September 19, 2012
Media tips & leads
UVic Gets Top Marks For Inventiveness
The University of Victoria is one of Canada’s most inventive universities, according to a new report by The Impact Group.
The report tracks the number of invention disclosures at 28 universities across the country in 2010 to determine how adept or prolific they are at producing inventions. “Invention disclosures” refers to the requirement that researchers disclose to their institution all ideas arising from their research that may have commercial potential. Every patent begins its life as a disclosure, although most disclosures don’t get that far.
When invention disclosures are measured against total research funding, UVic is second in the country, with one disclosure per $1.49 million of funding. (Ontario’s University of Guelph is first with one disclosure per $1 million.) Larger institutions tend to produce fewer disclosures—for example, the University of Toronto shows one disclosure per $4.05 million in funding.
When invention disclosures are compared to the number of full-time faculty members, UVic comes in third (behind Guelph and Queen’s University), with nearly one disclosure for every 10 faculty members. That’s double the Canadian university average.
On average, UVic logs about 63 invention disclosures per year. Those that have led to successful commercialization—such as a patent or spin-off company—include Sophiris Bio (drug therapeutics), Plurilock (data security), MRM Proteomics (medical diagnostics) and Dynamic Systems Analysis (engineering software), among others.
“This study is one more measure of how committed our faculty and student researchers are to sharing their ideas and innovations with the wider community for the benefit of society,” says Dr. Howard Brunt, UVic’s vice-president research. “After all, the real evidence of our research success is how we’re helping to make a difference in the world around us.”
The Impact Group report is available at http://www.impactg.com/index.php?descript=Publications
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Media Contacts:Valerie Shore (UVic Communications) at 250-721-7641 or vshore@uvic.ca
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