Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation Research Page

The Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation helps Canadians to meet the challenges of a rapidly changing economy and society by creating opportunities for them to pursue their post-secondary education. The Foundation administers three separate programs.

The Foundation released The Price of Knowledge 2004: Access and Student Finance in Canada on November 8, 2004 .

Recognizing that the lack of money, while important, is not the only barrier faced by those who want to learn, in 2001 the Foundation has also initiated an ambitious research program into the determinants of access to higher education and the effect of current student financial assistance programs on students' behaviour. In addition to The Price of Knowledge: Access & Student Finance in Canada , the Millennium Research Program will have published over ten major research studies before the close of 2002.

One group of these projects looks at students and their decisions whether or not to pursue post-secondary education. These studies are intended to provide information not only about the current post-secondary population-its socio-economic profile, its financial situation, its sources of information about post-secondary education and student financial assistance, its use of student financial assistance, and its allocation of time among study, extracurricular activities and work-but also about students who do not undertake post-secondary education.

A second group of studies focuses on the context within which students make their decisions about post-secondary education. These projects will provide information about the effects of parents, guidance counsellors, ethnic background and government policy on decisions about whether or not to pursue post-secondary education.

Taken together with other work the Foundation is undertaking to identify best practices in other countries, these two groups of studies will help the Foundation to understand the effect of its own programs. They will also permit it to develop new forms of intervention designed to promote and facilitate greater access to higher education.

From its inception, the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation has sought to involve others in carrying out its mandate. Many of these studies have been undertaken in cooperation with other organizations, both in Canada and abroad. As a private foundation with links to the public, private and volunteer sectors and that operates at arm's length from government, the Foundation believes it is well placed to help create a network of partners dedicated to ensuring that Canadians get the educational opportunities they need to prepare themselves for the future.

Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC)

IN CANADA , education is the responsibility of each province and territory.

Because ministers of education needed a forum in which to discuss issues of mutual concern, they established the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC) in 1967.

The Research and Statistics Unit (R & S Unit) at the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada (CMEC) is responsible for coordinating various activities and committees supporting education research in Canada . Policy-relevant research is a priority for the jurisdictions. The R & S Unit's mandate is to facilitate communication between researchers and policy makers wherever possible.

The R & S Unit fosters intergovernmental relationships to support research in education. Currently, the longest standing intergovernmental relationship has been the Canadian Education Statistics Council (CESC), a partnership between CMEC and Statistics Canada. In 1997 this council created the Pan-Canadian Education Research Agenda (PCERA), which has commissioned research on selected topics and held symposia every year since its conception. The council also coordinates the Pan-Canadian Education Indicators Program (PCEIP).

In addition to CESC initiatives, the Unit coordinates other research activities and organizes seminars and symposia on a pan-Canadian and international level.

At the pan-Canadian level, the Unit has created a Web site for the Government Education Research Network (GERN) to help disseminate the research that is available in all the jurisdictions.

At the international level, the Unit coordinates Canada 's participation in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development's (OECD) education indicators projects, including the publication of Education at a Glance .

Canadian Teachers Federation

Their publications page features statistics and reports on K-12 education in Canada , presented primarily from the perspective of Canadian educators

Dalhousie Research Data Centre

The ARDC doors are now open to faculty and graduate students with an approved project from Dalhousie University , Mount St. Vincent University , St. Mary's University, Acadia University , University of Moncton , University of PEI , St. Francis Xavier University and Memorial University . The centre is located at the Killam Library at Dalhousie University . The RDC program encourages researchers to collaborate on team projects. The centre can support both individual and team research projects. We can also facilitate team projects conducted in more than one RDC when team members are located outside of the Atlantic provinces .

The RDC program provides both short descriptions and detailed documentation about the data sets that are available for analysis in the RDCs. The program also provides analytical and methodological research tools to assist researchers.

Government Education Research Network (GERN) (by CMEC)

The aim of GERN is to make education research conducted by provincial/territorial governments more accessible for both the public and other governments. The GERN web site facilitates this by providing links to Canadian education research.

You are welcome to view the information presented through the links to education research that have been submitted by GERN members. You will also find contact information for each ministry/department of education across Canada where you can send your questions regarding education research.

Human Resources and Skills Development Canada ( HRSDC )

The former department of Human Resources Development Canada was split into two separate departments. This page is an entry point for both.

Regardless of what department link you select, you will find all the information you need.

The Departments of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada (HRSDC) and Social Development Canada (SDC) publish a range of information products available to the public. You can search these by topic.

Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR)

The Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), established in 1962, is an integral part of the infrastructure of social science research. ICPSR maintains and provides access to a vast archive of social science data for research and instruction, and offers training in quantitative methods to facilitate effective data use. To ensure that data resources are available to future generations of scholars, ICPSR preserves data, migrating them to new storage media as changes in technology warrant. In addition, ICPSR provides user support to assist researchers in identifying relevant data for analysis and in conducting their research projects.

