Opening Remarks for Sylvie Lamoureux, Chief Operating Officer and Vice-President, Research

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• Thank you, Madam Chair, for inviting me to speak today on behalf of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC for short). I am pleased to be joined by my colleague, Valérie Laflamme, SSHRC’s Associate Vice President, Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat.
• We welcome the committee’s attention to the topics of governance, accountability and transparency. These essential elements of good public service—and also of good research—are core features of both the work we do and the way we are structured and governed.
• SSHRC is governed by a volunteer council, whose members are appointed through the Governor in Council appointments process. Our council operates according to a set of published bylaws, and we are subject to a range of legislative and policy requirements and directives.
• SSHRC’s strategic priorities, activities and performance are regularly assessed through formal reporting requirements, program evaluations, and audits, including regular reporting to Parliament through our annual Departmental Plan and our Departmental Results Report.
• In addition, for programs with higher-value grants, midterm reviews are conducted to assess the progress of granted projects.
• We proactively disclose significant data describing our activities and funding decisions, including through annual public disclosure of funding results, and several publicly available data dashboards.
• Our core service to Canada is to support research and research training in the social sciences and humanities, to help ensure Canada is equipped with a robust, sovereign research enterprise, providing the skills and expertise to help address today’s challenges, as well as respond to future ones, anticipated or not. Our commitment to accountability and transparency is evident in how we pursue this mandate.
• Our funding decisions are based on recommendations made by experts through a rigorous, independent, arm’s length merit review process, in line with international best practices. We consult regularly with the research community and non-academic stakeholders on our processes. Moreover, the policies, processes and criteria that orient our funding decisions are all publicly available.
• We are held to account on our performance primarily through our council, but also through several advisory bodies representing our research community.
• Additionally, SSHRC houses the Tri-agency Institutional Programs Secretariat (TIPS), which delivers some of Canada’s most prestigious and avant-garde research programs, including, among others, the New Frontiers in Research Fund, the Canada Research Chairs Program, and the new Canada Impact+ Research Chairs and Emerging Leaders programs announced in Budget 2025.
• These programs all benefit from collaborative tri-agency governance structures, with the programs overseen by steering and management committees that include representatives of the three federal research funding agencies, the Canada Foundation for Innovation, ISED, and Health Canada.
• More generally, the three funding agencies and the CFI work very closely together on a range of key policy issues, from data management to open access.
• As a signatory of the Declaration on Research Assessment (DORA), SSHRC strives to stay at the forefront of international best practices in research funding.
• SSHRC also supports research on the research process itself, which includes how research is funded, performed, communicated, and evaluated.  We are, for example, a member of the international Research-on-Research Institute to improve how research is funded, evaluated, and practiced.
• Finally, it’s important to note that SSHRC collaborates across sectors, including with colleges and universities, the private sector, NGOs, and organizations across governments. These connections help ensure our activities address the many challenges facing Canadians. 
• SSHRC is deeply committed to accountability, transparency and good governance—and strives for constant improvement. We welcome the Committee’s study on this question, and the opportunity to support this important work.
• Thank you, and I look forward to answering any questions.