When I began this role a year ago, I wrote that it was an honour to lead a Department that has given me so much. Twelve months later, that feeling has only deepened.

In this report you will discover some of the accomplishments of our faculty members and learners over the past academic year. Across our Education Programs, Divisions, and Hospital Partners, we remain dedicated to providing training that closes the gap between what we know and what we practice and sustaining a strong research pipeline to generate the discoveries that will benefit the patients of the future. We are guided by the needs of the communities we serve and our shared mission of ensuring no one faces the burden of mental illness without hope.

This year, three landmark events captured that spirit especially well.

In November, we held our inaugural TEAM (Toward Equity and Advocacy in Mental Health) Scholarship Day at the Schwartz Reisman Innovation Campus. It brought faculty, learners, and community mental health partners together around advocacy- and equity-focused scholarship and addressed a gap in our activities, providing a new home for collaboration focused on creative professional activity, and EDIIA. Buoyed by strong attendance, praise from attendees, and the high quality of scholarship, the event will return in 2026.

In January, we marked the 15th Annual Donald Wasylenki Education Day. This year's theme, artificial intelligence in medical education, drew a full room and forty posters spanning curriculum innovation, faculty development, EDIIA, and service user engagement. Fifteen years on, this event remains one of the clearest expressions of how deeply this Department values teaching.

We closed out the year in June with the newly renamed Mulsant-Pollock Research Day. The new name honours a joint donation from former Labatt Family Chair of the Department of Psychiatry, Dr. Benoit Mulsant, and Professor Emeritus Dr. Bruce Pollock. Their generous gift is only one of many contributions they have made to our Department as researchers, mentors, and leaders. The event brought together learners and faculty members at every stage of their careers to share their work and spark tomorrow’s collaborations. There could be no more suitable tribute to Drs. Mulsant and Pollock.

Our community’s dedication to research was further demonstrated by the work our faculty members delivered this past year. With 1,311 data-based articles and 1,451 total publications, they continue to contribute new scholarship in every major area of psychiatry. I am also delighted to report that total research grant funding held by our faculty rose from $59 million to $71 million this year, driven primarily by growth in CIHR grants. That increase reflects the quality and ambition of our researchers, and it strengthens our capacity to answer the questions that matter most to patients and families.

We are also bringing our current strategic plan to a close, and this is a good moment to look back on its accomplishments. Our Mentorship Program has grown from an idea into infrastructure, with one-on-one mentorship available to all faculty members and mentorship groups providing a place to seek guidance and offer it. Our research hubs in suicide and quality, innovation, and safety are connecting expertise that was previously dispersed across our sites and turning it into shared scholarship and better practice. And our City-Wide Psychiatry Rounds have become a departmental institution, bringing learners and faculty together with leading experts from across our community.

The Temerty Faculty of Medicine will be publishing their new strategic plan later this year. As we begin work on our Department’s next strategic plan, we want to hear from you. I am eagerly anticipating the opportunity to collaborate across our community to create our new plan. The priorities we set together will shape the years ahead.

My thanks to every faculty member, learner, and staff member whose work fills this report. Together, we will continue to build on everything our Department has contributed to the field of psychiatry and further our shared mission of lifting the burden of mental illness.

Dr. Simone Vigod, Labatt Family Chair of the Department of Psychiatry, Temerty Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto