The University of Calgary: On the cusp of something great?
Editor’s Note:
This blog was originally posted in October 2021. On January 25, 2022, Re$earch Infosource Inc.’s latest Top 50 Research Universities in Canada ranked UCalgary the fifth ranked university based on research income generated, ahead of its big brother University of Alberta.
Calgary also ranked in the top five in four major 20-year growth metrics:
#4 in Research Income Growth: 167% from 2001 - 2020
#1 in University Cross-Sector Collaboration Publication Growth: 522% from 2000 - 2019
#3 in Research Publication Growth: 226% from 2000 - 2019
#3 in University International Collaboration Publication Growth: 433% from 2000 - 2019
UCalgary On The Cusp Of Something Great
Ed Glassier, Professor of Economics at Harvard University half-jokingly thinks “one of the best ways to create a great city is to create two great post-secondary schools and then wait 50 years.” After taking Glassier’s online course “The Past, Present and Future of Urban Life,” (which is where I got the quote from), I explored the University of Calgary’s website to find out more about its status as a post-secondary institution nationally and internationally.
For a long time, I have been thinking perhaps Calgary’s “road ahead” isn’t so much through downtown, as it is to the NW Leaerning Hub - University of Calgary, SAIT, Alberta University of the Arts, Foothills Medical Centre, Alberta Children’s Hospital and the University Innovation Quarter.
The Spire by Charles Boyce was created for the 1988 Winter Olympics. It serves as a grand entrance to the Olympic Speed Skating Oval on the University of Calgary campus.
Montreal / Austin / Calgary
The University of Calgary, is now in its 50s, which means - if you believe Glassier - it should be becoming into its own as a great university. When I am visiting other cities I always make a point of touring post-secondary campuses as a means of better understanding the city.
I can say from experience in both Montreal and Austin, their post-secondary schools play a major role in why both cities are thriving in the 21st century and why their downtown is so vibrant. Both have major downtown post-secondary school campuses.
While downtown was the biggest employment hub of Calgary for most of the 20th century (Ogden Yards was the city’s largest employer early in the 20st century), Calgary’s NW Learning Hub - University of Calgary, Foothills Hospital Centre and Alberta Children’s Hospital, SAIT and Alberta University of the Arts – may become a much bigger employment hub by the middle of the 21st century.
The University of Calgary’s website is a rabbit warren of information, here is some of the interesting things I discovered.
The University of Calgary’s campus is ideally positioned to become an Innovation Hub that encompasses not only the university campus, but Foothills Medical Centre, Alberta Children’s Hospital, McMahon Stadium/Athletic Park and Brentwood Village LRT and retail malls.
Entrepreneurial Vision
Did you know that in June 2020, the University of Calgary (UCalgary) completed the third largest fundraising campaign in Canadian history? Almost 30,000 people, from 67 different countries donated a total of $1.41 billion to support the university’s vision of becoming “Canada’s most entrepreneurial research university and being the catalyst for Calgary becoming the country’s most enterprising city.”
An ambitious vision, but one well worth pursuing in my mind. As Calgary struggles to get its mojo back, I am pleased to see UCalgary is positioning itself to become a major catalyst enabling the City to adapt to the new realities of a post COVID, post fossil fuel, inclusive world.
Recently Maclean’s magazine published its 2021 ranking of Canadian universities and the University of Calgary was #11 overall and as high as #8 for Leaders of Tomorrow. It should be noted UCalgary is the youngest of the top ranking Canadian universities, most have at least a 50 year head start. Link: Macleans University Rankings
University Of Calgary’s Rapid Rise
UCalgary, despite being a relatively young university, is ranked highly in a few different world and Canadian rankings, however still needs to enhance its reputation nationally and internationally if it is to become a magnet for attracting young professionals to relocate to Calgary to conduct their research, start new enterprises and call Calgary “home.”
