Healthy Research Teams & Labs Initiative

Overview

Healthy Research Teams & Labs celebrates promising practices to foster healthy research team environments in the University of Toronto community. The initiative includes educational programming, seed funding, and spotlight awards. Together, these program components are designed to promote a culture of continual learning and celebration of healthy research practices that shape our research environments into welcoming, inclusive, creative, collaborative and innovative settings.

Framework

Healthy Research Teams & Labs is organized around a framework of seven facets of healthy research environments:

Equity & Belonging: fostering a diverse, inclusive, and just research community
Group Collaboration: enhancing the collaborative spirit of our research environments
Leadership: increasing breadth and depth of research leadership and management expertise
Professional Development: increasing capacity to meet trainee professional development needs for a range of possible careers
Research Innovation & Integrity: promoting research openness, honesty, rigour, and professionalism
Supervision & Mentorship: supporting positive supervisory and mentoring relationships
Well-being: prioritizing work-life balance, health and safety in the research environment, sense of belonging, and welfare

Seed Funding

The Healthy Research Teams & Labs Seed Fund will support activities that promote healthy research practices at the University of Toronto. The purpose of the fund is to improve or enhance the experience of working in research teams at the University of Toronto by supporting the development of new initiatives and accelerating the impact of already successful initiatives.

Applicants may request support for a wide array of activities. This includes:

Activities taking place within a single lab or research team
Activities involving multiple teams, within or across departments
Projects aimed at the institutional level

This three-year pilot project will hold calls twice yearly or until the funding is spent. An ongoing internal review and evaluation process will ensure the fund is updated as needed to meet its goals.

Learn more and apply

Spotlight Awards

The Healthy Research Teams & Labs Spotlight Awards recognize activities that improve U of T’s research culture. The goal of the Spotlight Awards is to highlight healthy research practices as well as other activities that make our research environments welcoming, creative, and collaborative.

The Healthy Research Teams & Labs Spotlight Awards will open to nominations in spring 2025.

Education and Events

The goal of Healthy Research Teams & Labs education program is to identify, explain and promote healthy research practices at the University of Toronto. Spring 2025 events are listed below.

What graduate students need to know about intellectual property
Wednesday, April 9, 12 – 1:30 pm, online

What supervisors need to know about graduate students’ intellectual property
Friday, April 11, 12 – 1:30 pm, online

How to get the most out of your individual development plan
Wednesday, May 7, 12-1 pm, online

History

Below are links to reports and announcements leading to the development of Healthy Research Teams & Labs:

Update on the Healthy Lab Initiative (Provost’s Digest, December 3, 2020)
Promoting a Healthy Lab Culture at the University of Toronto: Final Report (2020)
Appointment of Professor Reinhart Reithmeier as Special Advisor on the Healthy Labs Initiative (December 11, 2019)
Five mental health and wellness developments U of T students need to know (U of T News, January 29, 2020)
2018-2019 Office of the Ombudsperson Annual Report and Administrative Response (2019)

Project Leadership

Healthy Research Teams & Labs was developed as a collaboration between the School of Graduate Studies and the Research Oversight & Compliance Office under the leadership of:

Professor Joshua Barker, Dean, School of Graduate Studies and Vice-Provost Graduate Research & Education (Co-Lead)
Professor Lorraine Ferris, Associate Vice-President, Research Oversight & Compliance (Co-Lead)
Professor Vina Goghari, Vice-Dean, Research and Program Innovation, School of Graduate Studies
Professor Vince Tropepe, Vice-Dean, Research, Faculty of Arts & Sciences
Professor Kelly Lyons, Acting Vice-Dean, Research and Program Innovation, School of Graduate Studies