Posted on Oct. 30: McMaster moves up to 7th place on $100M club research ranking

McMaster University has made a dramatic move up on two national top 10 lists that rank research income and intensity at Canadian universities.

Sponsored research at the University grew significantly in 2001, moving from $106.9 million in 2000 to $184.4 million.

The increase moved the University from tenth to seventh position in a national ranking of universities with more than $100 million in research income.

The University also moved into third place from seventh position on the top 10 list ranking universities by research intensity, defined as research dollars per full-time faculty position. In 2001, McMaster averaged $197,000 per faculty position, up from $117,600 in the previous year.

The rankings are part of the Top 50 Research Universities report that was published Tuesday by Research Infosource Inc. from data collected by Statistics Canada.

Mamdouh Shoukri, vice-president research & international affairs, said that this significant increase in income is directly related to McMaster's outstanding faculty and their aggressive approach to research.

“Our researchers are among Canada's best and have been judged accordingly,” said Shoukri, citing the University's success securing funding from programs like Ontario Research & Development Challenge Fund, the Ontario Innovation Trust, the Canada Research Chairs initiative and the Canada Foundation for Innovation.

Shoukri said he's especially pleased that areas that historically have not been recipients of major funding, humanities computing and globalization research for example, figured prominently in this year's awards.

The report found that sponsored research income at the top 50 Canadian research universities exceeded record levels set in 2000. Overall research intensity also reached an all time high, rising 20.7 per cent to an average of $103,200 per full-time faculty position.