UCalgary experienced record enrollment in the fall of 2020 - up 2.4% over the last year and exceeding 35,000 for the first time. And while there was a 4.5% drop in the number of international graduate students compared with 2019, the university still boasts 28% of its 6,800 graduate students are international.
Here is a glimpse of some of the five areas where the UCalgary is on top of its game and consequently, attracting young research professionals to move to Calgary – research, tech start-ups, medicine, life sciences and kinesiology.
Detail of Colette Whiten, Paul Kipps and Jack Diamond’s 1988 sculpture “Olympic Arch.”
UCalgary is ranked as one of Canada’s leading research universities.
The UCalgary ranked sixth among Canada’s top research universities based on the $488-million research income generated in 2018-19, an increase of 15.7 per cent from the $422-million of sponsored research income generated in 2017-18, making it Canada’s fastest growing research university. (Source: Re$earch Infosource Inc.’s, December 2020).
There are currently 69 active Canada Research Chairs at the University of Calgary, which means the university is attracting and retaining the next generation of talent in a diversity of research fields.
New CRCs:
Dr. Susan Kutz, PhD - NSERC Tier 1 CRC in Arctic One Health (Faculty of Veterinary Medicine)
Dr. Susan Samuel, MD - CIHR Tier 1 CRC in Precision Medicine and Data Science (Cumming School of Medicine)
Dr. Li-Fang (Jack) Chu, PhD- CIHR Tier 2 CRC in Cellular Reprogramming (Faculty of Veterinary Medicine)
Renewals:
Dr. Seonghwan (Sam) Kim, PhD - NSERC Tier 2 CRC in Nano Sensing Systems (Schulich School of Engineering)
Dr. Sheri Madigan, PhD - SSHRC Tier 2 CRC in Determinants of Child Development (Faculty of Arts)
UCalgary Tech School Status
UCalgary’s tech innovation ecosystem, includes the Creative Destruction Lab – Rockies,
Hunter Hub for Entrepreneurial Thinking, Innovate Calgary, Life Sciences Innovation Hub, W21C and IMPACT.
Creative Destruction Lab (CDL) - Rockies is one of only nine CDL sites in the world, (others being Oxford and HEC Paris (École des hautes études commerciales de Paris). CDL has created $8 billion in new venture value since its inception in 2012, $360M of that created at CDL-Rockies in the last 4 years.
Four Creative Destruction Lab-Rockies companies to watch are:
Dr. Steve Liang, founder and Chief Talent Officer of SensorUp - an Internet of Things (IoT) location intelligence platform that aggregates large amounts of sensor and operational data, producing a single picture of operations for asset-heavy industries like oil and gas, logistics, public safety, and the military. They raised $6-million CDN in July 2020.
Stuart Kinnear, Tom de Haas and David Sinton, are the co-founders of Interface Fluidics - transforming how the energy industry gathers and uses fluids information to enable better decisions made in the field. They raised $6 million USD in August 2020.
Erik Westblom, founder of Provision Analytics, a software development company that uses simple digital forms to automate food safety and advance quality control. In October, 2020, Provision acquired Crop Boss farm management software from Platinum Agriculture Solutions making it a leader in food safety research.
Amanda Hall, co-founder of Summit Nanotech is famous for developing a green lithium extraction process to help meet the energy storage needs of the future. Hall was one of 15 Canadian startups chosen for the prestigious Global Affairs’ “Women in Tech” three-day accelerator in 2020.
“Untitled” by George Norris, commonly know at “Prairie Chicken”
Cumming School of Medicine
The Cumming School of Medicine (CMS) with its 2,550 students and 511 full-time faculty, divided into seven institutes makes it the equivalent of a major corporation. Thanks to the $100 million donation by Geoffrey Cumming to medical research (the largest single gift in the history of UCalgary), CMS is positioned to become one of North America’s best medical schools.
