New Canadian R&D data gives Brock University a top-2 national ranking in its category when it comes to the number and growth of research publications over the past 15 years.

According to Canada’s Top 50 Research Universities 2016 report, published annually by Research Infosource, Brock faculty produced 3,930 publications from 2000 to 2014, which is second-highest among of 14 universities listed in the report’s University Research Publications Growth 2000-2014 table.

(Note: Although Brock has had graduate programming for more than a decade and offers nearly 50 master’s and doctoral degrees, the ranking agency places Brock and other comprehensive universities in its “undergraduate” category, which Research Infosource describes as “universities with mainly undergraduate programs”.)

The average number of publications that the 14 universities produced over that 15-year period was 2,622, with a high of 5,219 and a low of 1,315.

Similarly, Brock scored second place in the growth rate of publications. Brock increased its rate of publishing 243.8 per cent from 2000 to 2014.

On average, the 14 universities listed increased their publishing at a rate of 170.5 per cent over the same period of time.

Ron Freedman, CEO of Research Infosource Inc., says Brock has come a long way from its undergraduate focus at the beginning of the millennium.

“Over a 15-year period, which is not a long time in academic terms, the University has grown substantially, both in the terms of the money that it is attracting for research, but most importantly on the output side: what it’s doing with the money in terms of academic publications.”

“Particularly in an era where resources have been flat for the last few years, Brock has done a good job at turning available resources and money into academic outputs,” he says.

Freedman notes that publications are one “standard method” of measuring an institution’s research focus.

The report defines publications as including articles, notes and reviews published by researchers affiliated with Canadian universities or research hospitals in peer-reviewed scientific international journals, covering different fields of natural science, health science and social science and humanities.

“I’m really pleased at our publication record; it demonstrates the outstanding work that our researchers and scholars at Brock are doing all across the board, in all areas of the University,” says Joffre Mercier, Brock’s vice-president research.

“We’re giving Canada a lot of ‘bang for the buck,’” he says. “We’ve done a good job securing funding and we’re continuing to work in that area – we’re in for a very good year this year.”

Research Infosource Inc., known as “Canada’s source of R&D intelligence,” tracks post-secondary institutions’ research performance in a wide variety of areas.