Canada’s No. 1 comprehensive research university

In 2009, the University of Waterloo was ranked Canada’s No. 1 comprehensive research university for the second year in a row in the annual “Canada Top 50 Research Universities” survey conducted by the national consulting firm Research Infosource.

In 2008/09, our faculty, staff, and students attracted $141 million from public and private sources to fund research across a spectrum of challenges.

Michael Worswick (right), mechanical and mechatronics engineering, is an investigator with the Waterloo Centre for Automotive Research (WatCAR), the largest university-based hub of automotive research activity in Canada. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Lightweight Materials under Extreme Deformation: Forming and Impact. Researchers in engineering, applied health sciences, mathematics, and science are designing the vehicle of the future — light-weight, safe and smart, powered by alternative fuels, environmentally sustainable, and user-friendly.

Robert de Loë (left) is an environment and resource studies professor who holds the University Research Chair in Water Policy and Governance. He is carrying out a nation-wide survey of source water protection policies, to find out what works best to protect our watersheds.

De Loë is a member of the UW-based Canadian Water Network (CWN). Researchers in all six faculties participate in six Ontario Centres of Excellence and 15 Networks of Centres of Excellence. Waterloo researchers have participated in 26 of the 34 NCEs founded so far and are involved in three of the five 2006 NCE New Initiatives.

Janusz Pawliszyn (right), chemistry, received the 2008 EnCana Principal Award from the Ernest C. Manning Foundation for his invention of solid-phase microextraction, a technology that has greatly enhanced and speeded up the process of chemical testing.

Pawliszyn holds the Canada Research Chair and NSERC Industrial Research Chair in New Analytical Methods and Technologies. In all, 59 Canada Research Chairs have been assigned to the University of Waterloo. We also have nine currently active industrially sponsored NSERC research chairs, and our Intellectual Property Management Group helps researchers commercialize the results of their research.

UW’s Institute for Quantum Computing (IQC) is led by physics professor Raymond Laflamme (second from left, with his students), world-renowned as a pioneer in quantum information. The institute brings together researchers from engineering, mathematics, and science to drive towards the future of information processing. There are 35 formal centres and institutes on campus, most with an interdisciplinary approach and many with a global presence.

Psychology professor Geoffrey Fong (right) leads the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project, with researchers in 17 countries evaluating the impact of tobacco control policies worldwide on smoking reduction. The project is one of UW’s more than 340 international linkage agreements, collaborative activities, and education and research projects in 57 countries around the world.

Waterloo works with the private sector

Together with our industry partners, we conduct problem-solving research and transfer new knowledge and advances in technology to society for the benefit of all.

Grace Yi is a biostatistician in the math faculty who is developing innovative statistical methods to solve the problem of missing or imperfect data in medical studies.

Safa Elgamal (left), a kinesiology professor based in the Schlegel-UW Research Institute for Aging in applied health sciences, studies the impact of exercise on the cognitive functions of elderly people, including Alzheimer’s disease patients.

Other UW researchers are working to:

• prevent cancer
• save wetlands
• conserve and clean up water
• diagnose disease faster
• make online information more secure
• help children learn
• improve wireless communications
• prevent hydro blackouts
• build “greener” cars, more durable pavements, prosthetics for the disabled, and healthier buildings

Our students do research, too

At Waterloo our undergraduate research internship program gives students practical experience in conducting research early in their academic careers.

At the graduate level we aim to produce tomorrow’s top scholars and innovators, people like Aaditeshwar Seth. As a computer science doctoral student in 2008, Seth won the Knight News Challenge Award for creating software to significantly cut the costs of setting up non-profit radio stations in rural India — an innovation that will help remote communities develop.

In 2008, for the second year in a row, UW placed among the top three universities in Canada to receive NSERC scholarships. More than $4.5 million was awarded to UW students to support their research in fields from climate change to wireless communications.

Waterloo researchers collaborate

UW and Wilfrid Laurier University researchers work together in the Balsillie School of International Affairs, based in the Faculty of Arts. UW researchers are also actively involved in the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, a community of internationally renowned scientists dedicated to investigating fundamental issues in theoretical physics, and the Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI), a group dedicated to supporting improvements in the system of multilateral governance.