In the appointment of people to NSERC council, one tries to achieve a balance among regions; among linguistic groups; between genders; among private sector, academic, and government researchers; and among discipline groupings, such as life sciences versus physical sciences versus engineering.

The Commission services also provided in 2013 a working document containing templates for the provisions of an ERIC based on the experience gained in the application process of the first ERICs in order to facilitate the drafting of the provisions by the applicants and achieving a more coherent set of provisions for the ERICs without prejudice to the flexibility and adaptation necessary for reflecting the diverse character of the various ERICs in terms of structure (single sited, distributed, virtual) and in terms of areas of research (social sciences and humanities, environmental sciences, energy, biological and medical sciences, materials and analytical fa ...[+++]cilities, physical sciences and engineering).

As a non-physical scientist, but someone who works with physical scientists in the federal government and who reads about the public policy circumstances and the consequences of science and technology decisions, it is my assessment that what is set out in that proposal for strategic expenditure review is in line with the experience that we've seen in other jurisdictions, including the United States—and I say so within the context of my overall understanding of regulatory policy in Canada and where that's headed.

My key messages were: Aboriginals were under-represented in the physical sciences — mathematics, computer science, physical and engineering sciences — compared to non-Aboriginals; and while it is well known that women are under-represented in the physical sciences, the gender gap was even more pronounced in the Aboriginal population.

Space sciences including bio-medicine and life and physical sciences in space.

The group of researchers with whom I am working are talking to Ouranos, a group of people from Montreal, mostly physical scientists, together with some people who are concerned with financing and crop insurance for farming.