The Institutional Strategic Initiatives portfolio increases the University of Toronto’s capacity to support large-scale, high-impact interdisciplinary research
Recent ISI news

Can AI help make our buildings more sustainable?
May 30, 2023
Assistant Professor Seungjae Lee is working on a pilot project aimed at reducing U of T’s climate footprint by using machine learning to optimize heating and cooling systems in existing buildings

U of T 2022 Research & Innovation Annual Report released
May 25, 2023
The Tanenbaum Institute for Science in Sports (TISS), Institute for Pandemics, Robotics Institute and the Toronto Cannabis and Cannabinoid Research Consortium (TC3) are amongst the institutional strategic initiatives whose work is highlighted in the 2022 Research and Innovation Annual Report.

U of T researchers developing AI system to tackle harmful social media content
May 12, 2023
What if we used artificial intelligence to combat such harmful content such as hate speech and misinformation? That’s the goal of a team of University of Toronto researchers who were awarded a Catalyst Grant by the Data Sciences Institute (DSI) to develop an AI system to address the marginalization of communities in data-centric systems – including social media platforms such as Twitter.

Shifting gears: How data science led Madeleine Bonsma-Fisher from studying germ models to bike lanes
May 10, 2023
A cycling activist, Bonsma-Fisher is studying traffic patterns as part of her post-doctoral research at the University of Toronto’s Data Sciences Institute, an institutional strategic initiative that is a tri-campus hub for number crunchers across disciplines. Before that, she modelled evolutionary interactions between microbes. The common thread? Data and data analysis.

In partnership with students, U of T launches strategic initiative to improve mental health outcomes through research
May 3, 2023
Inlight funds leading-edge research on youth and student mental health to uncover the evidence and data needed to inform and improve mental health services on university campuses – both at U of T and at universities across Ontario and around the world. The initiative stems from the recommendations of a 2019 report by the Presidential & Provostial Task Force on Student Mental Health.