You may have heard me say once or twice that “nobody is coming to save us.” I’ve been told that this has become something of a catchphrase in Canadian universities over the past year, so much so that I kind of wish we’d done merch with that slogan. The phrase is still true; in fact, given the metastasizing national security crisis, it’s arguably truer now than it was a year ago. But given the chaos south of the border, it is now possible to imagine some sunlight piercing the gloom—provided universities can get philanthropists to be ambitious.

Let’s start with a refresher on what philanthropy can and cannot do. Briefly: It can help institutions do ambitious new things, but it can’t fill holes in your operating budget. You cannot fundraise for generalized salary increases. You cannot fundraise for deferred maintenance. Well, you can try, but you’re not going to get very far. Donors want to know that what they are doing makes a difference. Plugging holes is not making a difference; it’s allowing the status quo to continue. And while that might be quite attractive to people inside the university, it’s considerably less enticing to those without. Philanthropy—big philanthropy anyway—is to some degree about change. For everything else, learn to live within your operating budget.

(I should pause here to be clear that I am making a distinction between “philanthropy” involving significant and potentially transformational amounts of money and mere “fundraising,” which tends to involve mass, small-scale alumni giving. The latter can, to a certain degree, be counted upon to plug holes like library services or take on what arguably should be an institutional or governmental responsibility like student assistance. But it can’t preserve the status quo ante across the board.)

Now, there just happens to be one kind of change that is suddenly going very cheap, and that is the ability to add top-class academic talent. The carnage down south, with the National Institutes of Health NIH being at least partially dismantled and entire universities being threatened with loss of hundreds of millions of dollars unless they submit to an unspecified number of random administrative fiats from the trump administration, is about to start hemorrhaging talent. It’s not just foreign scholars who are going to leave; top American talent is suddenly footloose, too, because it has become apparent that the damage being done to American science is unlikely to be fully reversible. And even if it could be reversed, you’d never be more than 4 years away from another group of anti-Enlightenment jackals coming and taking another wrecking ball to the whole system. The age of American Science is over, and it’s not coming back any time soon. The opportunity exists, therefore, for ambitious universities to scoop up a fair bit of top new talent.

But wait a minute, you say. Talent requires salaries, and salaries are under pressure, and Big Philanthropy doesn’t cover that. Well, actually, it can, but only if you package it and structure it correctly.

It would indeed be hard for a university to get a philanthropist to pick up the tab in order to grab a new talent across a range of disciplines. There’s nothing “new” about hiring additional profs to plug holes or provide upgrades to an institution’s existing staff. But some philanthropists probably could be persuaded to cover the costs if a university presented a structured package of targeted hires. That is, a set of hires that built on a set of existing strengths and moved the institution closer to world-class status in a specific discipline (e.g., Hegelian Philosophy, Dentistry) or cluster of related disciplines (Human and Animal Health/Vaccines, Water protection, etc.).

Basically what you would want to do is create a package that encompassed: i) a half-dozen or so fully-funded named chairs, some of which could go to existing staff, others to new star hires, which would mean no net charges to the operating budget ii) money for whatever new space, laboratory or otherwise, was required to house these new scholars and their work, iii) funding for a reasonable number of graduate students, iv) at least some funds for ongoing innovative activities and v) some kind of collective identity. Wrap the whole thing in a bow, name it the [Philanthropist name here] Centre for [Discipline/Grand Challenge name here], hire ambitiously from across the United States to create a cluster of excellence on a level that can really make a mark on a global scale. Normally, this kind of thing would not be possible. But with chaos south of the border, I think right now, it is. And it could be game-changing for a few universities if they could pull it off.

I can hear a few objections from y’all already. The first one is going to be some variation of “Wouldn’t that money be better spent on X, which we already have,” or “Why don’t we spend that on Canadian researchers instead?” To which my answer is that the alternative to philanthropic investment is not some fantasy alternative investment that you can allocate to other priorities; the alternative is no investment at all. Philanthropists like ambition and novelty. Any alternative needs to provide at least that, and (in my book anyway) “spending on our existing researchers” is unlikely to persuade many donors to get out their wallets in the way that creating a genuinely new cluster of talent would.

The second obvious objection is along the lines of “we shouldn’t rely on footloose imported talent; we should do more to develop our own.” This is true at a national level but self-evidently not true at an institutional one. Institutions, by long-standing convention, do not develop their own talent. They collect it from wherever they can find it. And right now, there is a very rare and very brief opportunity for people to get a lot of it, cheaply. Institutions would be crazy not to take it.

The third objection is: Shouldn’t federal and provincial governments be doing this? Yes, but they are not going to do it, so it’s the philanthropic route or nothing.

Finally, there is the objection that we would be bringing all these top stars into a research funding environment that is sub-standard. And yeah, that’s an issue—one which presumably anyone who accepts an offer up here would have to consider—but it’s hardly a decisive one at the university level. From an institutional perspective, regardless of the size of the research funding pie, a bigger slice is better than a smaller slice, and a stronger talent base gives you a better shot at a bigger slice. 

For those institutions that can pull it off, there’s no downside. Funding aside, being globally recognized for something has a transformative effect on a university. Having a “steeple of excellence” somewhere on campus not only signals ambition and sets a standard but also demonstrates the benefits of ambition and high standards. It sets the bar higher for the rest of the campus. And that’s what we need right now. Yeah, things are tough. But eyes high.

For universities that want to do this, the steps to take are obvious. You already know what your signature areas of research are. Get your deans and departmental chairs to make long lists of American profs who would help you build those into global powerhouses. Get your Provosts, VPs, and top PIs to dream up ideas of how to package a new Centre. And get your VPs Advancement to start drafting ambitious pitches for big donors. 

Time is short. This opportunity won’t last long. It’s unfortunate that the American government is wrecking the greatest science system the world has ever seen. But it would be even more unfortunate if Canadian universities were to let this moment pass without profit. Nobody is coming to save us, but this is a golden opportunity for us to do something for ourselves.