School of Cities / Opportunities / Urban Challenge Grants

Call for proposals: UCG 4.0 (2025-26): Inequality, data, and democracy

Cities are laboratories for democracy. They house the people, institutions, and venues to spur vigorous discussion and debate, innovate technology to include new voices in decision-making, and deploy data to increase equity, efficiency, transparency, and accountability. Yet, socioeconomic inequalities increasingly divide cities, polarize communities, and marginalize vulnerable groups, creating new challenges for participatory democracy and institution-building.

Recent years have seen the explosion of urban data available across disciplines, from mobile phone traces, to social media interactions, to citizen science, to administrative data on health, housing, and more. Researchers and policymakers are only just beginning to capitalize on the availability of data to create new knowledge, design more rigorous policies, and empower communities. New data offers the opportunity to innovate ways of understanding human behaviour and interaction in cities, as well as to make activity at the margins more visible and thus empower the most vulnerable. Yet this means it is critical to foster collaborations around urban data beyond social sciences and the law – with humanists to raise challenging questions on ethics and self-expression, computer scientists and engineers to improve access and address algorithmic bias, and natural scientists to identify connections with the physical environment.

The School of Cities welcomes proposals that capitalize on innovative data sources to identify societal divides and/or suggest approaches to sustain democratic institutions. We are particularly interested in research that deploys underutilized urban datasets – from big data like user-generated geographic information to crowdsourced or community-generated knowledge – and unique approaches to linking data or mixing methods.

Applications are due on January 13, 2025

Information sessions 

Do you have questions about the UCG 4.0 grant program? We are hosting two online information sessions in December. Please register with research.sofc@utoronto.ca, specifying which session you will attend: 

  • Wednesday December 4th , 4 PM
  • Tuesday December 10th ,12 PM  

Contact 

All inquiries, including questions on the application process, budget, and research issues, should be directed to research.sofc@utoronto.ca. 

2025-26 UCG competition structure

In this round, we will be offering two funding tiers: Multidisciplinary Research Grants (up to $250,000) and Catalyst Grants (up to $50,000). We expect to fund two in the Multidisciplinary tier and up to six in the Catalyst tier. 

  1. Multidisciplinary Research Grants: Researchers applying in this tier should work in teams of two or more, representing at least two disciplines and with at least one senior (tenured) researcher on the team. Collaborations across U of T campuses are highly encouraged. Applicants may apply for up to $250,000 in grant funding. 
  2. Catalyst Grants: Catalyst applicants can apply either alone or with other researchers. We encourage junior (untenured) faculty to include a senior faculty mentor on their team. Applicants may request up to $50,000 in grant funding. 

The Principal Investigator must be an appointed faculty member at the University of Toronto (tenure or teaching stream). Preference will be given to faculty from disciplines previously underrepresented at the School of Cities. 

To apply, complete the application package below and submit to research.sofc@utoronto.ca. 

Proposals are due January 13, 2025, with decisions to be made by March 2025. 

Application package requirements: 
  1. Cover letter that includes:  
  2. Short, itemized budget with budget justification, including other sources of funding. 
  3. Description of the proposed research, not to exceed five double-spaced pages in 12-point type with one-inch margins all around, exclusive of references or appendices. The proposal should carefully describe: 
    • the issue(s) to be examined; 
    • hypotheses to be evaluated (if relevant); 
    • methodology proposed; 
    • data sources to be used (including whether the data sources are already available to the PIs and how and in what timeframe those data sources will be acquired if not already available); 
    • potential stakeholders to engage; 
    • anticipated results of the research, including knowledge mobilization plans addressing their potential implications for motivating public policy, professional practice change, or community action. 
    • a statement about how the research team will incorporate EDI in the research plan 
    • Curriculum vitae (no more than 3 pages) for each investigator
  • Salary for postdoctoral scholar(s) or graduate student researcher(s) 
  • Hourly wages for undergraduate project student assistant(s) 
  • Reimbursement for purchasing of data, software, travel related to the execution of this research, or other research expenses explained clearly in the application* 
  • Light refreshments for meetings, speaker honoraria etc., for working groups or research convenings 

*Limitations and guidelines on reimbursable expenses are described in the University of Toronto Guide to Financial Management. 

Selection criteria  

The Selection Committee for this call will consist of members of the School of Cities Executive Committee and Faculty Advisory Council, an external stakeholder, and the Director of the School of Cities. 

Proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria:  

  1. The relevance of the topic to the School of Cities’ focal theme of inequality, data, and democracy;  
  2. The potential usefulness of the proposed research for the advancement of scientific or humanistic knowledge and/or the development and implementation of public policy, practice change, or community engagement; 
  3. The appropriateness and soundness of the research design, including choice of data and methods of analysis; 
  4. The appropriateness and soundness of the knowledge mobilization and sharing plan; 
  5. The appropriateness and soundness of the EDI plan; 
  6. Demonstrated ability of research to be conducted in the timeframe established in this grant (e.g. availability of personnel and/or data); 
  7. The reasonableness of estimated costs; 
  8. The qualifications and experience of personnel. 
  • May 1, 2025: Project start 
  • September 2025 – May 2026: Participation in monthly seminar series 
  • September 2025 – May 2026: Participation in 1-2 stakeholder roundtables 
  • May – December 2026: Preparation of knowledge mobilization products in collaboration with School of Cities staff 
  • October 31, 2026: Grant period ends, submission of project deliverables 
  • December 2026: Participation in concluding events  

May I submit multiple proposals?  

  • There is no limit on applications; you may submit multiple proposals either as sole P.I. or part of a team. Please note however that our goal is to select a diverse group of participants in order to include as many researchers and disciplines as possible. Be strategic! 

May I submit a proposal as an outside (non-U of T) researcher, so long as a U of T faculty member is the P.I.?  

  • We welcome partnerships with outside institutions, however, we are not able to provide any funds to the outside partner.  

Will it be more competitive to submit one research initiative with multiple projects, or just one project?  

  • You should write the proposal that best meets the selection criteria for the grant program and also is the most rigorous research design. 

I am research faculty with full SGS status / teaching stream faculty / a postdoc. Will my application be considered? 

  • We will consider applications from research professors and teaching stream faculty.
  • We recommend that postdocs partner and apply with a senior faculty PI.

If our proposal requests a high level of funding, does this disqualify us from being funded as a smaller project? Conversely, if we request a small level of funding, does this prevent us from being considered for larger funding?  

  • We encourage you to structure your budget for the best possible funding scenario. The review committee may reduce the amount awarded to successful projects based on overall demand for funding, but the committee is unlikely to suggest offering more funding than you have proposed in your application.