office in Toronto and the office of the Founders’ Network, also in Toronto. Some records for the early years of CIAR may be found in ‘Boxes 1–10’ at CIAR, but the main collection of material from 1980 to 1996 is at the Founders’ Network. The material for the years 1996 to 2002 is at CIAR. There is some material on the origins of the institute at the University of Toronto Archives in the papers of the Office of the President, the Governing Council, and the School of Graduate Studies, and in my papers. By agreement with the institute, all of the documents and taped interviews I have collected in the preparation of this book will be deposited in my papers at the University of Toronto Archives when the book is published.

BOOKS Belley, Jean-Guy. Le droit soluble : contributions québécoises a l’étude de l’internormativité. Paris: L.G.D.J., 1996. Canadian Institute for Advanced Research. Modern Perspectives on Economic Growth. CIAR Publication no. 16. Toronto: CIAR, 1995. – Prosperity, Health and Well-Being: The Eleventh Honda Foundation Discoveries Symposium. Toronto: CIAR, 1993. Evans, Robert. Interpreting and Addressing Inequalities in Health: From Black to Acheson to Blair to ...? 7th Annual Lecture, Office of Health Economics. London, Eng.: the Office, 2002. Evans, Robert G., Morris L. Barer, and Theodore R. Marmor, eds. Why Are Some People Healthy and Others Not? The Determinants of Health of Populations. New York: A. de Gruyter, 1994.

338

A Generation of Excellence

Friedland, Martin, ed. Sanctions and Rewards in the Legal System: A Multidisciplinary Approach. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1989. – ed. Securing Compliance: Seven Case Studies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990. – The University of Toronto: A History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002. Friedland, Martin, Kent Roach, and Michael Trebilcock. Regulating Traffic Safety. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1990. Helpman, Elhanan. General Purpose Technologies and Economic Growth. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1998. Kaufman, Michael T. Soros: The Life and Times of a Messianic Billionaire. New York: Knopf, 2002. Keating, Daniel, and Clyde Hertzman, eds. Developmental Health and the Wealth of Nations: Social, Biological and Educational Dynamics. New York: Guilford, 1999. Keating, Daniel, and Fraser Mustard. ‘Social Economic Factors and Human Development.’ In National Forum on Family Security, Family Security in Insecure Times, vol. 1. Ottawa: Canadian Council on Social Development, 1993. Lipsey, Richard G. ‘An Intellectual Autobiography.’ In Macroeconomic Theory and Policy: The Selected Essays of Richard G. Lipsey, vol. 2. Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1997. – Economic Growth and Policy: Science and Technology and Institutional Change in a Global Economy. CIAR Publication no. 4. Toronto: CIAR, 1991. McCain, Margaret Norrie, and J. Fraser Mustard. The Early Years Study, Final Report: Reversing the Real Brain Drain. Toronto: the Study, 1999. Young, Mary Eming, ed., From Early Child Development to Human Development: Investing in Our Children’s Future. Washington: World Bank, 2002.

INTERVIEWS Armstrong, Robin Baird, Patricia Bourns, Arthur Crawford, Allan Dupré, Stefan Evans, Robert Hatch, Gerald Hertzman, Clyde Hošek, Chaviva Hough, Kathryn

Leyerle, John Lipsey, Richard Mackworth, Alan Munsche, Peter Mustard, J. Fraser Redfield, Rosemary Strangway, David Suomi, Stephen Unruh, William Veizer, Jan

Index

Adams, George, 218, 220–1, 223 Adams, Mark, 75 Affleck, Ian, 74, 94, 95, 98, 99, 125 Ahmen, Haroon, 250 AIR. See Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Aird, John, 89, 133–4, 136, 306n84 AIRS. See Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Society Akerlof, George, 146, 169, 170, 259, 263 Alberta, government of, 100, 135, 138, 227 Albeverio, Sergio, 149 Alcan, 146, 312n9 Allen, Peter, 89, 91, 94, 133, 134, 136 Alper, Howard, 249, 255 Anatek Electronics, 19 Anderson, Norman, 24 Arbib, Michael, 64 Armstrong, Robin: and AIR, 299n39; and Cosmology, 95, 98–9, 155; and materials science programs, 88, 122, 125, 129, 188; and origins of CIAR, 7, 8, 11, 13–14, 15, 17, 18, 265, 293n62, 293n64; on research council, 38, 183, 194, 226, 246, 247,

248; and SSSI, 321n1; at University of New Brunswick, 179 Arrow, Kenneth, 162 Arthur, Brian, 146, 162 Arthurs, Harry, 211–12, 215, 217, 218, 221, 224 Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (AIR), 268; collaborative systems proposal, 225; first cycle, xii, 44–67, 93, 131, 132, 138; second cycle, 135, 138–40, 192, 204; successors to, 224–6; terminated, 205, 206, 224. See also Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Society Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Society (AIRS): becomes Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (AIR), 51, 267; development stages (‘man and machines’), 27, 28, 31, 35, 36, 38–41, 107, 267, 298n23; first cycle, xii, 42, 44–67, 299n39 Asch, Michael, 214, 221 Baird, Patricia, 91, 258, 331n91; and CIAR fundraising, 134; and Population Health, 109, 115, 132, 183, 235 Baldwin, John, 162, 164, 165, 168

340

Index

Balfour, St. Clair, 11, 13–14, 16, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 55, 134, 293n62, 293n64 Ball, Philip, 334n28 Banff Centre, 87 Banfield, Jane, 35 Barber, Clarence, 35, 42, 295n6, 296n9 Barer, Morris, 109, 115, 117, 118 Barford, Ralph M., 89, 134 Barnes, Christopher, 149 Beatty, Perrin, 114 Beaudry, Paul, 169 Beaumont, Christopher, 149, 236, 315n3 Beck, Brenda, 86 Belanger, Pierre, 62, 298n23 Belfort, Marlene, 160 Bell Canada, 208 Bell, Daniel, 86 Bell, Robert (Bob), 36, 40–1, 78, 90, 295n6 Belley, Jean-Guy, 209, 211, 213, 214, 219 Bereiter, Carl, 178 Berg, Howard, 188 Berlinsky, John, 88, 122, 188, 311n7, 321n1 Beveridge, Terrance, 187 Bibel, Wolfgang, 64–5 Birch, Stephen, 115 Blaise, Kent, 188 Blake, Ian, 296n10 Bledsoe, Woody, 64 Bloom, Floyd, 334n28 Bloom, Myer, 143–4, 185–9, 321n1 Blundell, William, 134, 194, 229, 231 Boal, David, 187 Bolger, Leonard (Len), 134, 195, 206–7, 208, 220, 226, 323n33

Bond, Richard, 74, 94, 95, 97, 153, 154, 155, 329n45 Bonen, Linda, 308n38 Bonn, Douglas, 130 Bouchard, Benoît, 114 Bouissac, Paul, 77, 84–5 Bourbonnais, Claude, 130 Bourns, Arthur: on ad hoc advisory committee and research council, 27, 31, 35; and AIRS/AIR, 51, 52, 54, 56, 58, 59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 89, 299n39, 301n72, 313n24; on CIAR staff, 89; and Cosmology, 72, 74; and Law and Society, 84; and materials science programs, 87, 122 Bowrings, 228 Boyle, Willard, 87, 121 Brady, Michael, 64 Braun, Jean L.M.F., 315n4 Brazeau, Jacques, 297n9 Breton, Ray, 211 Brewer, Jess, 122 Briggs, Jean, 90, 295n6, 296n9 British Columbia, government of, 115, 117, 135, 138 Bronfman, Charles, 55 Brook, Adrian, 7, 260n4 Brooks-Gunn, Jeanne, 176, 177, 178, 180 Brown, Greg, 308n38 Brown, R. Craig, 11, 35, 36, 42, 81, 90, 134, 265, 293n64, 295n6 Bruneau, Angus, 34, 35, 38–9, 295n6, 299n39 Bruno, Michael, 170 Buyers, William, 127 CAE, 135 Caille, Alain, 129 Caines, Peter, 48, 224

Index Cairns, John, 70 Caldwall, Glen, 151, 236 Calvert, Stephen, 151 Cameron, Angus, 4, 5, 7, 8, 11 Campbell, Kim, 197 Canada, government of, 22–3, 60, 91– 2, 114–15, 135, 136, 137–8, 174, 192, 196–8, 199, 200–1, 202, 227, 228–9, 266, 270 Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIAR), ix–xii; all-programs meetings, xii, 240–2, 262–4, 268, 269, 270; anonymous foundation’s support of, 207, 208, 226, 228, 266, 270; applied mathematics proposal, 143; appointment categories and criteria, 16–17, 28, 34, 36, 37, 40, 45, 48–9, 64, 66, 94, 131–2, 139, 140–2, 203–4, 267; biosphere systems proposal, 143; board inaugurated, 16, 17; board reorganizations, 133–4, 229–31, 259–60; charitable status, 14, 18, 22–3; charter secured, 14, 16, 17; conferences and symposiums sponsored by, 58, 104, 150, 167–8, 202–3; council of advisors created, 260; ethics and research proposal, 143; financial crises, xii, 55–7, 132–3, 136–7, 193– 202, 218; funding from corporations, 23, 45–6, 56, 57, 60, 69, 71, 74, 87, 94, 118, 135–6, 138, 140, 145, 192, 193, 228, 260; funding from federal government, 91–2, 135, 137, 138, 193, 197–8, 199–202, 206, 227, 228, 229, 261; funding from foundations, 21–2, 23, 55, 56, 64, 69, 87, 135, 138, 192, 193, 226, 228–9, 260; funding from individuals, 23, 137, 138, 199; funding from Ontario

341

government, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 29, 37, 56, 135, 137, 138, 193, 260; funding from other provincial governments, 100, 138, 179, 227; fundraising efforts, xii, 21–4, 40, 55–6, 57, 69, 89, 91–2, 133, 134–8, 193–4, 196–202, 206–7, 226–9, 260–1, 265– 6; information, signs and meaning (semiotics) proposal, 77, 84–6, 142, 305n45, 306n70; intelligent technologies and society proposal, 51, 86–7; large data sets proposal, 259; materials science proposals, 87–8, 143–4; offices, xi, 16, 22, 29, 194; origins, x–xii, 3–17, 264–5; physics in biology proposal, 259; presidents appointed, 17, 29, 133, 207–8, 243– 5; program longevity issues, 204–5, 236–40; quark structure proposal, 143; relations with industry, 45–6, 59–60, 61–3, 64, 66, 267; relations with universities, 19, 24–5, 27, 32–3, 56–7, 96–7, 98, 99, 100, 104–6, 154– 5, 195–6, 227–8, 261–2, 266–7; research council created, 25–7, 28, 29, 33–4; research council rotations, 90–1, 232, 269; soft-surface science for life sciences proposal, 236; staff, ix–x, 24–5, 56, 88–9, 92, 133, 134, 146, 200, 208, 242–3, 262, 270; technology, change and society seminars, 87, 142, 306n77 (see also Economic Growth and Policy); understanding and values proposal, 39, 41–2, 76–81, 305n45. See also individual programs: Artificial Intelligence and Robotics; Artificial Intelligence, Robotics and Society; Cosmology; Cosmology and Gravity; Earth System Evolution; Eco-

