Graduate Funding Terms & Conditions for Academic Year 2025-2026 for the Department of Chemical Engineering & Applied Chemistry (ChemE), University of Toronto
Students must be within the funded cohort to qualify for a ChemE minimum financial support package.
You may consult with the graduate office to learn about your funded cohort. After your period of guaranteed funding ends, any further financial support will be at the discretion of your research supervisor. You may also be eligible for the doctoral completion award after the funding cohort has exhausted (https://www.sgs.utoronto.ca/awards/doctoral-completion-award-dca/).
For students in the funded cohort, funding typically commences in the first session of the first year of registration in the program.
Funding commences in the first year and session of registration. Funding packages cannot be deferred by the student until a subsequent year or session.
Students must be registered full time to receive the ChemE minimum level of financial support.
Students must be registered for a full 17-week session to qualify for funding for that session. If a student takes an approved leave of absence, the funding package will be revised to reflect the student’s enrolment status. This applies in the event of a retroactive leave of absence. Part-time and Flex-time students are not eligible to receive the ChemE minimum financial support package.
Students must be working full time on their program.
It is recommended that students who take paid employment limit their hours of work to no more than 10 hours per week, on average, in all forms of employment, including TA, other employment at the university and employment outside the university, while receiving a funding package.
Students must be in good academic standing.
If academic standing is in question, ChemE will inform the student before funding will be withdrawn.
Students must apply for and accept external awards.
As a condition of funding, graduate students not holding an award are strongly recommended to apply for all external awards for which they are eligible, and accept any which they are successful in receiving. It is a great honour to receive a prestigious fellowship. Writing applications for such awards is part of academic training.
External awards become a part of, or replace, the student’s funding package. Examples of major awards are SSHRC, NSERC, OGS and foreign government awards, such as the CONACyT or China Scholarship.
Tuition and fees are typically deducted from the January and May instalments of external awards administered by the School of Graduate Studies (SGS). Students with major awards that are included in the funding package, but paid directly by an external source, such as a foreign government, are required to pay their tuition and fees.
Information regarding sessional fees are available on the School of Graduate Studies’ website: https://studentaccount.utoronto.ca/tuition-fees/current-fall-winter-fee-refund-schedules/. These fees are comprised of program and incidental fees.
Students must seek TA (teaching assistantship) work, accept any TA work that is offered and advise the department of any TA work that is accepted.
Income from TA work is a component of the ChemE minimum financial support package for most students. Failure to apply for and accept TA work may result in the forfeiture of the TA component of the funding package, which is specified in the annual funding letter, unless the student has an award that exempts the student from the TA requirement. Currently, we have stipulated $3,700 of TA per person per year in PhD stipend.
To ensure that the department knows how much work students take on, graduate students are required to disclose TA positions held across multiple departments and campuses to the graduate administrator.
Students who are terminated from their TA position “with cause” will lose the TA component of the ChemE minimum financial support package for the academic year to which it applied.