Art of the Possible Education Scholarship Grants

• Read this webpage carefully, particularly the section on 'Eligibility and Team Member Roles.'
• Consultations are available with OES team members throughout the application process. Request an informal chat or an in-depth consultation.
• Applicants are required to submit a draft application. OES faculty will review the draft and provide feedback and consultation to help the applicant strengthen their final proposal. 
• Eligible projects must be focused on undergraduate, postgraduate, graduate, or faculty development across the various programs and divisions of DFCM.  We strongly encourage you to connect as soon as possible with the appropriate program director or division lead to ensure your project is aligned with DFCM education priorities and strategy. Please note that continuing medical education projects are not eligible for AOP funding.
• Program director/division head’s written approval for the project idea must be included with the draft application. 
• Applicants must receive at least one consultation before submission of their draft application.
• Final applications will be completed online. 

Examples of possible projects based on Boyer’s categories of education scholarship*:

• Projects related to the scholarship of teaching: transforming or extending knowledge of teaching and learning processes; building bridges between the teacher’s knowledge and the student’s understanding. These often include innovative ways of teaching or program evaluation projects.
• Projects related to the scholarship of application: drawing the connection between research and practice, developing new intellectual understandings through clinical or educational practice.
• Projects related to the scholarship of integration: making connections across disciplines; illuminating data in a revealing way; fitting one’s own research, or the research of others, into larger intellectual patterns; or to interpret, draw together, and bring new insight to bear on original research. These often include interprofessional collaboration and the notion of interdisciplinary work.
• Projects related to the scholarship of discovery: contributing new knowledge and advancing the discipline of academic family medicine. These projects are usually referred to as “research” and must include a specific research question, objectives and hypotheses.

*Boyer EL. Scholarship Reconsidered: Priorities of the Professoriate. Princeton University Press, 3175 Princeton Pike, Lawrenceville, NJ 08648;1990 Dec 3.

Principal Investigator/Co-Principal Investigator:

• Must hold a primary faculty appointment with the DFCM as a full-time or part-time clinical member of the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, and be engaged in DFCM educational activities (teaching or the development and delivery of our educational programs). Members of any academic rank (lecturer, assistant professor, associate professor or full professor) are eligible to apply. Adjunct faculty may only participate as collaborators.
• Must receive their program director or division head’s written support to pursue this application (a brief email is sufficient). Eligible projects must be focused on undergraduate, postgraduate, graduate, or faculty development across the various programs and divisions of DFCM.  We strongly encourage you to connect with the appropriate program director or division lead to ensure your project is aligned with DFCM education priorities and strategy.  A list of email addresses for program directors and division heads can be found below.

Collaborator:

• Any individual who will contribute to the work of the project team may be included as a collaborator; however, only DFCM faculty are eligible to be principal or co-principal investigators. Office of Education Scholarship faculty may only be included as collaborators or senior advisors.
• Exceptions:
  • Residents may be included as collaborators. Please note that an AOP proposal may include a DFCM resident project as a component of the overall proposal, with the understanding that the faculty member is the named principal investigator of the overall project.
  • Those who are being compensated for providing services within the project budget may not be listed on the project team (e.g. research assistants, consultants).

Senior Advisor:

• Office of Education Scholarship faculty may only be included as collaborators or senior advisors. Please do not add consultants or mentors to the project team unless you have their consent to do so.

Friday, February 21, 2025, 11:59 pm - DRAFT application is due.

• Draft application form will be submitted by email to dfcm.edscholarship@utoronto.ca. 
• An OES consultation is required before submission of the draft application.
• Written support from the relevant program director or division lead is required with the draft application. A brief email is sufficient.

Friday, April 11, 2025, 11:59 pm - FINAL application is due.

• Final application will be submitted online. Email Rachel Ellis at dfcm.edscholarship@utoronto.ca for your personal link to the online application form.
• You may choose to download this Word-version worksheet to help you draft your final application before entering your responses on the online form.
• Principal and Co-Principal Investigators are required to submit their CV with the final application form.

Mid-May - After adjudication by the DFCM Education Grant Committee, applicants will receive decision letters.

Budget Guide

Budget template 

Timeline template

• Will be provided for two years, effective Jul 2025, and is non-renewable.
• Will be provided to a maximum of $5000 per project.
• Will be released when the following terms have been satisfied:
  • Project lead provides confirmation of ethics review board submission (If required, the project lead may request a portion of funds to be advanced to allow for a research assistant to support the REB application.)
  • Project lead and co-lead(s) have completed the online tutorial TCPS2:CORE (Course on Research Ethics)
  • Project lead agrees to be the primary contact for the project, and to take responsibility for the overall project design, development, budgetary oversight and completion.
  • Project lead agrees to provide interim reports and participate in progress report presentations at Office of Education Scholarship faculty development events.
  • Project lead agrees to present a poster on their project at a local conference and submit an abstract to a national conference. We encourage further dissemination where possible.

If you have applied for research ethics approval through your hospital research ethics board, you may be required to complete a data transfer agreement before your research assistant can begin work. This will depend on your hospital’s policies, and how your RA was hired. Please check with your hospital research ethics board to learn how their policies may affect your project. For ease of access of funds, it is recommended that you administer the grant, including primary research ethics approval, research assistant hiring, and other expenses/activities, through the University of Toronto. You may still require additional ethics approval from your local site but the primary approver is recommended to be the University of Toronto Research Ethics Board.

Find a complete archive of Art of the Possible projects listed by DFCM program.