342

Index

nomic Growth and Policy; Evolutionary Biology; Experiencebased Brain and Biological Development; Human Development; Law and Society; Law and the Determinants of Social Order; Law in Society; Nanoelectronics; Population Health; Quantum Information Processing; Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces; Successful Societies; Superconductivity Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics (CITA), 27, 32–3, 95, 96–7, 98, 99, 154, 195, 233, 268 Canadian Pacific, 312n9, 318n31 Canadian Society for Computational Studies of Intelligence, 53 Carbotte, Jules: on CIAR staff, 242–3, 244, 258–9, 270; and Nanoelectronics, 249, 250, 251, 253; and Superconductivity, 88, 122–7, 129, 132, 140, 235, 236, 311n7 Case, Robbie, 145, 173, 175, 176, 180 Casgrain, Philippe, 134 Cavalier-Smith, Thomas, 102, 104 Cave, Julian, 129 Cavender, James, 308n38 Ceci, Stephen, 235 Cedergren, Robert (Bob), 101, 103, 104, 158 Cercone, Nick, 53 Chant, Donald, 4, 7, 10, 11 Chrétien, Jean, 197 Church, Robert, 37 Churchland, Patricia, 296n10 CIAR. See Canadian Institute for Advanced Research CIBC, 135, 260 CITA. See Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics

Clarke, Larry, 19, 20, 23, 27, 57, 91, 134, 267 Clarkson, Max, 6 Cline, Jack, 24 Cloutier, Gilles, 34, 295n6, 296n9 Clowes, Ron, 315n4 Coe, Christopher, 153, 321n27 Cohen, Robert, 242 Collins, Richard (Rick), 104, 158, 159 Connell, George, 56, 57, 97, 207 Contandriopoulos, André-Pierre, 109, 116, 119 Coombs, John, 118 Cooper, Allan, 315n4 Corin, Ellen, 116, 309n6 Cornell, Pamela, 56 Cosmology, 268; becomes Cosmology and Gravity, 155, 233; development stages (‘astrophysics,’ ‘space science’), 27, 32–3, 35, 39, 41, 42, 71– 4, 107; first cycle, xii, 93–100, 131, 132; second cycle, 152–5, 192, 232– 3, 312n8, 315n17; summer schools, 74, 94, 155 Cosmology and Gravity, third cycle, 238–9, 241, 258, 259, 261. See also Cosmology Coward, Harold, 79, 80 Craik, Fergus, 145 Crane, David, 136 Crawford, Allan, 18–20, 23, 27, 62, 63, 72, 89, 91, 134, 137, 293n4 CRB Foundation, 55, 64, 87, 135 Crelinsten, Jeffrey, 241, 243 Crosbie, Diana, 243 Cullis, Pieter, 187 Culyer, Anthony, 310n39 Cynader, Max, 58, 145, 173, 175, 180, 263, 298n23, 301n69

Index Dahlberg, Albert, 105, 160 Dahn, Jeff, 251, 252 Dalhousie University, 104 Daniels, Charles, 308n38 Davenport, Paul, 317n3 Davies, Robertson, 9, 290n4 Davis, Marc, 155 Davis, William, 16, 18, 21 Day, William, 103, 308n38 de Sousa Santos, Boaventura, 217, 218 Dempster, Michael A.H., 90, 183, 329–30n69 Dennis, Patrick, 76, 101, 103, 104 DiSalvo, Francis J., 250 Dodge, David, 170 Dofasco, 56, 57 Donner Canadian Foundation, 81, 82 Doolittle, Ford, 74, 75–6, 93, 100–5, 132, 140, 156–61, 233, 238, 259, 263, 316n31, 323n33, 331n91 Doolittle, Russell, 160 Dray, William, 296n9, 297n9 Driedger, Paula, 242 Duncan and Walter Gordon Foundation, 19, 23, 265 Dupré, Stefan: and AIR, 224–6, 246; and all-programs meetings, 240, 241, 269; appointed CIAR president, xii, 207–8, 219, 221, 222; and board chairs, 231; and CIAR funding, xii, 226–9, 243, 260, 266–7, 270; and Human Development/ Population Health, 183, 235; and Law programs, 222, 223–4; and Nanoelectronics, 247, 248, 249, 250–1; and origins of CIAR, 11, 14, 265, 293n64; and research council, 232, 237, 238, 239, 269; retires as president, 243; and SSSI, 191

