ISI Advantage: The Acceleration Consortium and the 2022 CFREF Competition

In 2022, the University of Toronto (U of T), through the Division of the Vice-President, Research and Innovation, engaged with researchers from across the university to prepare proposals for the Canada First Research Excellence Fund’s (CFREF) third competition.

U of T could submit only one Letter of Intent (LOI) to the competition. Six excellent LOIs were put forward to be evaluated by U of T leadership, five of which were from Institutional Strategic Initiatives (ISIs)—a strong signal that ISIs provide a significant value in increasing U of T’s capacity to support large-scale, high-impact interdisciplinary research.

With their established critical research mass and connections between faculty, government, community groups, and industry partners, ISIs are optimally positioned to apply to large grant competitions. Their teams can be quickly assembled for competitions such as CFREF to demonstrate their capacity to carry out complex, cutting-edge research. As U of T’s portfolio of ISIs has grown, it has become clear that they can also help raise the profile of research at U of T.

Ultimately, it was the Acceleration Consortium’s proposal for its work on Self-Driving Labs for Molecular and Materials Discovery that was submitted to the competition on behalf of U of T.

The Acceleration Consortium’s cutting-edge work in self-driving labs combines material science with the power of artificial intelligence, robotics, and advanced computing, to autonomously and rapidly design and test new materials. This work dramatically reduces the time and cost of creating advanced materials and has applications in a wide range of areas that are critical to our socio-economic wellbeing, including in drug discovery and climate solutions.  

Following a rigorous review and final selection round, coordinated by the Research Services Office and with support from the ISI Office, the Acceleration Consortium was successful, and was awarded $200 million from CFREF, the single largest grant ever awarded to a Canadian university. The grant is being used to fund the Acceleration Consortium’s research capacity and resources, which includes 12 new faculty members, 35 staff scientists, four staff scholars, six new self-driving lab core facilities and new training opportunities.  

The CFREF funded initiative includes additional supports: $130 million from the Faculty of Arts & Science to expand facilities to house the Acceleration Consortium’s state-of-the-art labs at the Lash Miller Chemical Laboratories building, as well as $319 million in matching commitments secured from external partners. The Acceleration Consortium is well on its way in creating a world-leading centre for accelerated materials discovery and innovation.