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its equipment grant pool through an increase of nearly 5 million dollars over the next decade. Finally, NSERC should raise the individual operating grants of excellent scientists enabling them to support postdoctoral researchers; we propose that an increase of 3 Million over the next decade could sustain this. We therefore argue that NSERC should increase its funding for astronomy over the next decade by approximately 17 million dollars.

.The total recommended investment of all three agencies would help to lessen the gap between Canada and its industrial partners in terms of dollars per capita spent on astronomy and astrophysics. The direct leverage factor of the plan of approximately a factor of 2 (see Chapter 8) on this investment could yield a return of at least a half billion dollars to the Canadian economy. The indirect benefits in the form of high tech spin-offs to Canadian industry and technology are much greater.

A colliding pair of spiral galaxies called the Antennae is seen here with the radio emission contour lines that show areas of molecular gas superimposed on the HST optical image.

Courtesy Christine Wilson, McMaster University