343

Dynes, Robert, 122 Earth System Evolution: development stages, 144, 148, 192; first cycle, 149–52, 236, 241, 315n4 Eastman, Harry, 4, 7, 8, 10 Eaton, Curtis, 146 Eccles, Jacquelynne, 181 Economic Growth and Policy, 241, 267, 268; development stages, 135, 142–3, 145–6, 312n8; first cycle, 162–72, 192, 194, 207, 233–4, 317n3, 318n21, 319n41; interaction with other programs, 171, 172, 174, 179, 182; second cycle, 258; terminated, 259 Efstathiou, George, 95, 152 Elgie, Robert, 310n39 Ellis, Richard, 152 Emery, Victor, 127, 129 Entwisle, Doris, 319n3 Evans, Evan, 143–4, 185–8, 189, 247 Evans, John B., 160 Evans, John R., 8, 75, 81, 206, 207, 229 Evans, Robert (Bob), 71, 108–20, 131, 132, 183, 234, 265 Evolutionary Biology, 268; development stages, 41, 42, 74–6, 107, 304n37; first cycle, xii, 100–6, 131, 132, 135, 308n38; second cycle, 156–61, 192, 233; third cycle, 238, 241, 259, 333n3 Experience-based Brain and Biological Development, 269 Eyton, Trevor, 197 Fairbank, William, 72 Fang Li Zhi, 97 Farwell, Peter, 134

344

Index

Feldman, Marcus, 160 Fell, Fraser, 52, 134 Fernie, Donald, 6 Ferry, David, 250 Fitzpatrick, Peter, 219 Flemming, Brian, 89, 134 Forgacs, Otto, 119 Forget, Claude, 119, 134 Fortier, Suzanne, 330n69 Fortin, Pierre, 163, 167, 168, 169, 170, 242, 323n33 Founders’ Network, xii, 208, 224, 226, 235, 269, 325n59 Fournier, Robert, 160 Fowler, Robin, 243 Fox, Marye Anne, 334n28 Frank, John, 109, 111, 116, 118, 144, 309n6 Fraser, Rod, 32, 33, 35 Freeman, David, 24 Freeman, Mark, 332n18 French, Goldwin, 6, 7 French, J. Barry, 11, 293n62, 293n64 Friedland, Martin, 82–4, 209–11, 213, 214 Friesen, James (Jim), 160, 259 Frost, Barrie, 64, 90, 139, 177, 180, 183, 313n24 Fukugita, Masataka, 152 Fyfe, William, 149, 315n4 Gardener, Howard, 177 Garigue, Philippe, 19 Gast, Alice, 187, 190 Gauvin, William, 42 General Motors of Canada, 140, 312n9 Gerstein, Reva, 114, 115, 134, 136, 195, 200, 202, 206, 207, 229, 230, 231

Gilbert, Walter, 160 Gillham, Nicholas, 105, 160 Glickman, Barry, 101, 103 Godfrey, John, 134, 197–8, 319n3 Goldin, Claudia, 170 Golding, Brian, 101, 103 Gordon Foundation. See Duncan and Walter Gordon Foundation Gorham, Margaret, 242 Gotlieb, Kelly, 31, 35, 36, 295n1, 296n10 Gouin-Decarie, Thérèse, 295n6 Gray, Michael, 76, 101, 103 Greedan, John, 122 Green, Elizabeth, 25 Grier, David, 179, 206, 319n3 Grimson, Eric, 47, 48, 49, 55 Grütter, Peter, 251, 254, 257, 332n18 Gurnis, Michael, 151 Guthrie, Donald, 14, 16 Hacking, Ian, 31 Hagan, John, 81–2, 84, 209 Hall, Benjamin, 105, 160 Hallward, Hugh, 134 Halpenny, Francess, 290n4 Ham, James, 25, 60–2, 89, 133, 139, 140–2, 196, 211; and origins of CIAR, xi, 3–5, 9, 10–11, 13–16, 264, 290n4 Hardy, Walter, 122, 126, 127, 128, 129, 130 Hare, Kenneth, 6, 127 Harris, Richard, 163, 168, 170, 318n31 Hartle, James, 98 Hartwick, David, 95 Hatch, Gerald, 195, 199, 206, 229, 315n4, 323n33, 324n51, 331n91 Hawking, Stephen, 154

Index Hawrylak, Pawel, 252 Hayes, John, 149 Haynes, Bob, 35, 41, 47, 74–5, 101, 103 Heap, Sir Brian, 334n28 Heffernan, Gerald, 89, 134, 137, 195, 199, 229, 230, 247, 248, 324n51 Helpman, Elhanan, 146, 166, 168–72, 234, 258, 259, 263, 318n20 Henriksen, Richard, 32, 33, 35, 72 Henripin, Jacques, 295n6, 296n9 Henry Kinnear Foundation, 315n3 Hertzman, Clyde: and Human Development, 145, 173, 174, 175, 177, 178, 180, 183, 321n26; and Population Health, 109, 110, 115, 116, 117, 118, 144, 145, 183, 234, 309n6, 309n15 Hickey, Donal, 103, 104, 158, 159 Hicks, Peter, 177 Hildreth, Ellen, 47, 48, 49, 55 Hinde, Robert, 181 Hinton, Geoffrey, 64 Hobbs, Gerald (Jerry), 24, 37, 134, 137 Hoffman, Paul, 149 Hogan, Terry, 26 Holland, John, 139 Hollerbach, John, 59, 65, 139, 313n22, 313n24 Holling, C.S., 306n77 Honda Foundation, 202–3 Hošek, Chaviva, ix, xii, 197, 245, 258–62, 264, 270, 335n36 Hough, Kathryn, 133, 134, 156, 167, 221, 224, 226, 235, 242, 253, 268, 269, 327n5 Howitt, Peter, 167, 168 Human Development: development

