Five years of Temerty Medicine, five years of impact: U of T celebrates milestone anniversary of historic gift from James and Louise Temerty
Sep 24, 2025
Five years ago, a landmark $250-million gift from James and Louise Temerty and the Temerty Foundation launched a new era for medicine at the University of Toronto.
Since being announced on September 24, 2020, at a small, socially distanced event, this extraordinary philanthropic investment — which is still the largest to a university in Canadian history — has empowered U of T’s Faculty of Medicine, now known as the Temerty Faculty of Medicine, to expand its impact and global health leadership.
The Temerty family’s generosity has significantly strengthened discovery, collaboration, innovation, equity and learner well-being across Temerty Medicine and its hospital partners — the very priorities identified in the Faculty’s Academic Strategic Plan 2018–2023. It was this ambitious, community-informed vision that first inspired James and Louise’s landmark gift.
Over the last five years, the Temerty family’s’ support has advanced machine learning in medicine, catalyzed biomedical research across Toronto’s health-science network, fostered innovation and entrepreneurship, expanded equity and accessibility in medical education, and is enabling construction of the new state-of-the-art Temerty Building. Their gift also established a Dean’s COVID-19 Priority Fund which allowed the Faculty to respond swiftly to the urgent challenges of the global pandemic.
James and Louise Temerty’s landmark gift has propelled the Temerty Faculty of Medicine to new heights of global excellence and impact.
“James and Louise Temerty’s landmark gift has propelled the Temerty Faculty of Medicine to new heights of global excellence and impact,” said U of T President Melanie Woodin.
“Their generosity has driven tremendous progress already over the past five years, in every aspect of the Temerty Faculty’s mission. On behalf of the entire University of Toronto, I would like to express our deepest gratitude to Jim and Louise for the new era of learning, discovery and innovation they have set in motion, leading to a healthier future for Canadians and for people everywhere.”
“When Louise and I made this gift five years ago, our hope was that it would help the University of Toronto push the boundaries of what’s possible in health research, education and care,” said James Temerty. “We could not be prouder of all that has been accomplished since then. We’ve seen discoveries accelerated, collaborations strengthened across hospitals and new generations of students receive the support they need to thrive in medicine. Witnessing this progress has been deeply gratifying and we look forward with great excitement to all the Faculty will achieve in the next five years, and beyond.”
James and Louise Temerty’s landmark gift has propelled the Temerty Faculty of Medicine to new heights of global excellence and impact.
The sweeping impact of a landmark gift
The Temerty gift has helped propel the Faculty to the forefront of global rankings. In 2025, the Faculty was ranked second in the world for clinical medicine by the National Taiwan University Rankings, and since 2020, Times Higher Education has placed Temerty Medicine’s clinical and health programs as high as fifth worldwide. In turn, these rankings have helped drive U of T’s standing as one of the world’s leading universities – including being named the second most prolific university in the world for health research output in 2023 by the publishers of the prestigious journal, Nature.
“Thanks to the Temertys’ exceptional generosity, we have been able to scale our innovative research, education and patient work across the full breadth of our Faculty and the affiliated hospitals and research institutes that make up the broader Toronto Academic Health Science Network,” said Lisa Robinson, Temerty Medicine’s dean and U of T’s vice-provost, relations with health care institutions.
The Temerty gift has positioned us to compete more effectively on the international stage, as reflected in our continued rise in our global rankings.
“When I became dean last year, I was especially grateful that this gift gives me the ability to invest strategically in high-priority areas while staying agile,” she said. “For too long, we lacked the flexibility to respond quickly to emerging opportunities — something many of our leading peer institutions could do. The Temerty gift has changed that, positioning us to compete more effectively on the international stage, as reflected in our continued rise in our global rankings.”
The Temerty gift has positioned us to compete more effectively on the international stage, as reflected in our continued rise in our global rankings.
