Media Releases

W. Garfield Weston Foundation establishes prestigious new fellowships dedicated to internationalization at the doctoral level

January 15, 2013

TORONTO, ON – With an eye to devel­op­ing glob­al­ly ori­ent­ed thinkers and inno­va­tors, The W. Garfield West­on Foun­da­tion and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to today announced the cre­ation of the most pres­ti­gious doc­tor­al trav­el award in the coun­try.  The W. Garfield West­on Foun­da­tion Doc­tor­al Fel­low­ship Pro­gram will pro­vide 16 recip­i­ents each year—across the human­i­ties and the social, phys­i­cal and life sciences—a grant of $50,000 to fur­ther their research and broad­en their skills and net­works in a glob­al set­ting. The first phase of the West­on Fel­low­ship pro­gram will run through 2015 and sup­port 48 stu­dents with total fund­ing of $2.4 mil­lion.

Open to stu­dents across all fields, the West­on Fel­low­ships will be Canada’s only ful­ly-fund­ed award pro­gram ded­i­cat­ed to inter­na­tion­al­iza­tion at the doc­tor­al lev­el. “The West­on Fel­low­ships are a sig­nif­i­cant step for­ward in build­ing Canada’s capac­i­ty for world-beat­ing schol­ar­ship and inno­va­tion,” said U of T Pres­i­dent David Nay­lor. “This ground-break­ing ini­tia­tive will help our best and bright­est to gain inter­na­tion­al experience—a cru­cial fac­tor in the for­ma­tion of lead­ers, in our increas­ing­ly glob­al­ized world.”

“Through­out its his­to­ry, The W. Garfield West­on Foun­da­tion has main­tained a strong inter­est in edu­ca­tion­al pro­grams that remove bar­ri­ers and strength­en the abil­i­ty of Cana­di­ans to inno­vate and lead,” said Eliza Mitchell, Direc­tor. “We are delight­ed with the launch of The W. Garfield West­on Foun­da­tion Doc­tor­al Fel­low­ship Pro­gram, giv­ing Cana­di­ans stu­dents crit­i­cal advan­tages in the glob­al work­place.”

The West­on Fel­low­ships will cov­er a PhD student’s one-year costs of tuition, inter­na­tion­al trav­el and expens­es, a liv­ing stipend and trav­el with­in the des­ti­na­tion coun­try.  It will be avail­able to U of T stu­dents who are in the third or fourth year of their doc­tor­al pro­gram, who plan to do research out­side of Cana­da.

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For more infor­ma­tion:

Web­site: www.utoronto.ca/westonfellows

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