Information Security & Cryptography Research and Development are well-established clusters in the Toronto Region

The Toronto Region is ...

The third largest ICT cluster in North America and the fourth largest financial services cluster
A growing hub of 70 companies that provide IT security products and services, including: Certicom Co., Cisco Systems Canada, Diversinet, IBM Canada, L-1 Identity Solutions, Lorex Technology Inc., McAfee Canada, Microsoft Canada, Open Text Corporation, Route1 Inc., SAP Canada, Symantec Canada, Teranet,Thomson Reuters, and Visual Defence
A leader in biometric related research and patent activity:
- Ranks #2 in scientific impact of physiological biometrics related publications, ahead of cities such as Silicon Prairie, Illinois; Hong Kong, Singapore and Seoul. Only Cambridge, England ranks higher. Canada ranks third on the country comparison behind the US and Spain.
- Ranks #4 in scientific impact of behaviourial biometrics related publications, ahead of cities such as Granada, Beijing, Paris and Nagoya. Canada ranks fifth on the country comparison behind the US, England, France and Germany.
- Ranks #6 worldwide in the number of physiological and behavioural related patents
The location of a sophisticated customer base that includes major financial institutions that are focused on IT security and developments in information seecurity research (Royal Bank of Canada, Manulife Financial, and Toronto Stock Exchange, to name a few), and corporations such as Pitney Bowes, Alcatel-Lucent, Research in Motion, Xerox Canada, and COM DEV that are
Home to the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo which are ranked among the top 10 universities in North America and are the top two Canadian universities to publish articles relating to Information systems research and cryptographic research
Producing a highly-educated and highly skilled workforce of over 5,000 graduates (at all levels) from key university and college programs in 2007

"TheToronto Region is home to one of the largest and most productive concentrations of research and development talent in the world, and serves as a portal to all of North America's major markets and institutions."

-- Dan Fortin, President, IBM Canada Ltd.

A centre of advanced information security and cryptography research

Toronto Region universities are a hub of research excellence recognized by the major Canadian granting councils. Between 1999 - 2009, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) awarded $7.1 million to crypography projects and information security research. The Canada Foundation for Innovation awarded $1.3 million to IT infrastructure security and cryptography related projects in the last 10 years.

Seven of 23 Canada Research Chairs in IT Security and Cryptography are located in the Toronto Region. The breadth and depth of research expertise has resulted in the region ranking in the #5 in North America for scientific impact based on number of citations per publication.

Prominent research institutes affiliated conduct advanced research and development in areas such as cryptography network security, cryptography algorithms, IT security architecture and IT security risk management:

McMaster University: Centre for Electrophotonic Materials and Devices
Ryerson University: The Privacy and Cyber Crime Institute
University of Ontario Institute of Technology: Hacker Research Lab
University of Toronto: Fields Institute for Research in Mathematical Sciences, Emerging Communications Technology Institute; Knowledge Media and Design Institute; Bell University Labs; Institute for Knowledge Innovation and Technology; and Centre for Quantum Information and Quantum Control
University of Waterloo: Institute for Quantum Computing; Canadian Centre of Arts and Technology; Centre for Applied Cryptographic Research; Institute for Computer Research; Centre for Computational Mathematics in Industry and Commerce; Giga-to-Nanoelectronics (G2N) Centre; and Pattern Analysis and Machine Intelligence (PAMI)

The Toronto Region is also home to world-class independent research centres, including: Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR); Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics; and Guelph-Waterloo Physics Institute (GWPI)

"...So just in terms of scale...and focus on computer science, Waterloo stands out, even on a global basis stands out very, very well?There are many years where Waterloo is the university we hired the most people from of any university in the world, and Waterloo has always been in the top five every year?"

-- Bill Gates, Founder and Chairman, Microsoft inc.

Top 10 Publishers (North America) on Computer Fraud, Risk and Security and Cryptography by University, 2000-2009
University	Publications
Harvard University	180
University of Texas	153
University of Waterloo	124
University of Toronto	118
University of Maryland	114
University of Illinois	113
Purdue University	110
University of California, Los Angeles	109
University of Washington	109
Stanford University	108

Source: ISI

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