Erratic funding for basic research, coupled with concerns that science has fallen down the priority list for politicians, has contributed to a shift in researchers’ attitudes to lobbying.
Just a few days into her job as Canada’s new science minister, Kirsty Duncan found herself receiving a hero’s welcome when she took to the stage at the Canadian Science Policy Conference in November 2015. The audience of academics, university administrators and policymakers — not a group known for overt public displays of emotion — greeted her with cheers, whistles and a standing ovation.
The enthusiastic reception was as much a show of relief over the change in government as a greeting for the new minister. The general election in October of that year had seen the Conservative government helmed by Stephen Harper since 2006 lose power to Justin Trudeau’s Liberal party. Read more in Nature.