Healthy Research Teams & Labs

Overview

The Healthy Research Teams & Labs initiative 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

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

A colorful pie chart with seven sections: equity and belonging, group collaboration, leadership, professional development, research innovation and integrity, advising and mentorship, and wellbeing.

Equity and Belonging: fostering a welcoming, respectful, and fair 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 diverse careers
Research Innovation and Integrity: promoting research curiosity, creativity, innovation, openness, honesty, rigour, and professionalism
Supervision and Mentorship: supporting positive supervisory and mentoring relationships that foster empowered learners
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 supports 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. The next call for applications will be in fall 2025.

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 team environments welcoming, creative, and collaborative.

The Healthy Research Teams & Labs Spotlight Awards are now open to nominations, with a deadline of June 27, 2025.

Learn more and submit a nomination

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. Fall 2025 events are listed below, with registration links coming soon:

How to give more effective writing feedback to graduate students (October 23, 12-1:30pm, online)

Healthy Research Teams & Labs Symposium (November 12, in person)

How to help your students get the most out of their individual development plan (November 21, 12-1pm, online)

The Healthy Research Teams & Labs Commitment

In collaboration with the Council of Graduate Schools, help us foster welcoming, collaborative, and innovative research environments for students by committing to the Healthy Research Teams & Labs initiative.

Make the Commitment

History

Below is an index of the reports and announcements leading to the development of the Healthy Research Teams & Labs initiative:

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

The Healthy Research Teams & Labs initiative 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