The following information comes from AUCC Update, Number 4, March 5, 2010

Research granting agencies
The government provided an additional $32 million a year to the budgets of the research agencies, starting in 2010–11. The new resources are proportional to the current base research budgets of the agencies, and distributed as follows:
       -  $16 million for CIHR;
        - $13 million for NSERC, including $8 million a year to strengthen its support for advanced research, and $5 million a year to foster closer research collaborations between academic institutions and the private sector through NSERC’s Strategy for Partnerships and Innovation;
        -  $3 million a year to SSHRC.

Institutional costs of research
Budget 2010 provided an additional $8 million a year to the Indirect Costs of Research Program. This increase is proportional to the growth in the budgets of the granting agencies, and the allocation formula has not changed. The concerted advocacy efforts of the university community were crucial in gaining this support for institutional costs.

Post-doctoral fellowship program
Budget 2010 established an internationally-competitive post-doctoral fellowship program to keep and attract top talent to Canada. In 2010-11, the program will fund 70 new fellowships valued at $70,000 each year for two years. At maturity, the new program will fund 140 fellowships, with an annual budget of $10 million. The distribution of these fellowships among the three research agencies has not yet been established.
The budget did, however, state that all postdoctoral fellowships will now be taxable.

TRIUMF
The budget provided $126 million over five years – about $25 million a year in new funding – to strengthen the world-leading research taking place at TRIUMF, a subatomic physics laboratory on the campus of the University of British Columbia, which is operated as a joint venture by a consortium of universities.
In combination with $96 million already allocated from existing resources of the National Research Council Canada, this brings the federal support for TRIUMF’s core operations to a total of $222 million over the next five years.
While Budget 2010 does contain new funding for TRIUMF, no program was created to assist with the operating costs of other major research science facilities across the country.

Funding to diversify the supply of medical isotopes
Budget 2010 provided $35 million over two years to Natural Resources Canada to support research and development of new technologies for the production of isotopes. An additional $10 million over two years will be provided to the Canadian Institutes of Health Research for a clinical trials network to help move research on isotopes and imaging technologies into clinical practice. Furthermore, $3 million over two years will be provided to Health Canada to work with stakeholders to optimize the use of medical isotopes in the health system.
This announcement builds on a call for proposals issued by NSERC and CIHR last June to identify alternative radiopharmaceuticals for medical imaging to replace the principal medical isotope affected by the shutdown at the Chalk River nuclear reactor. In November, NSERC and CIHR subsequently announced $5.4 million in funding for seven projects.

Supporting regional innovation
The regional economic development agencies play an important role by promoting innovation and commercialization of research in communities throughout Canada.
The government is providing additional on-going funding to top up the budgets of all three regional economic development agencies starting in 2010-2011:
    - $19 million a year for the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA);
    - $14.6 million a year for the Canada Economic Development for Quebec Regions (CEDQ); and,
    - $14.7 million for Western Economic Diversification Canada.

The top-ups announced in the budget are welcome news for the regional development agencies, however concerns remain about ongoing levels of support for these programs
No additional funding was announced in the budget for the Southern Ontario Development Agency or the Federal Economic Development Initiative of Northern Ontario.

International research collaboration
The budget allocated $8 million over two years to extend the International Science and Technology Partnership Program. This program, unveiled in 2005 with five years of funding, is designed to invest in and facilitate the development of R&D projects involving Canadian companies, researchers and their counterparts in countries such as China, India and Brazil. The program acts as a seed fund, leveraging funding from the private sector, with a particular emphasis on research with potential for commercialization. Canadian universities have been partners in many of the projects funded so far under ISTPP’s Canada-China and Canada-India programs. 

Funding for colleges
The budget of the Tri-Council College and Community Innovation Program will be increased from $15 million a year to $30 million annually starting 2010-11. The total budgets for the three granting agencies for 2010-11 will be about $2.2 billion.
First introduced as a pilot program in 2003-04, the goal of CCI is to build research capabilities in colleges. It provides funding for applied, collaborative research projects with industry partners in the four priority areas originally identified under the Science and Technology strategy: environmental science and technology; natural resources and energy; health and related life sciences and technologies; and information and communications technologies.

 Other budget highlights
The budget contained a range of other items of interest to the university community, which were outlined in the highlights document sent to you yesterday evening. These were:
    - An additional $75 million in 2009-10 for Genome Canada, targeted to forestry and the environment;
    - $9 million over two years to support the Rick Hansen Foundation, with funding to include a new Rick Hansen Institute;
     - $135 million over the next two years to the National Research Council of Canada’s Regional Innovation Clusters;
    - $397 million over five years to the Canadian Space Agency, with the bulk of the funding to flow after 2011-12;
    - The repetition of last year’s announcement of an additional $750 million to the Canada Foundation for Innovation;
    - A new Small and Medium-Sized Enterprise Innovation Commercialization Program pilot project, with $40 million over two years to support up to 20 demonstration projects.