345

stages, 144–5, 192; and Economic Growth and Policy, 174, 179, 182; first cycle, 173–84, 194, 207, 226, 234–5, 319n3, 320n13; and Population Health, 173, 174, 176, 177, 179–80, 182, 183, 234–5, 267, 269; second cycle, 241 Hunter, Ian, 140, 313n25, 334n28 Hutchinson, Thomas, 291n15 Hydro-Québec, 135 Imperial Oil, 312n9 Inco, 315n3 Institute for Work and Health. See Ontario Workers’ Compensation Institute Intelligent Systems Incorporated. See Precarn International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis, 167–8, 171 International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development, 178 IRIS (Institute for Robotics and Intelligent Systems), 205, 226, 267 Isgur, Nathan, 98 Israel, Werner, 74, 94, 96, 97, 98, 100, 153, 154, 155 Ivey, Donald, 12 Ivey, Richard, x, 260–1 Jacobsen, Stein, 149 Jenson, Jane, 221 Jérome, Denis, 122, 129, 130 John, Sajeev, 124, 126, 253, 332n18 Johnston, David, 45, 56, 91; chairs CIAR, 199–200, 221, 229–31, 241, 242–3, 260, 324n51; and Law and Society, 84, 209, 211, 212 Johnston, Paul, 224 J.P. Bickell Foundation, 56

346

Index

Kahneman, Daniel, 53, 298n23, 299n41 Kaiser, Nick, 94, 97, 99, 153, 155 Kaysen, Carl, 86 Keating, Dan, 145, 173–81, 183 Kendall, John, 240, 249, 250 Kerwin, Larkin, 19, 296n6, 296n9 Kiefl, Robert, 126 Kierans, Thomas (Tom), 231, 243–5, 259, 260, 261, 270, 331n91 Kirczenow, George, 332n18 Klein, Michael, 188 Koerner, Walter, 19 Kreisel, Henry, 90 Kreuzer, Jürgen, 87 Kruger, Arthur, 4, 7 Krugman, Paul, 167, 317n3 Kushner, Donn, 101 Kushner, Eva, 42, 80 L’Abbé, Maurice, 105, 160 Lac Minerals, 74, 89, 94 Lacoste, Louise, 42 Lamarche, Paul, 116 Lambeck, Kurt, 315n4 Lang, Franz, 102, 105 Larkin, Peter, 34, 39, 296n6, 296n9, 299n39 Lasaga, Anthony, 149 Law and Society: becomes Law in Society, 146, 213, 214; development stages, 81–4, 209–13, 325n3 Law and the Determinants of Social Order, 214–24, 327n5. See also Law and Society; Law in Society Law in Society: becomes Law and the Determinants of Social Order, 214; development stages, 146, 192, 213, 312n8

Learning Society Network, 179 LeClair, J. Maurice, 29 Leclaire, Susan, 262, 263 Lee, Alvin, 19, 23, 56 Lee, Philip, 310n39 Lee, Robert, 308n38 Lemieux, Claude, 102, 103 Lengellé, Jean, 3, 290n4 Levesque, Hector, 48, 64, 298n21, 313n24 Levine, Martin, 49 Leyerle, John: on ad hoc advisory committee and research council, 25–9, 35, 36, 38, 40, 41, 47–8, 77, 220, 232, 295n2, 297n9, 304n45; on first CIAR board, 16–17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 27, 28, 293n62, 293n64; named founding director, 134; and origins of CIAR, x, xi, 3–14, 16–17, 34, 264, 290n10, 291n13 Li, Wen-Hsiung, 105, 160 Linde, Andrei, 315n17 Ling, Victor, 321n1 Lipsey, Richard, 86, 90; and Economic Growth and Policy, 142–3, 145–6, 162–72, 318n21, 319n41 Lipsitt, Lewis, 178, 235, 320n13 Litster, David, 129, 188, 250, 251, 252, 256 Liu, Paul, 103 Lomas, Jonathan, 109, 115 Lortie, Pierre, 89, 134 Lougheed, Peter, 241 Low, D. Morton, 310n39 Lowe, David, 64 Lowy, Fred, 52 Lubensky, Tom, 188 Lubin, Philip, 152 Lumonics, 56, 57 Lynch, Larry, 7

Index MacDonald, Arthur, 127 MacDonald Dettwiler, 56, 57 MacDonald, John, 299n39 Macdonald, Rod, 209, 210, 211–16, 218, 219, 221, 325n3, 325n5 Macdonald, Ruth, 55–6, 57, 60, 91–2 Mackenzie, David, 119 Mackworth, Alan, 48, 53, 54, 59, 140, 205, 224–5, 268, 313n24, 323n33 Maclachlan, Gordon, 91, 233 MacLaren, Lee, 290n4 MacMillan Bloedel, 312n9 MacNabb, Gordon, 62–3, 313n24 Madden, John C., 64, 138, 140, 313n24 Maheu, Louis, 181–3, 234 Malpas, John, 315n4 Manciaux, Michel, 319n3 Manitoba, government of, 113–15, 119 Manley, John, 168, 198 Manufacturers Life Insurance Company, 303n10, 312n9 Maranda, Pierre, 85 Margulis, Lynn, 75 Marmor, Theodore (Ted), 71, 108, 109, 111, 113, 115, 118, 131, 132, 303n11 Marmot, Michael, 109, 111, 116, 118 Marsden, Lorna, 7, 16, 27, 36, 47, 76– 7, 197, 198, 293n64, 297n9, 323n33 Martin, Freda, 177 Martin, Peter, 32, 33, 35, 41, 72–4 Mason, Thomas, 117 Masten, Ann, 181 Matheson, Alastair, 104 Max Bell Foundation, 260 Mayer, Bernhard, 315n4 McBride, Barry, 322n10 McCain, Margaret, 269

