91Ö±²¥

Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program: Information for OISE faculty

The University of Toronto’s Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program provides funding to increase opportunities for hiring postdoctoral fellows from underrepresented groups, specifically researchers who identify as Black and/or Indigenous to Turtle Island. These fellowships enable postdoctoral researchers to grow their scholarly profiles, undertake academic work at the University of Toronto, and strengthen our research environment with diverse perspectives. 

The program provides funding to engage a limited number of postdoctoral fellows across the University. Each award provides $80,000 per year to support up to two years of postdoctoral salary and benefits, which OISE will supplement with $10,000 per year in start-up funding. 

This is a two-stage competition; an OISE selection committee will evaluate eligible applications and select the most competitive among them for advancement to a university-wide competition, conducted by the School of Graduate Studies. The OISE Research office is pleased to work with those selected prospective postdoctoral fellows and supervisors to support the strongest possible nomination packages for the university-wide competition. 

Prestigious postdoctoral awards are an important pathway toward further academic opportunities at OISE, the University of Toronto, and peer institutions, and our expectation is that this program will contribute to the overall diversity and excellence of research and teaching at OISE and the University over a longer term. As such, applications from outstanding researchers external to OISE and the University are especially encouraged. The award is open to both domestic and international candidates, and is ideally positioned to promote new research connections between OISE faculty and talented scholars from diverse backgrounds. 

. Details regarding eligibility and instructions for applicants may be found in this call for applications. 

Procedures for OISE faculty members:

Should an applicant reach out to you, please consider the quality and fit of their research and consider supporting applicants of promise or referring them to a colleague. (Please note that supervising faculty require graduate appointments that extend for the duration of the award—normally two years.) 

If you would like to support an applicant for this award, establish a firm deadline for them to submit their application materials to you (CV, brief biography, 2-page research or scholarship proposal, and training statement) that will allow you to prepare a nomination letter in time to meet the internal deadline for supervisors of March 2, 2026. 

Faculty supporting an application and willing to serve as supervisor should prepare a nomination letter/supervisor statement (max. 2 pages). The strength of these letters will be one of the main criteria upon which applications are assessed, at both the OISE and University levels. Statements should:

  1. describe the complementarity between the research interests/background of the supervisor and nominee, how the proposed research complements the supervisor’s ongoing projects and/or new research directions, and the anticipated mutual benefits;
  2. reveal information specific to the field of study (e.g., benchmarks of excellence, publication norms/standards/practices, impact factor of research contributions) that would otherwise not be known outside the discipline;
  3. provide details regarding the applicant’s proposed research environment, clearly stating the supervisor’s and department’s commitment. Examples of commitment include (but are not limited to) mentorship, opportunities for collaboration, dissemination, and/or knowledge translation, resources (e.g., funding, facilities, personnel) that will be available to support the nominee as they carry out their proposed research; and
  4. illustrate the supervisor’s commitment to the applicant’s academic and professional trajectory, clearly indicating the resources and/or mentoring activities that are available through the training environment to support career development.

Supervisors are responsible for submitting all application materials (applicant’s CV, bio, research proposal, and training statement, plus the faculty member’s nomination letter) as a single PDF file by March 2, 2026, .  

Results of the competition are expected to be known in mid June 2026, and applicants and faculty sponsors will be notified of the outcome of their application at that time.