Academic Strategic Plan: What we've heard, and what's ahead

Over the past year, departments and units across our three campuses, along with many of our valued partners, took part in an extensive self-study and external review as part of the process that will shape the Faculty’s next Academic Strategic Plan, spanning 2026-2031.

That work asked a lot of our community — time, reflection, honest accounting of where we excel and where we can improve — and we want to start this message by acknowledging this tremendous collective effort. Whether you contributed data, sat for an interview, or talked candidly with a colleague about what Temerty Medicine could achieve in the future, your input is now shaping our next five years and beyond. This has never been a conversation for faculty and staff alone: our learners and our alumni are just as much a part of this community, and that perspective has shaped this process too. Thank you.

Our in-house team has spent the summer studying thousands of pages of input from every corner of our Faculty, searching for the patterns within the self-study and external review data. That analysis is helping us identify where we've built real strength, where challenges persist, and where we should focus our priorities going forward.

A few themes are surfacing again and again, and we are excited by what we're hearing. Research excellence remains a defining hallmark of this Faculty, running through nearly every one of these themes, alongside the strength we draw from the full breadth of our diverse community — not just our three campuses but our TAHSN hospital partners as well.

We are also hearing about the importance of moving our science and scholarship from idea to impact, faster and more deliberately, and about meeting the evolving needs of learners, faculty and staff as we support a health system and research landscape that are changing quickly. These priorities align with the University's own Presidential Commitments around future-ready graduates, responsible AI adoption and mobilizing knowledge for impact.

What's ahead this fall

Over the coming weeks, these emerging priorities will move into deeper consultation. We have been meeting with leaders within Temerty Medicine and beyond to discuss priorities and challenge assumptions.  An Advisory Committee, including members of our own community and the communities we serve, is supporting us in interpreting what's emerged and where we should go next. And we will soon establish thematic focus groups to pressure-test what's realistic, what's aspirational and how to close the gap between the two.

Using this data-informed approach, we are deliberately pushing ourselves to think ambitiously — to imagine what Temerty Medicine can be in five years and beyond, and to map how we will get there.

From there, we'll circulate a full draft of the plan broadly across our community for input and feedback. We built this process to be consultative from the start, and we intend to keep it that way through to the end. This feedback will be incorporated into the final version of the plan, which will then go forward for Faculty and University governance approval.

This is a five-year plan, which means real choices about where to focus. Not every idea raised in consultation will make it into the final document, but what we are hearing from you is directly shaping those choices.

Our strength has always been our people — across every campus, every department, all learners and alumni, and each hospital partner who trains researchers, teaches learners and cares for patients alongside us.

Thank you for the extraordinary effort you have already contributed to this process. We are looking forward to building this next stage of Temerty Medicine with you, together.

Lisa Robinson, MD, FRCPC
Dean, Temerty Faculty of Medicine
Vice Provost, Relations with Health-Care Institutions, University of Toronto

Lisa Richardson, MD, FRCPC
Vice Dean, Strategy & Governance, Temerty Faculty of Medicine