347

McCulloch, Ernest, 7, 8, 9, 16, 17, 27, 38, 78, 293n62, 293n64 McCulloch, Malcolm, 151 McCullough, Ron, 61, 62, 299n39 McDonald, Arthur (Art), 155, 235, 249, 329n60 McFetridge, Donald, 170 McGeer, Patrick, 24 McGill University, 56, 192 McKeown, Thomas, 70 McKinnon, Dorothy, 133, 226 McKinnon, Ross, 123 McLaren, Digby, 91, 144, 148 McLean, William, 134 McMaster University, 56 Medical Research Council, 23 Merry, Sally Engle, 214, 218 Mevarech, Moshe, 101 Michaud, George, 73 Milligan, Frank, 297n9 Mitchell, Bruce, 331n91 Mitrovica, Jerry, 315n4 Mohr, Johan, 214 Morton, Donald, 95 Moskovits, Martin, 249, 251–2, 254, 255, 256, 332n18, 333n26, 333n37 Mouritsen, Ole, 185, 186, 187, 190 Mowery, David, 167, 169 Mulroney, Brian, 136, 137 Munsche, Peter: on CIAR staff, 24–5, 44, 73, 79, 88, 91, 133, 265, 295n2; and origins of CIAR, 14, 20, 21, 265 Murphy, Kevin, 167, 168 Mustard, Fraser: addresses Banff congress, 241; and AIRS/AIR program, 44–55, 59, 60–3, 139, 205, 224, 226, 298n25; appointed president, xi, 17, 18, 22, 29, 133; and Cosmology, 71–4, 94, 97; and Earth System Evolution, 144; and Economic Growth

348

Index

and Policy, 142–3, 146, 162, 163–4, 165–8; and Evolutionary Biology, 101–2, 158–9, 160; and Founders’ Network, xii, 208, 224, 226, 235, 269, 325n59; and funding of CIAR, xi, 16, 21, 23–4, 55–7, 64, 69, 74, 88–9, 91–2, 133, 134–8, 193–202, 205–7, 226, 266; and Human Development, 174–5, 176, 177–9, 235, 319n3; involved in early program development, 27–9, 31–3, 34, 36, 38, 39–40, 42, 56, 68, 71, 84–8; and Law and Society, 81–4, 210, 211–13, 215, 216, 220, 221–2; and origins of CIAR, xi–xii, 8, 11, 13, 14, 15–17, 265–6, 293n62, 293n64; and Population Health, 71, 81, 108, 110–11, 112, 113, 114, 115–16, 118, 144–5, 235; promotes cross-disciplinary studies, 28–9, 34, 36–7, 45–7, 68, 76–80, 267, 297n9, 305n45; recruits CIAR participants, xi, 19–20, 25–9, 36, 42, 134, 145, 160, 176, 199–200, 265; retires as president, 206, 208; and Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces, 144, 185, 186–7, 188; scientific work of, xi, 23, 29, 269; and Superconductivity, 124, 125, 126, 129 Mylopoulos, John, 48, 52, 298n23 Naimark, Arnold, 26, 42, 98, 201, 232, 237, 329n60 Nanoelectronics: development stages, 246–50; first cycle, 250–7, 262, 332n18 Narla, Mohandas, 187 National Research Council, 254, 256 NATO, 94 Natural Sciences and Engineering

Research Council, 126, 127, 186 Neatby, Blair, 80, 90 New Brunswick, government of, 179, 227 Newell, Alan, 64 Nicholson, Peter, 163–4, 170, 197, 226, 233–4, 241, 246, 247, 248 Nickle, Steven, 167 Noolandi, Jaan, 185, 186, 187 Noranda, 312n9 Norton, Peter, 87, 88, 188, 321n1 Nowlan, David, 7 Oberle, Frank, 91 Offord, Dan, 145, 174, 176, 180 Oliver, Peter, 35–6 O’Nions, Sir Keith, 151 Ontario, government of, 16, 18, 21, 22, 23, 29, 37, 56, 57, 91, 115–16, 135, 137, 138, 193, 260, 265, 266 Ontario Hydro, 135 Ontario Workers’ Compensation Institute, 111, 115–16 Orenstein, Joseph, 127, 129 Ostry, Sylvia, 317n3 Ozin, Geoffrey, 253, 332n18 Page, Donald, 95–6, 97, 98, 99, 100, 153 Parsegian, Adrian, 187 Paterson, Christopher (Chris), 134, 137, 194–5 Paterson, Robert, 201 Peacock, John, 152 Pearson, Landon, 319n3 Pedersen, George, 24, 45 Peebles, James (Jim), 72, 74, 94, 155 Peet, Amanda, 263 Peller, Joseph, 23, 134, 265 Pence, Alan, 178

Index Penelhum, Terrence, 35, 39, 41–2, 47, 76–80, 296n6, 297n9 Pépin, Henri, 249 Perovic, Douglas, 252, 254 Perrault, Ray, 54, 139, 224, 225, 296n10 Petch, Howard, 24, 39, 41, 71–2, 296n6 Petro-Canada, 57 Petros-Barvazian, Angèle, 177 Picard, Robert, 174, 176, 319n3, 320n13 Pierce, Allan, 24 Pincus, Philip, 188 Piper, Martha, 227 Pless, Barry, 109, 116 Polanyi, John, 19, 290n4 Pomeroy, Fred, 134 Population Health: development stages, 27, 28, 31–2, 33, 35, 41, 69– 71, 81, 108–9, 296n10, 303n5; first cycle, 109–20, 131, 132, 135, 192, 207, 309n6, 310n39, 312n8; and Human Development, 144–5, 173, 174, 176, 177, 179–80, 182, 183, 234–5, 267, 269; second cycle, 226, 234–5; third cycle, 241 Power, Christine (Chris), 173, 180 Precarn (Pre-Competitive Applied Research Network), 62–3, 64, 66, 89, 141, 205, 226, 246, 262, 267 Price, Ray, 315n4 Prichard, Robert (Rob), 81–3, 195–6, 199, 210, 266, 331n91 Priest, George, 82 Prodanou, Anna, 134 Prost, Jacques, 187, 190 provincial governments, 192, 193, 200, 266. See also individual provinces

349

Pylyshyn, Zenon, 54–5, 59, 60, 63–4, 139, 140, 306n70, 313n24 Quantum Information Processing, 252, 259, 262, 332n25 Quebec, government of, 116 Racine, René, 95 Rae, Cliff, 206–7 Ratner, Mark, 255 Redfield, Rosemary (Rosie), 103, 158, 268 Reed, Mark, 263 Reed, Paul, 210, 211, 213 Reiter, Raymond (Ray), 47, 52, 224, 298n23 Renaud, Marc, 109, 116–17, 119, 134, 220, 242, 323n33 Rice, Maurice, 127 Richards, Whitman, 64, 139 Rickerd, Donald, 81, 82 Riddell, Craig, 167, 169 Roach, Kent, 211 Rocher, Guy, 84, 209–10, 217, 219, 310n39 Rogers, Harry, 224, 226, 246, 248 Rogers, Joan, 133 Rohlen, Thomas (Tom), 145, 173, 176, 178, 180 Romer, Paul, 146, 163, 165, 167, 168– 9, 170 Roos, Leslie, 109, 113, 114, 132 Roos, Noralou, 109, 113, 114, 132 Rosenberg, Nathan (Nate), 146, 168, 169 Ross, Alastair H., 89, 134 Ross, Malcolm, 78, 90, 296n6, 296n9 Rossant, Janet, 330n69 Royal Bank of Canada, 87, 118, 145, 146, 312n9

350

Index

Royal Dutch Shell, 193 Royal Society (England), 150 Royden, Leigh, 151 Ruckenstein, Andrei, 126 Sachrajda, Andrew, 249, 252 Sackmann, Erich, 185, 186, 187–8 Safarian, Ed, 146, 163, 165, 166, 168, 169, 317n19 Salama, André, 247–51, 331n3 Salter, Liora, 213, 214, 215, 217–18, 219, 221–2 Samarasekera, Indira, 330n69 Sankoff, David, 101, 103 Saucier, Jean-François, 181 Scardamalia, Marlene, 178 Schanberg, Saul, 181 Schrage, Daniel, 315n4 Schramm, David, 98, 155 Science Council of Canada, 22, 58, 202–3 Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces (SSSI): development stages, 143–4, 192, 312n8, 321n1; program cycle, 185–91, 236, 241, 267; summer schools, 188, 189 Scott, Michael, 256 Sedra, Adel, 195–6, 227–8, 266 Sen, Amartya, 170 Shapiro, Bernard, 145 Sheinkman, Jose, 317n3 Shell Canada, 140, 312n9 Shleifer, Andrei, 146 Shrum, Gordon, 24 Silk, Joseph, 98 Silverman, Mel, 257 Simeon, Richard, 51, 86, 90, 219, 296n6, 296n9, 297n9 Siminovitch, Lou: on ad hoc advisory committee and research council,

27, 34, 36, 38, 41, 52, 74–6, 81, 207; and Evolutionary Biology, 41, 74–6, 102, 103, 106, 159–60; and origins of CIAR, 7, 8, 9, 11, 290n4, 293n62, 293n64 Skinner, Brian, 151 Slonimski, Piotr, 105 Smith, Sir David, 334n28 Smith, Michael, 103, 104, 160 Smith, Stuart, 22 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, 3 Soete, Luc, 317n3 Soros, George, 269 Southam Limited, 23 Spar Aerospace, 19, 23, 45–6, 55, 57, 58, 60, 61, 91, 265, 267, 312n9 Spence, Kara, 243, 253, 331n88 Spence, Matt, 331n91 SSSI. See Science of Soft Surfaces and Interfaces Stairs, Denis, 90, 220 Stark, Evan, 70 Starkman, Glenn, 315n17 Statistics Canada, 84, 113–15, 119, 180 Stebbins, Albert, 95, 97, 98 Steck, Theodore, 188 Stein, Richard, 298n23 Steinhardt, Paul, 155 Stephenson, Bette, 16, 18, 21, 22, 23, 29, 56, 57, 91, 114, 193; on CIAR board, 134, 137, 195, 229, 324n51 Stevens, John, 296n10, 298n23 Stoddart, Gregory (Greg), 71, 108, 109, 111, 115, 117, 131 Stoicheff, Boris, 64 Strangway, David, 11, 12, 45, 56, 95, 196, 265, 266, 293n62, 293n64 Strauss, Harald, 315n4

