U of M close 19th to Toronto in research dollars

More expensive medical research and focus on tenured researchers makes difference

Magally Zelaya, staff

The University of Manitoba ranked 13th on Research Infosource’s annual Canada’s Top 50 Research Universities List, released November 2007. The ranking is based on total income received from all sources including government, industry, and community sources in the 2006 fiscal year. But the numbers don’t tell the full story.

At the top of the list was the University of Toronto with an amount no other university came close to — $763,541 million.

The University of Manitoba had five and a half times less, with $139,146 million.

José Sigouin, manager of University of Toronto’s Research Information Analysis, said that the U of T usually comes out on top. “We’re big, so that helps,” she said.

The U of T has 2,361 full-time faculty members while the U of M has 1,188.

Looking at research intensity defined as research funds per faculty member gives a truer measure of research funds.

In which case, the U of M actually ranks 19th.

Sigouin also pointed to the fact that the U of T has affiliations with 10 research hospitals.

“In Canada, we have the most. Even in the States you would be hard-pressed to find schools that have 10 fully affiliated research hospitals.”

Further, Sigouin said that the U of T conducts a great deal of medical-doctoral research, which is expensive, thus drawing in more funds.

The University of Manitoba is also a research-intensive university, meaning that it prioritizes research on the same level that it prioritizes teaching.

In the same ranking, it was shown that sponsored research income at the U of M decreased by 4.7 per cent in fiscal year 2006.

Vice-president (research) of the U of M, Joanne Keselman said that the drop came about because the Canada Foundation for Innovation competition for funding, which runs every 18 months and is typically a large research funds contributor, was not held in that year.

She noted that in fiscal 2007 the competition was held and that the university’s numbers rose significantly because of it. “I can tell you for sure that it’s in excess of $150 million,” she said.

Keselman said industry sponsorship also plays a role. “The industry is typically partnering with universities in regions in which they’re located,” she continued, “Manitoba, relative to other jurisdictions, has a relatively small industrial base.”

Funds from the government also contribute to total sponsored research income — an amount that Keselman said is variable. “While the province of Manitoba it increased the amount of research support that it provides in recent years, it is still far below that that’s provided in other provinces.”

But, at the third-ranked University of British Columbia (UBC) the associate vice-president (research) Don Brooks said, “There’s not a lot of provincial money available for research.”

It’s debatable whether the numbers say anything about the quality of faculty employed or hired by any universities. Comparing research intensity shows that the professors at the top universities also get the most funds on a per capita basis — the funds typically being awarded on a competitive basis.

Sigouin said, “Certainly the University [of Toronto] makes an effort to recruit the best. There is a conscious effort to recruit researchers that have reputations.” She said that at the U of T research is weighed heavily when it comes to tenure review.

At UBC, research and teaching are both weighed, but research carries more weight when it comes to tenure. “At least as much. Actually it’s more, to be honest with you,” said Brooks.

At the U of M, Keselman said that the university is aggressive in “hiring top faculty who are competitive in terms of [securing] research funding.”

“I think we’re doing extremely well and our research funding has increased substantially over the last five to 10 years.”

Though it is unlikely that the U of M will ever top the top universities, Keselman said, “We don’t have an exclusive target, but our goal is to steadily increase research funding so that our faculty members and graduate students have the support they need to do their work.”