This is the first in a monthly series of articles celebrating research breakthroughs and successes at Brock University over the past 60 years. To read other stories in the series, visit The Brock News.

More than three decades ago, Wendy Hollinshead had a very busy job. As Brock University’s only Research Grants Officer, she advised faculty on where to find funding, guided their application processes and was Brock’s liaison to granting agencies.  

At the time, much of the social sciences and humanities research was funded by individual researchers, but scientists often had to rely on outside funding because of high research costs, notes a January 1991 Campus News article.

That grants officer position has since evolved into a Research Funding Support unit, including six research officers and their manager who administer funding for all disciplines. The Office of Research Services (ORS) also includes personnel in accounting, legal counsel and research impact to provide support throughout the research lifecycle.

In addition to ORS are four other offices within the Research Enterprise: the Office of Research Ethics and Animal Care Services, both of which serve essential research compliance roles; Brock LINC, the hub for commercialization, entrepreneurship and industry partnership support; and the Office of the Vice-President, Research (VPR), which guides the strategic direction of the overall Research Enterprise.

“The Research Enterprise is there to champion our researchers, to be a catalyst for research activity and to help them be compliant with all steps and regulatory requirements in an increasingly complex system,” says Acting VPR Michelle McGinn.

The terrain has shifted substantially since Brock’s early days when National Research Council and Canada Council grants first began to trickle in. Subsequent decades saw big increases in the variety and value of government and private funding, a rapid expansion of infrastructure and research topics in all Faculties, and extensive outreach to community and industry.

It was the appointment of the late Professor of Chemistry Jack Miller as Brock’s first Associate Vice-President, Research in 1999 that kick-started the set-up of a University-wide research support structure.

“One of my goals will be to increase Brock’s share of the total research ‘pie’ available to Canadian researchers,” Miller wrote in the Fall 1999 issue of Surgite.

“This will also involve fostering partnerships both within Brock and between Brock and other institutions,” he said, adding that “collaborative research is one of Brock’s strengths and must be encouraged.”

Twenty-five years later, Miller’s research vision has been realized.

The Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute (CCOVI), established in 1996, put Brock University on the world map with its cutting-edge collaborations, programs and technologies to develop the Canadian grape and wine industry.

A $5-million investment by the federal government in 2019 enabled the creation of the Brock-Niagara Validation, Prototyping and Manufacturing Institute (VPMI) aimed at making Niagara a research and innovation leader in bioagriculture, bioscience and chemical manufacturing sectors.

A culture of research collaboration bore fruit through the establishment of more than a dozen research institutes and centres.

Supports continued to grow from Miller’s small office into the system of today. The Office of the VPR has evolved to include support for Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) and honours, prizes, awards and distinctions (HPAD), among others.

“EDI prompts us to think carefully about who has opportunities and who encounters barriers in engaging in research and the steps we can take individually and collectively to open up their research community so that we can benefit from new insights and answer more challenging questions,” says McGinn.

The HPAD program supports faculty to apply to, or be nominated for, programs recognizing academic excellence such as membership in the Royal Society of Canada.

These and other efforts over the decades have fostered Brock’s research reputation nationally and internationally.

In the early 2000s the Canadian government established the Canada Research Chairs (CRC) Program to recognize, and fund, world-class researchers considered by their peers to be leaders in their field.

Professor of Biological Sciences Vincenzo De Luca was granted Brock’s first CRC position for groundbreaking innovations in plant biochemistry and biotechnology. The University now has 12 active CRCs, with more to be announced.

Hundreds of measures rank research reputation internationally, one of which is Stanford University’s list of the world’s top two per cent of scientists with the most citations. Dozens of Brock faculty appear on that list.

“Brock has evolved in the past 60 years from a regional undergraduate institution into a comprehensive research university with a broad mix of graduate programs and a deep record of impactful research that touches all elements of society,” says McGinn.

“The depth of contributions from Brock’s researchers and research administrators is astounding,” she says.