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This testimony was collected as part of the research project entitled “In the eye of the storm: Higher education in an age of crises” conducted by Howard Stevenson, Maria Antonietta Vega Castillo, Melanie Bhend, and Vasiliki-Eleni Selechopoulou for Education International. The research report and executive summary are available here.

Worlds of Education: How does your union operate in the Canadian higher education sector?

The Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT) is a federation representing trade unions in the Canadian higher education sector. Unions generally bargain with individual institutions rather than with Federal or Provincial governments, but the sector has 90% union density. This has enabled us to negotiate many strong collective agreements, not only covering traditional terms and conditions such as salaries and benefits, but also professional issues including academic freedom. By negotiating strong agreements, the CAUT has been able to restrict the use of contingent contracts to levels that can still be improved, but which compare favourably to many higher education systems in other jurisdictions.

Worlds of Education: In recent years, your union has mobilised to defend higher education research. Why did you focus on this issue and what did your union do to address it?

The CAUT has led a high-profile public campaign to defend higher education research, both as an important investment conferring substantial social benefits, but also as an issue of academic freedom.

Although Canadian higher education institutions fall primarily under provincial jurisdiction, funding for research is a federal matter and provided by the national government. From 2006 to 2015, the Conservative government of Stephen Harper adopted an ‘anti-science’ position and essentially defunded basic research, making the case that only research that had immediate economic gains should be funded.

We faced the difficult challenge of transforming higher education research, a largely obscure issue for the general public, into an issue with political traction in the public realm. The approach was to develop an outward facing public campaign in which we made the case for the public value of higher education research, and the importance of having scientists and scholars, not governments, determine research priorities.

The campaign involved public town hall meetings in strategically important locations, where researchers talked about their work and its potential benefits, linking local impacts with wider societal benefits. We were trying to make a real connection to the local community – but also to the national economy and society. We were removing the veil between ‘town’ [community] and ‘gown’ [university] – showing people how the work of researchers was relevant to them.

Worlds of Education: What have been the results of your campaign?

Over time the campaign has been successful, with the Liberal government making historic investments in basic research. The campaign was an important victory, but we remain alert. For instance, despite higher education research being a federal responsibility, the provincial government in Alberta recently tried to assert influence over what research would get funded in universities in the province.

This illustrates the increasing risk of national and regional governments seeking to control research activity. We will continue to argue that research must be determined by what is scientifically important – not what is politically expedient. We remain mobilised and vigilant.