Two research institutes that became inactive as a result of mass layoffs during Laurentian University’s insolvency have now been officially closed by the university.
Members of Laurentian’s senate voted to close the Centre for Evolutionary Ecology and Ethical Conservation as well as the Evaluating Children’s Health Outcomes Research Centre (ECHO) at their May 21 meeting.
A third research group, the Institut franco-ontarien (IFO), was also on the list of operations to be closed as a senate-approved research centre at Laurentian.
However, because it's a more complicated case for reasons detailed further on in this article, members of the senate instead opted to refer the matter of the IFO back to the university’s Research Development and Creativity Council.
Many of the researchers who made up all three research institutes were terminated in 2021 as a result of Laurentian’s restructuring under the Companies’ Creditors Arrangement Act (CCAA).
Albrecht Schulte-Hostedde, director of the Centre for Evolutionary Ecology and Ethical Conservation, spoke to the matter during the meeting.
“I'm the director for the research centre, and it says here that the centre can be closed if a majority of the research institute’s members conclude that the research goals have been met, and then no further research is planned,” he said.
“I would just say that the research goals were not met, and there was future research planned, but we couldn't proceed because three out of the six people who are part of the centre were fired as part of CCAA.
“I'd also like to say that these three motions that we're dealing with are an indictment of what happened here, and I'd like that in the minutes, actually.”
A couple members of the senate asked if these institutes could simply suspend their activities or become dormant.
But Schulte-Hostedde said in the case of the Evolutionary Ecology centre, that would be “nonsensical,” given the faculty cuts, and the fact that there’s no undergraduate program in environmental science or ecology anymore.
Laurentian vice-president of research Tammy Eger said Laurentian’s website currently shows that it has 13 different research centres, and not all are active.
“We're following the policy to go through to confirm, are the centers still active, are they still doing work in line with the policy, and if not, then we do need to move to closure so we also create space for new ones to be created,” she said.
“It's unfortunate, I think we all agree, it’s been minuted, and I agree to make a note that there were impacts from CCAA on the research enterprise, and this is one example. When you lose half your membership and some of the core programs that were part of it, it's difficult to continue on as a centre, and that's what we're seeing.”
Documentation provided as part of the senate package on the Evaluating Children’s Health Outcomes Research Centre (ECHO) said there was no member interested in being the director and the research team was impacted by faculty terminations as a result of CCAA.
As stated above, a third group, the Institut franco-ontarien (IFO), was also due to be formally closed as an approved LU research centre on May 21, but the matter was instead referred back to the university’s Research Development and Creativity Council.
“Unfortunately, again, a large number of francophone faculty who were working in the social sciences humanities area that were doing work with IFO were terminated as part of the CCAA, including the director,” Eger said.
But the case of the IFO is more complicated because it has actually been operating out of the Université de Sudbury since 2021.
Its director at the time was Serge Miville, now the president of the Université de Sudbury and one of those terminated by Laurentian in 2021 during the CCAA. Sudbury.com reached out to Miville for an interview, but were informed he was not available to speak with us until next week.
A spokesperson for the Université de Sudbury said Miville is actually no longer the director of the IFO, and said inquiries should instead be directed to two other people associated with the research institute, Lianne Pelletier and Michel Bock.
Senate member David Leeson suggested during the May 21 meeting it was premature to close the nearly 50-year-old IFO as an LU research centre, adding that he hadn’t heard in Eger’s presentation about any attempts to reach out to Miville.
Eger said there have actually been numerous attempts to reach out to Miville on the issue.
However, following this article's publication, the Université de Sudbury said it was "unable to substantiate" Eger's assertion about attempts to reach out to Miville.
Eger said she’s happy to bring the matter back to the LU research council, but perhaps support is needed from faculty members who have historic ties to IFO to facilitate those conversations.
“We'll have to reach out to Dr. Miville, because there's going to then be questions about who actually owns the intellectual property of the IFO,” Eger said. “They, in a sense, have already made a decision that they own it, and they've moved it.”
Sudbury.com did reach out by email following the senate meeting to current IFO representatives Lianne Pelletier and Michel Bock, and heard back from Pelletier.
She said the IFO was surprised to hear the issue had been brought up at a senate meeting three years after it removed its affiliation with LU, but agreed it should be removed from Laurentian’s books.
“To put it simply: L'Institut franco-ontarien is an autonomous, registered, not-for-profit organization, and has been for decades,” she said, in an email to Sudbury.com.
“You can look us up in the Ontario Business Registry. Yes, IFO was also a recognized research centre at Laurentian. I can confirm that IFO is no longer associated with Laurentian since we communicated our desire to unaffiliate ourselves in a letter addressed to President Hache dated May 14, 2021. (This story was covered by Sudbury.com here.)
“We have since moved our office to the Université de Sudbury, but there is no formal or legal affiliation between the Université and IFO other than office space rental. We agree that Laurentian should remove any reference to IFO in their books, if any still remain. Perhaps that’s what Dr. Eger was attempting to do at the senate meeting.”
Heidi Ulrichsen is Sudbury.com’s assistant editor. She also covers education and the arts scene.