ICPSR supplies data files for use with statistical software, such as SAS, SPSS, and Stata. The links below provide various ways of finding the data. For instructions on accessing and using the data, visit our Data Use Tutorial .

McMaster Research Data Centre

The Research Data Centre at McMaster provides access to Statistics Canada master survey files at no charge to researchers -- the first time that such access has been possible without working in a Statistics Canada office.

National Graduate Survey (on Stats Can site) ;

This survey was designed to determine such factors as: the extent to which 1982, 1986, 1990 and 1995 graduates postsecondary programs had been successful in obtaining employment since graduation; the relationship between the graduates' programs of study and the employment subsequently obtained; the graduates' job and career satisfaction; the rates of under-employment and unemployment; the type of employment obtained related to career expectations and qualification requirements; and the influence of postsecondary education on occupational achievement. The information is directed towards policy makers, researchers, educators, employers and young adults-interested in postsecondary education and the transition from school to work of trade/vocational, college and university graduates.

National Literacy Program

The National Literacy Program works to promote literacy as an essential component of a learning society and to make Canada 's social, economic and political life more accessible to people with weak literacy skills. Activities are undertaken in partnership with the provinces, territories, non-governmental organizations and business and labour organizations.

The  National Literacy Secretariat  is mandated by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada to manage this program.

NLP site features reports based on a number of surveys relating to literacy in Canada

SAIP (by CMEC)

The School Achievement Indicators Program (SAIP) is a cyclical program of pan-Canadian assessments of student achievement in mathematics, reading and writing, and science that has been conducted by the Council of Ministers of Education, Canada since 1993.

Features a number of reports arising out of the results from SAIP

SSHRC

The Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) is an arm's-length federal agency that promotes and supports university-based research and training in the social sciences and humanities. Created by an act of Parliament in 1977, SSHRC is governed by a 22-member Council that reports to Parliament through the Minister of Industry .

SSHRC-funded research fuels innovative thinking about real life issues, including the economy, education, health care, the environment, immigration, globalization, language, ethics, peace, security, human rights, law, poverty, mass communication, politics, literature, addiction, pop culture, sexuality, religion, Aboriginal rights, the past, our future.

Statistics Canada

Features a range of Canadian statistics, some of which are available online free of charge, while others can be ordered for a fee.

University of Calgary Research Data Centre

The Research Data Centres (RDC) program is part of an initiative by Statistics Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) and university consortia to help strengthen Canada's social research capacity and to support the policy research community.

RDCs provide researchers with access, in a secure university setting, to microdata from population and household surveys. The centres are staffed by Statistics Canada employees. They are operated under the provisions of the Statistics Act in accordance with all the confidentiality rules and are accessible only to researchers with approved projects who have been sworn in under the Statistics Act as 'deemed employees.' 

RDCs are located throughout the country, so researchers do not need to travel to Ottawa to access Statistics Canada microdata.  

University of Montreal Research Data Centre

The Quebec Interuniversity Centre for Social Statistics (QICSS) offers researchers in Quebec free access to Statistics Canada's confidential longitudinal surveys. Many detailed microdatasets are currently available at QICSS, while others can be added to our collection once a research proposal has been submitted to and accepted by the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC).

It should be noted that for these and other Statistics Canada surveys, there are also non-confidential datasets available to the general public. These datasets, along with any relevant documentation, are available in university libraries across Quebec . Moreover, researchers with access to Sherlock can access these datasets electronically. Sherlock is a cooperative initiative that offers Internet-based management and distribution of public microdata and accompanying documentation. Access to Sherlock is reserved for individuals affiliated with the Quebec universities that are participating in Sherlock.

U of T Research Data Centre

The Toronto Region Statistics Canada Research Data Centre (RDC) is an inter-university facility whose partners include Statistics Canada , the University of Toronto , York University and Ryerson University .

Since November 2001, the Toronto RDC has provided world-class resources to researchers who have received approval to analyze one of Statistics Canada's confidential longitudinal surveys.

UBC Research Data Centre

The British Columbia Inter-university Research Data Centre (BCIRDC) is a research facility of Simon Fraser University, The University of British Columbia, and The University of Victoria. The Canadian Foundation for Innovation and the BC Knowledge Development Fund provided support for the establishment of the BCIRDC, and operating support is provided by Simon Fraser University, The University of British Columbia, The University of Victoria, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council and Statistics Canada.

Waterloo Research Data Centre

The South-Western Ontario Research Data Centre (SWORDC) is located at the University of Waterloo , and includes partnerships with three other institutions: Brock University , University of Guelph , and Wilfrid Laurier University .

For a list of projects and papers recently completed and currently under way, go to Summary .

Statistics Canada provides an on-site analyst: