The #VoteScience campaign provides a single portal for Canadians who care about science to engage in the lead up to the federal election. Canadian scientists and those who value science can use this portal to connect directly with candidates and to send the message that we want candidates to build trust in our institutions and strengthen government integrity by putting science at the forefront of their decision-making.

This campaign, along with efforts from others in the Canadian research ecosystem, contributed to the addition of $3 billion for fundamental research in the 2018 federal budget and to bring student voices into Canadian science policy discussions. In 2017, Science & Policy Exchange launched the #Students4TheReport campaign, a nation-wide effort to urge the federal government to implement all the recommendations from the 2017 Fundamental Science Review (commonly called the ‘Naylor Report’). This report aimed to restore and strengthen the fundamental research funding ecosystem in Canada and recommendations to increase federal funding for research, improve coordination among funding agencies, and promote diversity. SPE wrote an open letter to the federal government that gathered more than 1,200 signatures and was endorsed by associations representing over 300,000 students.

To bolster the underrepresented voice of the members of the next generation of researchers on federal scholarships and fellowships, we sought to hear directly from current and recent graduate students and postdoctoral fellows. The results of this survey were used to make recommendations to the Tri-Agency during public consultations.