Rotman School Looking to Invest 75% of New C$60M Funding

The University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management has received a C$60 million (c. US$46m) injection of new funding, the largest part of which will be used to establish the school’s own venture fund.

The Rotman Catalyst Fund’s remit will be to support ideas that can increase the impact of its students and faculty research as well as the institution’s reputation in the world of management education. It will have C$45 million to play with and faculty members at the Rotman School are expected to compete for a portion of the money through project proposals that demonstrate the highest impact potential.

“It will quickly stimulate and drive opportunities for major contributions to national issues such as prosperity, innovation, and leadership development,” the University of Toronto’s president, Meric Gertler, said of the venture fund.

Venture fund aims to enhance student experience

Students at the Rotman School should see the benefits of the fund in innovations applied to its roster of programs as well as in the areas of experiential education and lifelong learning, according to Rotman’s dean, Tiff Macklem.

“The idea was not to lock down from day one exactly how all the money would be spent…It is to fund bold new initiatives with a competition for ideas,” Macklem told the Globe and Mail, offering up student experiences that tie in real-world exposure as an example of a project to which money from the venture fund might be allocated.

There are three principal areas in which the Rotman School is seeking to invest through its venture fund. Entrepreneurship and innovation is one; initiatives that can help foster a global mindset are another; while the third is a combination of leadership in financial management and good governance. Money is therefore also likely to be channeled through many of the school’s existing research centers and hubs, such as the Martin Prosperity Institute or the Self-Development Lab (SDL) – the SDL recently providing one of TopMBA.com’s examples of where MBAs can get better acquainted with the value of soft skills.

The remaining C$15 million of the C$60 million total will be channeled into regular funding avenues, examples of which are given as scholarships, faculty positions and infrastructure investments. The money itself comes from a C$30 million gift from the estate of Joseph Rotman, the late businessman whose career spanned the industries of energy, banking, real estate and venture capital, and whose name the school bears. Rotman, and his family, are now the University of Toronto’s largest donors, with gifts totaling C$71 million (c. US$54m). The Rotman School says that this gift and its usage was conceived and agreed before Joseph Rotman’s death at the start of last year. Indeed, the other half of C$60 million comes directly from the coffers of the University of Toronto.