Teaching Awards & Grants

About Teaching Awards & Grants

The Office of the Vice-Provost, Innovations in Undergraduate Education (OVPIUE) provides support and funding for a number of awards, funding opportunities and grants for University of Toronto faculty and staff dedicated to enhancing the undergraduate academic experience through excellence and innovation in teaching. 

Teaching Awards & Grants Database

The Teaching Awards & Grants Database provides an overview of the divisional and institutional teaching awards available across the University of Toronto. You may search for a specific award or grant using the search bar, or filter the database by division, award / grant type or position at U of T. 

Search the Teaching Awards & Grants Database

Discovery Series

The OVPIUE is pleased to offer the Discovery Series. The Series aims to bring together our teaching and learning community as well as to share learnings from initiatives, awards and grants supported by our office. Each session will bring together faculty and staff for an interdivisional conversation to discuss teaching and learning approaches and practices. Our office will offer three sessions each academic year in a hybrid format.

Learn more about the Discovery Series

Funding Opportunities

Below you can find a number of institutional grants and funding opportunities that support innovation in teaching at the University of Toronto. Click on each one to learn more. 

Supported by the OVPIUE, the Learning & Education Advancement Fund (LEAF) is intended to support both small and large curricular projects that will create positive changes in the modes and mechanisms of undergraduate education at U of T, enriching the learning experience of students in first-entry undergraduate divisions.

Funding Range: $5,000 to $100,000 per year 

Funding Duration: up to 3 years 

Learn more about LEAF

Supported by the OVPIUE, the Learning & Education Advancement Fund Plus (LEAF+) is a one-year grant program that supports special topics aligned with ongoing issues in teaching and learning.

  • 2023: in collaboration with Digital Learning Innovation, LEAF+ focused on Generative Artificial Intelligence in teaching and learning. 
  • 2022: focused on the leveraging instructor capacity and interest in digitally enabled teaching strategies to create meaningful online learning experiences.

Funding Range: $5,000 to $10,000 per year

Funding Duration: 1 year (with possibility of renewal)

Learn more about LEAF+

Supported by the OVPIUE and Academic, Research & Collaborative Technologies (ARC), the Instructional Technology Innovation Fund (ITIF) is dedicated to the practical applications of technology in design, implementation, evaluation, curriculum renewal, faculty development and continuing education initiatives that enrich learning.

Funding Range: $2,000 to $5,000

Funding Duration: up to 2 years

Learn more about ITIF

The Undergraduate Course Development Fund (UCDF) fosters ongoing, mutually beneficial teaching relationships between graduate-only divisions and units and divisions that offer undergraduate degree programs. Undergraduate divisions benefit from the inclusion of leading-edge researchers into their teaching cadre, and participating faculty and their graduate divisions benefit from exposure to a broad undergraduate population. UCDF funding is enrolment based and provided to the partnering graduate division in support of their instructor participating in the program.

Funding Range: $12,500 to $50,000 (enrolment dependent)

Funding Duration: Year-to-year

Learn more about UCDF

Supported by Digital Learning Innovation (DLI), the Flexible Learning Initiative (FLI) provides funding to support instructors in the development of fully online or hybrid undergraduate courses. FLI aims to increase the range of online learning opportunities at the University of Toronto while building capacity for innovative approaches to teaching and learning. Funding will be made available to teams of three instructors who will address a focus area of strategic importance to their discipline, academic unit and/or division as they redesign a course for fully online or hybrid delivery.

Funding Range: $6,000 per instructor with maximum of $18,000 per team of 3 instructors

Funding Duration: 1 year

The FLI is not currently being offered.

Funded by the OVPIUE and facilitated by Digital Learning Innovation (DLI), the Open Course Initiative Fund (OCIF) supports the development of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) on both the Coursera and EdX platforms.

Funding Range: up to $5,000 for a single course and up to $15,000 for a series

Funding Duration: up to 2 years

Learn more about OCIF

Supported by the OVPIUE and Digital Learning Innovation (DLI), the Data-Driven Design: Quercus Record Store (D3:QRS) initiative allows instructors to explore the newly developed U of T learning analytics dashboard using data accessed through a new Quercus Record Store (QRS) infrastructure. Building on earlier cohorted programming, the 2023-2024 cycle will pilot the new dashboard, providing access to detailed reports of student activity in Quercus to inform course design decisions.

Funding Range: $1,000

Funding Duration: 6 months

The D3:QRS is not currently being offered.

Teaching Awards

“At the University of Toronto, there are many ways our faculty members manifest their excellence from research to community engagement to industry breakthroughs. This is why institutional teaching awards are so important. When a faculty member chooses to evidence their excellence through their teaching practices, we should recognize them and the care and attention, creativity and innovation that takes place within their classroom.”

Professor Susan McCahan, Vice-Provost, Innovations in Undergraduate Education

Below find a number of institutional and external awards for excellence and innovation in teaching. Learn more by clicking on each award. 

Institutional Teaching Awards

Supported by the OVPIUE, the President’s Teaching Award (PTA) recognizes faculty members who have demonstrated sustained and ongoing excellence in educational leadership, teaching excellence and educational innovation. The PTA is the highest honour for teaching at U of T. Visit the President’s Teaching Award website to learn more.

Supported by the OVPIUE, the Cheryl Regehr Early Career Teaching Award recognizes faculty who are effective teachers and demonstrate an exceptional commitment to student learning, pedagogical engagement and teaching innovation. Faculty eligible for this award have completed at least two years in a continuing-stream appointment, including tenure- and teaching-stream Assistant Professors and full-time clinical faculty who are within the first six years of their continuing-status appointment. Visit the Cheryl Regehr Early Career Teaching Award webpage to learn more.

Supported by the OVPIUE, the Northrop Frye Awards recognize individual faculty members, individual librarians or staff members, or teams of faculty, librarians and/or staff members who have undertaken a teaching and learning project within the last five years that significantly enhanced the undergraduate student learning experience. Visit the Northrop Frye Awards website to learn more.

Supported by the Office of the Vice-President International, the Global Educator Award recognizes faculty members who demonstrate intercultural or global fluency in their teaching, embodying the University’s global mission and profile. Visit the Global Educator Award website to learn more.

External Teaching Awards

The 3M National Teaching Fellowship is Canada’s most prestigious recognition of excellence in educational leadership and teaching at the post-secondary level. Visit the Teaching Awards & Grants Database to learn more.

Teaching, in the context of the OCUFA awards, embraces virtually all levels of instruction – graduate and undergraduate teaching, continuing education and faculty development. Similarly, proficiency in teaching may extend well beyond the classroom, the laboratory or the faculty member’s office. Activities such as course design, curriculum development, organization of teaching programs and other significant forms of leadership are often important contributions to the instructional process. Those who excel in any of these are eligible for the OCUFA Teaching Awards. Visit the Teaching Awards & Grants Database to learn more.

The D2L Innovation Award in Teaching and Learning recognizes and celebrates excellence in collaborative teaching and learning in post-secondary education. This award is open to groups of two or more individuals, at least one of whom must be currently teaching, regardless of discipline or level of appointment. Visit the Teaching Awards & Grants Database to learn more.

Teaching Awards & Grants Resources

The OVPIUE and the Centre for Teaching Support & Innovation offer a variety of resources, events and consultations to support faculty and staff in applying for institutional teaching awards and grants.

Learn more about Teaching Awards & Grants Resources

Contact Us

If you have a question or need more info about awards, funding and grants, email awards.provost@utoronto.ca.