Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program

Call for Applications

The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) invites applications from outstanding Indigenous and/or Black researchers interested in being considered for nomination to the Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship Program to work under the supervision of an OISE faculty member. OISE faculty conduct research in a wide range of disciplines, including education, psychology, and related fields in the social sciences and humanities.

Applicants who are successful at this first stage will be nominated by OISE for the Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship, a prestigious and highly competitive award designed to enable Indigenous and/or Black researchers to grow their scholarly profiles, undertake academic work at the University of Toronto, and strengthen the research environment at the University with diverse perspectives. A very small number of awards are available across the University.
 

Value and Duration

Each award will support a postdoctoral salary of $80,000 per year, plus benefits, for up to two years. In addition, OISE will provide $10,000 per year in start-up funding to successful nominees. Fellowships must begin by January 2027 and will be for a maximum of two years in duration.

Eligibility

OISE will consider applications from scholars who meet the following criteria:

  • Demonstrate academic excellence and high potential for success in their field;
  • Identify as Indigenous to Turtle Island and/or Black;
  • Have obtained a doctoral degree at the time the fellowship commences and normally within the last five years from the start date of the fellowship;
  • Not have previously held a Provost's Postdoctoral Fellowship;
  • Will not concurrently hold another major fellowship or faculty position;
  • Have the support of an OISE faculty member in a closely related research area who is willing to support the nomination and to serve as supervisor.

Applications from both Canadian and non-Canadian applicants are welcome.
 

Application Procedure & Timeline

  1. Applicants should identify a faculty member in one of OISE’s four departments who is willing to support the nomination and to serve as supervisor if the nomination is successful. There should be a close fit between the research interests of the faculty member and the applicant.

    Applicants are invited to browse OISE faculty profiles and contact information: 


    Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact a potential faculty supervisor as early as possible to allow sufficient time for preparation of other application materials, including the supervisor’s nomination letter. Please note that supervisors who agree to support nominations must submit materials by March 2, 2026, so it is in the applicant’s interest to contact potential supervisors well before that date.
     

  2. Once an OISE faculty member has agreed in principle to support the nomination, the applicant should submit the following materials to the faculty member:
     
    • A detailed and current CV;
    • A statement of research intent (maximum two pages, plus up to two additional pages for references/citations), outlining the research to be carried out during the fellowship;
    • Training statement from the nominee (max. 1 page), which should describe:
      • professional, academic, and extracurricular experiences/achievements and how these experiences/achievements will contribute to the nominee’s training success (1/2 page); and
      • how the training the nominee expects to acquire will contribute to their productivity and to the research goals they hope to achieve. This statement should indicate why the nominee decided upon the proposed training location and what the nominee expects to learn from the training experience (1/2 page);
    • A short personal biography of the nominee (max. 1/3 page)), which may be used on the University of Toronto School of Graduate Studies (SGS) Postdoctoral Fellows website or other communications, should they be successfully selected as a Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellow.
       
  3. If the OISE faculty member supports the application, they should forward the application materials together with a nomination letter to the OISE selection committee by March 2, 2026. Information and procedures for OISE faculty can be found here.
     
  4. The OISE selection committee will evaluate eligible applications and select a limited number of the highest quality for nomination to the university-wide competition by April 1, 2026.
     
  5. Final results of the competition are expected to be known in mid-June 2026, and applicants will be notified of the outcome of their application.
     

Selection Criteria

Applications will be evaluated based on the following criteria:

  • Excellence of the applicant’s research or scholarship proposal;
  • Excellence of the applicant’s track record, as demonstrated by their CV;
  • The strength of the proposed supervisor’s nomination letter, including the anticipated mutual research benefits for applicant and supervisor;
  • Demonstrated scholarly potential;
  • The feasibility of the proposed research.

Please note that there are detailed selection criteria on the Provost's Postdoctoral Fellowship  Program website that prospective applicants should carefully review. Please also note that submission of an application does not guarantee nomination by OISE to the university-wide competition for the Provost’s Postdoctoral Fellowship.
 

Further Information

Program details may be found here: the Provost's Postdoctoral Fellowship Program