Abstract

This study sought to evaluate to what degree the strategies employed by Canadian and Québécois funding agencies in the social sciences and humanities were successful in dealing with government spending restrictions. More specifically, it examined whether the oriented research programs that were established and consolidated at the beginning of the 1990s have enabled funding agencies in the social sciences and humanities to supplement government funding, and it compared this revenue to that which was generated within equivalent programs in the natural sciences and engineering. It also examined to what extent professors in the social sciences and humanities have transformed their research practices to meet the increased number of grants available for oriented research. The results suggest that oriented research programs have not generated new revenues in the social sciences and humanities and that these programs have in fact amplified the existing financial inequalities between the social and natural sciences. The results also seem to indicate that professors did not in effect modify their research practices to adapt to the growing number of grants offered for oriented research.