Seed Funding

Goals

The goals of the Healthy Research Teams Seed Fund are to identify promising initiatives across the institution, to support the development and delivery of grassroots efforts to enhance research culture, and to help successful initiatives scale for a wider audience. To advance these goals, proposals must align with at least one of the following priority areas, consistent with the Healthy Research Teams Initiative organizing framework: 

  • Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion: Fostering a diverse, inclusive, and just research community 
  • Group Collaboration: Enhancing the collaborative spirit of our research environments 
  • Leadership: Broadening and deepening research leadership and management expertise 
  • Professional Development: Increasing capacity to meet trainee professional development needs for diverse careers 
  • Research Integrity: Promoting 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 

We are particularly interested in proposals for activities that benefit underserved groups in our research ecosystem or that can readily serve as promising practice exemplars for replication by others. 

While the fund is not primarily intended as a research grant, proposals that include an original research component may be considered. If applicants wish to include a research component, they should make contact first to discuss eligibility and explain why the fund is the best available support. Any proposal involving research must ensure all ethical and other necessary approvals are in place before undertaking any activity.  

Eligibility

We welcome applications from faculty with graduate faculty membership, librarians, graduate students in good academic standing, postdoctoral fellows, and research staff. While solo applicants are allowed, collaborative applications and trainee co-applicants are particularly welcome. 

Funding Amounts 

The Seed Fund will support up to $50,000 worth of projects on an annual basis. We expect to hold two calls for applications each year. There is no minimum budget – small proposals are welcome. The maximum award will usually be no more than $5000. However, if an applicant wishes to propose a larger-scale activity, SGS will consider such requests on a case-by-case basis.  

Funds are expected to be spent within 12 months of an award.  

Ineligible costs include basic equipment and software costs, faculty/librarian salary support, and routine conference travel to present academic work. 

Matched funds, in-kind contributions, or access to supplementary funding are not required but may strengthen a proposal.  

Applicants unsure of the eligibility of a proposed expense are encouraged to contact cgpd@utoronto.ca to clarify eligibility. 

Evaluation Process

Proposals will be evaluated and approved by CGPD staff and members of the SGS decanal team. 

Applications will be assessed on:  

  1. The potential impact of the proposed initiative. 
  2. The feasibility of the proposed initiative. 
  3. Alignment with the Healthy Research Teams framework. 

The evaluation process is intended to be formative. Proposals that are not funded may be invited to resubmit. 

Application Information 

 Interested applicants should submit an expression of interest via email to cgpd@utoronto.ca with the following elements: 

  1. A one-paragraph description of the proposed activity. 
  2. The proposed budget amount. 
  3. Ways in which the learnings or outputs of the proposed initiative will be shared with the University of Toronto community. This could include, for example, blogs, reports, events, templates, webinars, and other guide documents or resources. 

This information will be used to assess eligibility and available support. Applicants requesting $500 or less may be asked additional questions of clarification by the CGPD team. Applicants requesting more than $500 will be asked to submit an application form including a more detailed description of their proposed activity and impact, along with a more detailed budget.  

A signature of approval from the unit head or chair will be requested. A signature of approval from a faculty supervisor will also be required for applications led by graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, or research staff where no faculty member is a co-applicant.  

As a condition of funding, applicants must produce a brief report at the conclusion of funding designed to be instructive for other U of T research teams Applications should also detail additional potential outputs. Where suitable, SGS will also facilitate sharing these outputs. 

The Seed Fund is now now accepting applications with a deadline of February 28, 2025.