From the Provost’s Desk (December 2025)
Championing research at U of T
One of the chief functions of universities is to drive discovery through rigorous research. U of T is excellent at this task. In fact, we were recently named 4th in the world for research impact, and 2nd among public universities globally in the annual NTU rankings. Only Harvard, Stanford, and University College London scored higher. Moreover, we continuously place in the top 25 universities in the world in nearly all other rankings – due in no small part to our research prowess.
These accomplishments are thanks to the incredible work of our faculty members across all our campuses and disciplines. And we are only getting better. The productive and collaborative partnerships between early career researchers and established faculty members are so important – they sustain excellent research over time, which in turn attracts vital funding, awards and honours, and talented students and faculty members. For these reasons, we have recently committed to investing in new programs that will help strengthen those relationships to the benefit of all.
These new initiatives are designed to support young and seasoned researchers alike. This fall, we announced that we will be funding 100 additional two-year postdoctoral positions and offering new grants for our current postdoctoral fellows. At the same time, we are attracting internationally established professors to complement our stellar research talent. With these programs, we are augmenting our capacity for groundbreaking, world-changing discovery, and reinforcing the University of Toronto as a top destination for the world’s brightest scholars at all levels.
Research Excellence Postdoctoral Fellows (REPF) Program
This program provides up to two years of funding at $80,000/year, plus an additional $10,000 per year for independent research, for 100 new postdoctoral fellows across the university. By creating the conditions for both mentorship and autonomy, the program aims to bridge the critical gap between doctoral training and independent academic careers. Fellows are expected to develop and lead their own research agenda, distinct from but complementary to their supervisor’s work, which will position them for future faculty appointments or leadership roles in research-intensive environments. At the same time, this funding offers supervisors and PIs an opportunity to recruit exceptional postdoctoral scholars to their research programs, whose independent projects will potentially open new and promising avenues of related inquiry.
Postdoctoral Competitive Research Awards (PCRA)
We also launched a program that ensures that existing postdoctoral fellows get support to develop and expand their independent research programs. The PCRA will provide awards of $10,000 or $30,000 to allow our current postdoctoral researchers to establish or enhance their own research projects.
In total, the University is investing nearly $24 million in these programs – $3 million for the PCRA and $20.9 million for the REPF program. The funding is expected to be distributed across a five-year period, with two cohorts of new fellows being funded through the REPF program. In both cases, applications and funding will be administrated at the divisional level and deadlines may vary. Information on both programs is available on the SGS Postdoctoral Talent Initiative website, with divisional processes rolling out as they are finalized.
Attracting Established Researchers to U of T
As many of you know, we have recently hired new senior faculty members who are bringing their prodigious research and teaching talent to the University. While these academics have come to us from the United States, where the current postsecondary research climate has been notably unstable, we know that attracting top academics from around the world brings tremendous energy to our campuses. We have long been successful at bringing renowned scholars to the University of Toronto, and we are keen to continue in this tradition – one that helps us in expanding our immensely successful research landscape, contributing prominently to research on the world’s most pressing challenges, and innovating for a more sustainable, productive, and just future.
The recent federal budget committed over $1.7 billion to bringing world-class researchers and academics to Canada through its International Talent Attraction Strategy. We are confident that U of T will benefit from this investment, in terms of gaining excellent new faculty members, as well as the knock-on effects of this recruitment: higher institutional profile, increased share of research grants, deeper pool of international and domestic student applications, and renewed vigour in research, teaching, and interdisciplinary collaborations.
Research is central to our mission, and the new initiatives I have mentioned here complement our many other research-focused endeavours. These include the emergency research grant program we announced in October, the increases to PhD base funding packages that came into effect this fall, and the institutional research investments continuously being made by the Institutional Strategic Initiatives Office, which currently supports twenty large-scale interdisciplinary strategic research networks across the University.
U of T is poised right now to become an even greater research force than we already are. The time is right for us to invest in research talent – from graduate students to postdoctoral fellows to tenure-stream faculty recruitment. I hope you will continue to contribute to this effort through your own labs, research programs, mentorship, teaching, and academic service – and that you will promote and take advantage of the incredible supports for research available through our new and established programs.
Wishing you all the best for the holiday season,
Trevor
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