Facts and Figures

Research Impact

• Since 2008, SFU has topped the comprehensive universities in the impact of its publications, measured by the probability of an article being cited in peer-reviewed journals.
  
  
• The 2013 Times Higher Education 100 Under 50 rankinglists SFU as #26 in overall performance among the world's youngest institutions. SFU's rankings in the research and citations categories is higher than in 2012. Compared to the University of Victoria, the other BC university included on this list (at #20), SFU obtained the same score for its research volume, income and reputation but a lower score in citations.
  
  
• The 2013 Leiden Rankings report that SFU's publications are cited above the word average in two fields: Life and Earth Sciences, and Social Sciences & Humanities.
  
  
• In its comprehensive university category, the 2013 Maclean's University Rankings cites SFU both for awards (second only to Waterloo in number of awards (5) per 1,000 full-time faculty members), and for grant success (first in the average size and number of NSERC/CIHR grants and second in SSHRC grants).

• SFU researchers participate in research panels, editorial boards of academic journals, and granting committees.

• SFU researchers promote evidence-based decision making through targeted research projects and participation in policy panels and public dialogues.

• SFU facilitates interactions between academic and industrial researchers and nurtures productive research partnerships nationally and internationally.

• The University works with government agencies, centres of excellence such as the Centre for Drug Research and Development, and BC’s health authorities to create novel approaches for improving human health and wellbeing.

• The SFU Library plays a leading role in the open access movement and the digitization of academic and cultural resources.

• SFU researchers are being increasingly recognized with prestigious external awards and fellowships.

• SFU’s new models of knowledge mobilization, its progressive intellectual property policy, and its synergistic and collaborative Strategic Research Plan are taking ideas from innovation to application.

Research Output

• In the decade 1999-2009, SFU researchers achieved a greater growth in the number of research publications than any other comprehensive university in Canada. SFU researchers produced 526 publications in 1999, and 1,078 publications in 2008: a growth of 105% compared to an average growth of 64% among the Canadian universities.
  

• SFU ranks in the top four of Canada's comprehensive universities in publication intensity, the average number of publications per full-time faculty member. Between 2004 and 2009, SFU's publication intensity grew by almost 30% compared to the average growth of 25% among the Canadian universities.

For more details on the above, please see Spotlight: University Research Publication Intensity Growth 2004-2009 from Re$earch Infosource.

• Just over 50% of SFU's Web of Science publications have been co-authored by two or more countries. This high level of international collaboration makes SFU 2nd in Canada in the Leiden Rankings 2013 . Also notable is that SFU comes in 2nd in Canada for the greatest geographical distance between SFU and its collaborators — 4871 kilometers.
  
  
• The 2012 field-normalized ranking of Canadian universities by Higher Education Strategy Associates (HESA) places SFU in the top 10, ahead of many U-15 institutions, both in science and engineering (#6 overall), and social sciences and humanities (#10 overall).

While many universities employ a conventional lab-to-market model of innovation, SFU’s strategy focuses on solving practical problems and creating transformative technologies in key and emergent sectors, such as health, digital media, and green technology.

SFU takes a full-cycle approach to innovation, from pedagogy through to delivery and beyond. Students can develop business skills and new venture ideas through workshops, internships, individual courses, Bachelor’s or Master’s-level degrees with an entrepreneurial focus, the entrepreneurship@SFU program in business and engineering, and the RADIUS Social Innovation Lab & Venture Incubator. Students, staff, and faculty can put their ideas into action with the support of Venture Connection™ concept validation and mentorship programs and VentureLabs™ business accelerator. These programs link collaborators with supporting networks in the innovation ecosystem—entrepreneurs, industry, academic institutions, government, markets, customers and investors—in an overall strategy to integrate the “supply-push” of research with the “demand-pull” of businesses. For example, the SFU Green Tech Exchange™ program brings together leaders in the field with entrepreneurs, researchers, investors, and government representatives in a monthly networking forum aimed at empowering the local green tech ecosystem.

These new models along with the technology and market assessment, intellectual property and licensing services provided by the SFU Innovation Office ensure that the necessary conditions are in place for successful university technologies, entrepreneurs, startup and spin-out companies and industrial partnerships.

• In the past decade, SFU has spun-out, mentored, incubated and assisted over two hundred companies, adding more than 2,400 jobs to our economy and contributing an estimated $186 million in annual tax revenues. In SFU’s case, for each dollar invested in entrepreneurship and business incubation programs from government funding agencies, the University provides four dollars of in‐kind support.
  
• The Impact Group's 2012 report on invention disclosures of Canadian universities places SFU in the top 10 for invention disclosures per million dollars of research funding—a measure of "bang for the buck."