Examples of the Temerty gift’s impact can be seen across the Faculty and include a wide range of initiatives that are advancing health and health care, at a local, national and international scale. Since 2020, this has included:
- Supporting the recruitment of clinicians and researchers to new faculty roles. These new chairs and professorships span the full breadth of Temerty Medicine, including its clinical medicine, rehabilitation and basic life sciences sectors.
- Investing in health research, discovery and translation, including funding 25 Temerty Pathway Research Grants. These grants provide catalytic funding to promising researchers at pivotal moments in their careers — laying the groundwork for them to later receive sustaining support from traditional granting agencies. To date, Temerty Pathway Research Grant recipients have gone on to secure more than $7.7 million in funding from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
- Helping remove barriers to careers in the health professions by providing scholarships and bursaries to 562 medical students, including to many with demonstrated financial need, as well as to students pursuing concurrent degrees (such as joint MD-MBA or MD-BEng credentials) which will better prepare them for leadership roles in medicine.
- Nurturing greater innovation and commercialization capacity, including enabling Temerty Medicine’s student incubator — the Health Innovation Hub (H2i) — to support more than 630 startups over the last five years. A particular highlight has been the FemSTEM program that encourages female entrepreneurship, and which drove the number of H2i ventures led by women to jump from 28 per cent to 60 per cent over the same period.
- Establishing the Temerty Centre for Artificial Intelligence Research and Education in Medicine (T-CAIREM) — the first centre of its kind in Canada and now one of the largest in the world. T-CAIREM has built a thriving community of 1,800 members across 26 universities and nearly 100 health-care organizations, while its Summer Research Program has engaged more than 120 students in hands-on AI and medicine projects. Together, these initiatives are equipping the next generation of health professionals with the knowledge and confidence to integrate AI in their work and are strengthening AI workforce capacity across the health system.
- Supporting deeper collaborations with hospital partners by directing resources to interinstitutional research collaborations (such as on the links between dementia and depression), joint recruitments of clinician and scientists and city-wide anti-racism education.
- Funding special initiatives that enhance Temerty Medicine’s impact, such as helping establish a new Collaborative Centre for Climate, Health & Sustainable Care in partnership with the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, the Lawrence Bloomberg Faculty of Nursing and the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy. The Centre is catalyzing research, education and practice change in clinical care, health system management, health policy and public health to meet the transformative challenges posed by climate change and the demands of sustainability.
- Enabling the upcoming construction of the state-of-the-art new Temerty Building. Located at the historic heart of U of T’s St. George campus, and replacing the aged Medical Sciences Building’s west wing, the Temerty Building will provide a new home for education and research, including health-care team simulation labs, and centres dedicated to neuroscience, precision medicine and the science of aging. Groundbreaking is expected to take place in 2026.
- Created the Dean’s COVID-19 Priority Fund, enabling the Faculty to respond immediately to urgent and emerging needs at the onset of the pandemic. This funding, that was thoughtfully advanced by the Temerty family in March 2020, allowed the Faculty to seamlessly pivot to virtual learning, invest in personal protective equipment, sustain critical research, and provide isolation accommodations and other supports to clinical trainees on the front lines.
The transformative power of philanthropy
James Temerty is the founder and former chairman of Northland Power Inc., an independent power producing company with a focus on clean and green energy.
James and Louise Temerty have provided significant philanthropic support to health care, culture and education, both in Canada and in Ukraine, where James was born.
At U of T, their generosity has also created lasting opportunities through the Temerty Foundation KMA Exchange Program, which brings Ukrainian students and scholars to campus to continue their studies during the war in their home country. In addition, the Temerty Endowment for Ukrainian Studies has established two new chairs in European history at the Munk School of Global Affairs & Public Policy, held by renowned experts Timothy Snyder and Marci Shore.
“Jim and Louise Temerty’s incredible gift to Temerty Medicine demonstrates how visionary philanthropists can make lasting and meaningful change,” said Vice-President of Advancement at U of T, David Palmer. “Their historic investment in U of T in 2020 has since inspired others to give generously to the university, enabling greater educational, research and innovation impact and ensuring sustained leadership for taking on some of the world’s most intractable challenges to build a healthier future.”