Currently there are 618 active clinical trials and 3,632 active studies at CMS. It also boasts the International Microbiome Centre, the world’s largest germ-free lab dedicated to studying the microbiome’s role in immunity and disease.
The seven institutes are:
McCaig Institute for Bone and Joint Health
Hotchkiss Brain Institute
Calvin, Phoebe and Joan Snyder Institute for Chronic Diseases
Alberta Children's Hospital Research Institute for Child and Maternal Health (ACHRI)
Libin Cardiovascular Institute of Alberta
Arnie Charbonneau Cancer Institute
O’Brien Institute for Public Health
Here are some examples of the leading research being conducted at CMS:
Dr. Pere Santamaria, is internationally recognized for his work in treating autoimmune diseases. In May 2019, Parvus (founded by Sanatmaria) announced a working and licensing agreement with California-based Genentech (Roche Group) to develop, manufacture and commercialize the drug Navacims to potentially treat celiac, autoimmune liver and inflammatory bowel diseases. The deal to develop the drugs for these specific autoimmune diseases is valued at over $1 billion.
Recently, research team at the Clark H. Smith Brain Tumour Centre, in the Arnie Charbonneau Cancer Institute, headed up by Dr. Jennifer Chan and Dr. Mark Hamilton, discovered a way to stop the growth of glioblastoma, the deadliest form of brain cancer. The finding, published in Nature Communications, provides a new tactic in the war against cancer that involves reprogramming the immune system to do what it does best — fight the tumour, not fuel it.
Dr. Belinda Heyne and Dr. John Conly’s team, at the UCalgary’s W21C Research and Innovation Centre, are currently working with a global consortium on creating masks that can be decontaminated effectively and reused in the future. W21C has completed 129 projects since 2004 and has 97 active projects today.
“Le Patineur de Vitesse” (Speed Skater) by Germain Bergeron reflects the University of Calgary’s culture of looking forward, moving ahead, ready for a challenge.
Kinesiology and Sports Medicine School
The Faculty of Kinesiology was ranked No. 1 in North America and No. 11 globally out of 429 school in the world by the 2020 ShanghaiRankings for Sport Science Schools and Departments. It has been ranked #1 in North America since 2018.
The history of UCalgary’s Kinesiology School dates back to 1945, when the University of Alberta, at Calgary hired Lou Goodwin to be its first physical training instructor. Dr. Goodwin retired as Dean of the Faculty of Physical Education and Dr. Roger Jackson who took over the reins in 1978, transformed the school into a major international player using the 1988 Calgary Winter Olympics as the launching pad. The Olympics enabled new research opportunities, new facilities and state-of-art equipment for the faculty. Under Jackson’s leadership, UCalgary helped contribute to the most successful games and positioning the university as hub for a high-performance athlete community.
In 2012, the International Olympic Committee Medical and Scientific Department named the University of Calgary’s Kinesiology’s Sport Injury Prevention Research Centre as an “international research site for sport injury prevention.” Today, UCalgary researchers play an integral role concussion research, which includes a $12 million grant from National Football League’s Scientific Advisory Board.
Who knew one of the legacies of the 1988 Winter Olympics would be a world-class kinesiology faculty at the UCalgary.
Last Word
An exciting synergy is happening at the University of Calgary between medical, life sciences, kinesiology and technology research, a synergy with the potential to help foster the diversification of Calgary’s economy.
While no doubt every university has its bragging sheet, it is encouraging to see the University of Calgary has evolved from a start-up, to an important research centre in medicine, life sciences and kinesiology. While undergraduates come and go, it is critical the private sector and governments invest strategically in post-graduate research programs that will attract young research talent from around the world to Calgary. They are key to the economic diversification of our city and province.
It should also be noted that Calgary’s last two Mayors have been UCalgary graduates, as well as a recent Canadian Prime Minister.
If you like this blog, you will like these links:
Calgary’s Learning City is blooming!
Calgary is evolving into Five cities.
University of Calgary’s Public Art Gets No Respect!