Region : Alberta
City : Edmonton
Web site : www.ualberta.ca
The University of Alberta (also known as U of A and UAlberta) is a public research university located in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. It was founded in 1908 by Alexander Cameron Rutherford, the first premier of Alberta, and Henry Marshall Tory, its first president. Its enabling legislation is the Post-secondary Learning Act.
The university comprises four campuses in Edmonton, the Augustana Campus in Camrose, and a staff centre in downtown Calgary. The original north campus consists of 150 buildings covering 50 city blocks on the south rim of the North Saskatchewan River valley, directly across from downtown Edmonton. 39,000 students from Canada and 150 other countries participate in 400 programs in 18 faculties.
The University of Alberta is a major economic driver in Alberta. The university’s impact on the Alberta economy is an estimated $12.3 billion annually, or five per cent of the province’s gross domestic product. With more than 15,000 employees, the university is Alberta's fourth-largest employer.
The university has been recognized by the Academic Ranking of World Universities, the QS World University Rankings and the Times Higher Education World University Rankings as one of the top five universities in Canada and one of the top 100 universities worldwide.
According to the 2014 QS World University Rankings the top Faculty Area at the University of Alberta is Arts and Humanities (ranked 89th in the world), and the top-ranked Subject is English Language and Literature (22nd in the world).
The University of Alberta is also a leading institution for the study of Ukraine and is home to the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies.
The University of Alberta has graduated more than 260,000 alumni, including Governor General Roland Michener; Prime Minister Joe Clark; Chief Justice of Canada Beverley McLachlin; Alberta premiers Peter Lougheed, Dave Hancock, Jim Prentice and Rachel Notley; Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson and Nobel laureate Richard E. Taylor.
The university is a member of the Alberta Rural Development Network, the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education and the Sustainability Tracking, Assessment & Rating System.
The university has eighteen faculties:
The university has two affiliated colleges:
Housing over 400 distinct research laboratories, the University of Alberta is one of the leading research universities in Canada. The university is a member of the U15 universities and the Worldwide Universities Network, an organization of 19 universities on six continents. The university receives nearly $500 million each year for research from external sources.
The University of Alberta is the national scientific and administrative headquarters for:
Researchers at the University of Alberta have made discoveries in a number of fields.
The Faculty of Arts includes eight Canada Research Chairs in fields as diverse as English and Film Studies, Sociology, Philosophy, Art and Design, and History and Classics.
In 2014 the Department of English and Film Studies ranked #22 in the World QS University Rankings by subject.
In June 2006, a $120-million building for the National Institute for Nanotechnology (NINT) was opened on campus. The NINT complex is one of the world’s most technologically advanced research facilities, housing the quietest and cleanest laboratory space in Canada. NINT occupies five floors of the new building, with the top two floors being reserved by the university for nanotechnology-related research. Some staff members have been jointly recruited by the NRC and the University of Alberta.
The University of Alberta is home to the Canadian Circumpolar Institute, which supports research into social and environmental issues including climate change, cultural identity and natural resource development.
In 2011, researchers at the University of Alberta linked the reproductive ecology of polar bears in Canada's Hudson Bay with decreasing litter sizes and loss of sea ice.
Cattle researcher Roy Berg revolutionized the world's beef industry with his innovations in crossbreeding, which led to a 30 to 40 per cent increase in production and contributed to Alberta's world leadership in beef production.
In the 1920s, engineering professor Karl Clark developed a hot-water extraction process to separate bitumen from oilsands. Geology professor Charlie Stelck's idea to search for oil and gas deposits near ancient coral reefs led to the discovery of oil in Leduc, Alberta, in 1947 and in the Pembina Oil Field in 1953. Today, more than 1,000 researchers at the University of Alberta are working together on oilsands issues and their environmental effects, including carbon capture and storage, tailings-pond reclamation and water preservation.
University of Alberta’s SLOWPOKE-2 non-power reactor operating licence was renewed and will be valid from July 1, 2013 until June 30, 2023. The SLOWPOKE reactor is used for research and education
The university ranks among the top five universities in Canada and among the top public research universities worldwide.
In 2015 the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities rated the university 64th in the world, 48th in North America and 3rd in Canada.
The 2014-2015 University Ranking by Academic Performance rated the university 72nd in the world, 34th in North America and 4th in Canada. According to this ranking each of the following areas was placed within the top 100 worldwide: Environmental Sciences (31st), Education (32nd), Biological Sciences (69th), Earth Sciences (57th), Agricultural & Veterinary Sciences (39th), Information & Computing Sciences (37th), Engineering (81st), Technology (84th), Medical & Health Sciences (74th), Commerce-Management-Tourism (59th), Psychology & Cognitive Sciences (99th), Language-Communication-Culture (45th), History & Archaeology (54th), Philosophy & Religious Studies (83rd) and Multidisciplinary Studies (98th).
In 2014-15 QS World University Rankings ranked the university 84th overall in the world and 5th in Canada. According to this assessment, the top Faculty Area at the University of Alberta is Arts and Humanities (ranked 89th in the world), followed by Life Sciences and Medicine (ranked 91st), Natural Science (ranked 135th), Engineering and Technology (ranked 141st), and Social Sciences and Management (ranked 158th). The University of Alberta's top-ranked Subject is English Language and Literature (22nd in the world).
