Part III: Recommendations

Overall, the interviews demonstrated a lot of love for CMOS and its “amazing collection of people.” However, there is also a sense that the organization “must grow up” to face “modern world challenges.”

Governance is a journey, and strong organizations are committed to continuous improvement. The CMOS governance review has identified some areas for improvement, and the Institute on Governance offers the following recommendations as suggested priorities to further strengthen the organization’s governance.

Modernization, Membership and Mandate

Recommendation 1 – Make CMOS “future-ready” by:

• Embracing diversity across all its dimensions and aggressively cultivating the next generation of members;
• Bolstering a renewed and well-communicated Strategic Plan with an annual implementation plan and oversight on follow-through on action items;
• Streamlining by-laws in favour of organizational policies for programmatic aspects.

CMOS, long dominated by a focus on the natural sciences, might also consider how it will connect with the social sciences and Indigenous and other ways of knowing to more fully address societal challenges.

Council, the Executive, Committees and Centres

Recommendation 2 – Improve the strategic delineation of governance roles and responsibilities by:

• Elevating the role of Council to put greater emphasis on strategy and fiduciary oversight, reducing the frequency of Council meetings to quarterly, and focusing meeting agendas on high-level strategy;
• Granting the Executive greater latitude to provide leadership in implementing strategic objectives and policy changes;
• Extending terms of primary officers to two years to support continuity and long-term sustainability of initiatives, and making the Executive Director position full-time (see Recommendation 4);
• Providing orientation and professional development training to members of Council, the Executive, and Committee and Centre Chairs; and,
• Improving communication between Council and Committees through an annual cross-Committee meeting with Council.

Communications, Outreach and Stakeholder Engagement

Recommendation 3 – Improve CMOS’s strategic communications, outreach and stakeholder engagement by:

• Consolidating communications responsibilities in a dedicated Communications Officer responsible for crafting and coordinating consistent messaging across all platforms and channels, including Congress;
• Improving and expanding the CMOS website and use of social media;
• Redoubling efforts to build relationships with federal departments and granting agencies, the private sector, and Indigenous and Northern people;
• Alternating between virtual and face-to-face formats for Congress to bring in smaller Centres and government scientists, or provide a hybrid of the two formats.

Staff

Recommendation 4 – Adopt a more coherent, modern staff structure by:

• Restructuring the Executive Director position as full-time with expanded responsibilities currently handled by the Corresponding and Recording Secretaries, among other additional duties;
• Ensuring effective reporting relationships by having all staff report to the Executive Director and implementing annual performance accords between the Council and the ED and between the ED and all direct reports;
• Hiring a part-time Communications Officer (as described in Recommendation 3); and,
• Rationalizing other support positions as paid part-time positions, as required.