The Conservative government says the National Research Council is now “open for business” and will refocus on large-scale projects “directed by and for” Canadian industry — a change some scientists call a mistake.

Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear calls the current NRC a “weak federation of institute fiefdoms” that is failing to translate basic scientific discoveries into applied innovations.

The agency will receive $121 million over two years to shift into its new industry-facing mandate.

“There (are) only two reasons why we do science and technology,” Goodyear told a press conference in Ottawa Tuesday. “First of course is to create knowledge and push the frontiers of understanding. The second reason is to use that knowledge for social and economic benefit. Unfortunately, all too often, the knowledge gained is opportunity lost.”

Goodyear touted past NRC inventions like the black box for aircraft and the pacemaker, but said the agency had drifted from its original, industry-facing mandate.

But Nobel laureate John Polanyi says steering the NRC away from basic research is misguided.

Polanyi was a post-doctoral fellow in the NRC’s chemistry unit in the 1950s, and says the institution then was “the most adventurous place for basic science in Canada.” He later moved to the University of Toronto and in 1986 won the Nobel Prize in chemistry.

“One should structure things so (scientists) have the freedom and responsibility to provide ideas to industry, not just receive commands,” said Polanyi, adding that innovation is the result of dialogue between science and business.

“It would be a mistake to think that industry sees ahead to the basic innovations that are going to benefit it. It sees some. But scientists who are in touch with the development of scientific knowledge will see more.”

John Smol, a Queen’s University professor and Canada Research Chair in Environmental Change, also believes the decision betrays “a complete disconnect with how science is done.”

“I look at science as a pyramid. At the bottom you have all this basic fundamental research and at the top you have the applied. But you can’t have the applied without the basic,” he said.

Smol, a lakes ecosystem expert, believes the decision to recast the NRC is part of a Conservative pattern of cutting funding for basic science in favour of applied research that will generate a profit.

“What you find in environmental research are things that will cost industry money,” he says. In a recent study, Smol showed that lakes near Alberta’s oil sands are filled with contaminants.

“How do we define economic gains? . . . What’s the cost of not know something, or doing something stupid to the environment?”

Gerhard Herzberg, another Canadian Nobel laureate, also worked at the NRC. After the Glassco Commission in the 1960s similarly recommended that the institution steer away from basic research, Herzberg objected.

“The Glassco Commission was really not interested in good science. It was interested in good accounting. Mr. Glassco, after all, was an accountant. There is nothing wrong with good accounting, except that it does not necessarily lead to good science,” Herzberg said in a 1969 convocation address, according to a biography.

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Goodyear strenuously disagreed with the criticism that his government is not interested in basic science, saying funding levels have increased under the Conservatives.

“We do basic research at a lot of facilities in Canada,” he told the Star in an interview. “What we need to do is do better on is the translation of that knowledge from basic research into some kind of social or economic benefit,” also adding that the private sector is not doing enough research and development on its own.