In its 2016 ranking of more than 25,000 institutions, the Center for World University Rankings rated the university fourth in Canada and 101st in the world. Among the subcategories in the CWUR ranking, the university ranked 66th in publications and 78th in citations.
The 2015 U.S. News & World Report Global University Ranking placed the university globally in 108th position overall, 51st in Agricultural Sciences, 53rd in Computer Sciences, 54th in Engineering, 77th in Clinical medicine, 78th in Plant and Animal Sciences, 85th in Economics and Business, 87th in Biology and Biochemistry, 92nd in Social Sciences and Public Health, and 93rd in mathematics.
The university ranked 87th in the world among universities granted U.S. patents in 2015, according to a report by the National Academy of Inventors.
In 2016, the University of Alberta was named one of "Canada's Greenest Employers" by Mediacorp Canada Inc. for the eighth straight year. The university was also named one of Alberta's Top Employers for the fourth consecutive year in 2012.
The Globe and Mail's University Report reflects the opinions of more than 35,000 undergraduates who responded to some 100 questions about their respective universities. The University of Alberta received scores of B+ and above in the following categories:
The university has been the subject of several recent scandals. In 2011, the school's dean of medicine resigned after plagiarizing much of his graduation address. In 2012, the University's Psychiatry department chair was placed on leave before officially beginning his duties after allegations emerged of an inappropriate sexual relationship with a patient.
$1.6 billion in construction has been undertaken at the university related to fields in health and science. The projects expand the University of Alberta's research capacity in the field of health. Over the past five years, the University of Alberta has averaged nearly $500 million in external research funding a year. The funding is expected to increase due to added research and teaching capacity.
A major project, completed in the spring of 2011 with a grand opening on September 23, 2011, was the $400-million, Centennial Centre for Interdisciplinary Science (CCIS), a facility for interdisciplinary research groups, as well as the Department of Physics, the Faculty of Science offices and the Interdepartmental Science Students' Society's office. Three buildings – V-Wing (a large one-floor building composed of 10 lecture halls, of which two will remain), the Avadh Bhatia Physics Building (a six-storey building formerly housing the Department of Physics offices and laboratories), and the old Centre for Subatomic Research – were demolished to make way for CCIS.
The Edmonton Clinic (formerly the Health Science Ambulatory Learning Centre) is a joint project with Alberta Health Services, and consists of two separate buildings. Construction started in 2008 on the multidisciplinary health science facilities totalling $909 million and 170,000 square metres surrounding the Health Sciences LRT Station. Edmonton Clinic South (now known as Kaye Edmonton Clinic), a nine-storey building, will focus on patient care and house most of the medical and dental clinics, while the Edmonton Clinic Health Academy is a six-storey building that is the home of interdisciplinary health research and education currently held at the university. The Edmonton Clinic Health Academy, owned and operated by the University of Alberta, officially opened in January 2012. The Kaye Edmonton Clinic, owned and operated by Alberta Health Services, opened in December 2012.
Two new $300-million buildings adjacent to the Heritage Medical Research Centre building on the main campus, along with existing health-care and health research facilities and the Edmonton Clinic Health Academy, form a health precinct of two city blocks dedicated to health research, education and patient care. The newest facilities form a translational research centre designed to create an environment for "bench-to-bedside" health research by increasing interaction between researchers and clinicians focused on common medical issues. A total of 65,000 square metres (699,700 square feet) gross area constructed on two sites contribute to research by allowing the university to hire over 100 additional biomedical and health researchers. This is projected to result in a doubling of research funding by 2014.
The hub of the complex is the Katz Group Centre for Pharmacy and Health Research (formerly HRIF West), an eight-storey building that provides the main entrance to the complex and becomes the critical link between Medical Sciences Building and Heritage Medical Research Centre. The Katz Group Centre is a teaching and research facility. It is home to the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology, led by scientific director Lorne Tyrrell, MD, PhD, and includes some of the world's top virologists, including Michael Houghton, PhD, Canada Excellence Research Chair and Li Ka Shing Chair in Virology, who co-led the team that discovered the hepatitis C virus during his previous career in private industry. The facility is located on the corner of 89 Avenue and 114 Street in Edmonton, Alberta.
The Li Ka Shing Centre for Health Research Innovation (formerly HRIF East) anchors the southeast corner of the health precinct and is also home to the Alberta Diabetes Institute (ADI). Both the east and west buildings of HRIF are linked at every floor to the Heritage Medical Research Centre with the exception of Level 1 of HRIF West. The facility is dedicated to health research and boasts state-of-the-art laboratories for top researchers, including several Canada Research Chairs. The facility is named in honour of a gift in 2010 of $28 million from the Li Ka Shing (Canada) Foundation that helped establish the Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology ($25M) and a joint PhD program ($3M) between the university's Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry and Shantou University Medical College in China. As of fall 2012, this remains the largest single cash gift to the University of Alberta. The facility is located on the corner of 89 Avenue and 112 Street in Edmonton, Alberta.
Sources : Wikipedia, www.ualberta.ca
