As the University of Toronto Mississauga moves beyond its 50th anniversary, it enters a new phase of evolution by design. The campus has grown in parallel with the City of Mississauga as an active partner in city building. We have developed a vigorous identity as a dynamic, thriving community of 15,000 students and over 1,000 faculty and staff, with extraordinary infrastructure that supports a multi-faculty academic institution. UTM is also a significant contributor of more than $1.3 billion in economic value to the city and Region of Peel.
Faculty, staff and librarians at UTM take pride in offering undergraduate, graduate and professional programs of excellent quality. As part of our growth, we are now investing further to support U of T’s mission as an internationally significant research university, worthy of its status as one of the 20 top academic institutions in the world. Strategic new internal and external initiatives build on existing strengths, including our partnerships with the City of Mississauga, Trillium Health Partners, Peel region and local Mississauga industry clusters, unique within U of T.
The establishment of the Centre for Medicinal Chemistry will be a game changer for UTM. Designed as a research cluster with activities focused on the creation of therapeutic compounds to treat cancers and related diseases, CMC will serve as an anchor for a new science building. A key component of the city’s Life Sciences Strategy, CMC will offer myriad entrepreneurial opportunities for the local life sciences sector, and connects strategically with the Research Innovation Commercialization Centre, a provincial entrepreneurship agency. Building on this model of cluster development, we plan to replicate it in other areas such as investment in a robotics facility for research in machine learning. In addition, we are exploring other partnerships including with the National Research Council’s Canadian Campus for Advanced Materials Manufacturing. With our new academic plan that sets priorities for the next five years and accompanying high levels of enthusiasm and engagement on campus, UTM is poised for take-off.