Index

351

Strong, David, 91, 105, 106, 160, 315n4 Stuart, Barry, 214, 218 Successful Societies, 258, 269 Sugarman, David, 218 Sullivan, Terry, 235 Suomi, Steve, 173, 175, 178, 180, 265, 268 Superconductivity: development stages, 87–8, 121–2, 314n38; first cycle, 122–30, 131, 132, 194, 312n8; second cycle, 192, 235–6; third cycle, 241, 259, 261, 333n6 Susskind, Leonard, 154, 315n17 Swain, Harry, 198, 199 Syme, Len, 310n39 Szalay, Alex, 152

Track, Barbara, 92, 134 Trebilcock, Michael, 81, 90, 211, 296n6, 296n9 Treisman, Anne, 47, 53, 299n41 Tremaine, Scott, 97, 232, 238–9, 240, 258, 259, 262, 329n45 Tremblay, André-Marie, 122 Tremblay, Richard, 173, 174, 180 Trubek, David, 84, 219 Tsotsos, John, 49, 58, 62 Tugwell, Peter, 32, 33, 70 Tuohy, Carolyn, 181, 234, 237–8, 240 Turcotte, Fernand, 310n39 Turmel, Monique, 308n38 20*20 Vision conference, 262–4, 268, 270 Tyson, Anthony, 98

Taillefer, Louis, 126, 127, 129, 236, 259, 263 Tarlov, Alvin, 235, 331n91 Tatton, William, 31–2, 33, 35, 36, 296n10; and AIRS/AIR, 39–41, 44–55, 58, 297n25, 297n1, 297n9 Taylor, Allan, 197, 229, 231, 259, 260 Taylor, Scott, 169 Taylor, Stuart, 133, 134 Terzopoulos, Demetri, 139, 313n22 Thomson, Douglas, 332n18 Thomson, Kenneth, 21 Thomson, Richard, 18, 20 Till, James, 32, 33, 69–70, 108 Timusk, Thomas, 122, 126, 127 Tirozzi, Bruno, 149 Tirrell, David, 187 Todgham, Douglas, 200, 206, 208, 228, 229, 243, 270, 331n85 Torres, Christopher (Chris), 228, 242, 260, 270

UNESCO, 150 University of Alberta, 97, 100 University of British Columbia, 56, 97, 104, 192, 196, 227, 266–7 University of Toronto: assists CIAR financially, 7, 56–7, 84, 97, 195–6, 227–8, 266; and origins of CIAR, x– xi, 3–17, 27; support to program members at, 192, 195–6; supports CIAR staff, 25 Unruh, Bill, 72–4, 93–100, 132, 140, 152–5, 316n25 Valleydene Corporation, 89, 135 van de Ven, Theodorus, 185, 186, 187 Van Den Berg, Sidney, 72 van Driel, Henry, 253 Vancouver Foundation, 55, 298n25, 300n52 Veizer, Jan, 144, 148–50, 236 Vilenkin, Alex, 155 von Hippel, Eric, 167, 169

352

Index

Wald, Robert, 95, 154 Walker, James, 149 Walker, Martin, 227, 242 Waterman, Michael, 101, 103 Watson, Gordon, 5 Weaver, John, 255 Whalley, John, 90 Wheeler, John, 95 Wheeler, Stanton, 82 Whiticar, Michael, 149 Wieler, Paul, 90 Wien, Fred, 90, 296n6, 296n9 Wier, Bruce, 160 Wilk, Martin, 71, 90, 108, 110, 118, 194, 201, 203, 210–11, 220, 232, 323n33 Wilkinson, David, 98 Williams, Charles, 134, 135 Willms, Douglas (Doug), 177, 178–9, 180, 320n22 Wilson, John: first chair of CIAR board, 16–17, 18, 20, 21–4, 33, 37, 39, 40, 55, 56, 89; named founding director, 134; and origins of CIAR, xi, 7–8, 9–10, 11–12, 14–15, 16–17, 293n62, 293n64 Winegard, William, 137 Winsor, Polly, 297n9 Wise, Mark, 74, 94, 98 Witten, Thomas, 188

Woese, Carl, 101, 103 Wolfe, David, 214, 221 Wolfson, Michael, 109, 111, 112, 113– 14, 116, 118, 146, 167, 169, 176 Wood, Adrian, 167 Woodham, Robert, 48 Wortis, Michael, 185, 186, 187 Wright, Gerald, 82 Wright, Janet, 243, 244, 245 Xu, J.M. (Jimmy), 251, 332n18 Yablonovitch, Eli, 255 Yamazuki, Toshimitsu, 125, 127 Young, Alwyn, 168, 169 Young Explorers Award, 263, 268 Young, Jeffrey (Jeff), 247, 249, 251, 252, 254, 256, 332n18, 333n26 Zachos, James, 315n4 Zames, George, 48 Zeidler, Eberhard, 77–8, 296n6, 296n9 Zucker, Steven (Steve), 44–8, 52–3, 58–9, 204–5, 296n10, 298n23 Zuckermann, Martin, 187 Zuker, Michael, 102, 103, 104, 158, 159 Zurek, Wojciech, 96