A significant growth in sponsored research income has put Thompson Rivers University (TRU) onto Research Infosource's Canada's Top 50 Research Universities 2023 list. Being included on the top 50 list is a first for TRU, coming in at 49th.
Canada's Top 50 Research Universities ranking system evaluates universities based on their sponsored research income and places them in their respective tiers. The system weighs factors such as research intensity per faculty member and graduate student, total number of publications, publication intensity and publication impact, to determine the rankings.
TRU's total sponsored research income is valued at $8.5 million. This includes all funds that support research, such as grants, contracts or contributions from sources external to the institution.
"We are thrilled to be recognized as one of Canada's Top 50 universities for 2023. This distinction attests to the high calibre of research that is conducted by our faculty and students," said Shannon Wagner, TRU vice-president research.
TRU's research income value increased by 29.9 per cent, placing the university second in the undergraduate tier for research income growth between fiscal 2021 and fiscal 2022.
Compared to other universities in this tier, TRU's research intensity per faculty member was ranked 14th at $50,000 and 17th per graduate student at $9,000. The research intensity is calculated based on the total number of faculty and grad students, both part-time and full-time time, for the academic year. This includes full, associate and assistant faculty as provided or available to Research Infosource.
Some of the highlights of TRU's research funding for this period include $1.4 million to expand Dr. Laura Doan's peer-mentoring program for early childhood educators, $850,000 from the Canadian Foundation for Innovation to build a world-class genomics lab under the direction of Dr. Jonathan Van Hamme, a new and renewed Canada Research Chair and a $1-million grant for John Church from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada for the development of climate-resilient cattle.
Research Infosource also featured TRU wildfire experts in their publication, Canada's Innovation Leaders 2023. Read more on the Research Infosource website.
