Promotion guidelines: to Associate Professor and Professor

Deadline:  March 17, 2025

Submit documents by email to Xilonem Lopez at lmp.hr@utoronto.ca.

Download document that contains detailed instructions for LOI, as well as links to download LOI templates and CV template and tip sheet.

1. Letter of Intent (LOI)

• Identify rank and platform for promotion.  You must indicate excellence in at least one of the following platforms:  Research, Creative Professional Activity (CPA), Teaching.  Teaching must be at least competent.
  
• Summarize your accomplishments since your last promotion or since your appointment. 
  
  For those applying based on Creative Professional Activity (CPA), please indicate your contribution in terms of:
  • Professional Innovation and Creative Excellence,
  • Contributions to the Development of Professional Practices, and/or
  • Exemplary Professional Practice.

Describe your accomplishments and impact at the national level (for Associate Professor) or international level (for full Professor.)

Detailed information about the different platforms and criteria for promotion can be found on the LMP website. You are encouraged to review the Promotion Manual (PDF) and present your accomplishment following its terminology.

2.  CV (must use the Temerty Faculty of Medicine CV template Word Doc).  

Contact lmp.hr@utoronto.ca to obtain LOI template and read sample letters.

You will be contacted by mid-April with information on next steps.

Deadline:  Friday, May 23, 2025

Submit documents by email to Xilonem Lopez at lmp.hr@utoronto.ca.

Download PDF of the complete documentation list below, along with detailed instructions on how to strengthen your dossier documentation.

1. Internal Documents for Departmental Use

Submit Promotion Checklist , Summary of Evidence of Impact, and At-a-Glance Summary.
Include a Table of Content for large dossiers, i.e. if you have many attachments.

2. Cover letter (this is your Letter of Intent)

Write your letter so that a non-specialist in your field could understand.  Address the following points in your letter:

• reason for seeking promotion,
• short narrative of your academic career history,
• for faculty with clinical duties, briefly describe your job description with percentage split between clinical and academic activities,
• brief summary of your accomplishments and their impact since your last promotion or since your appointment.  List your most significant accomplishments first.  
• outline future direction.

Promotion at the Associate Professor level must be supported by evidence of an impact (recognition) at the national level. Scholarship for promotion at the level of Full Professor must be supported by a distinguished international reputation.

Download LMP's Cover Letter Templates for Research and Creative Professional Activities pathways.

3. Curriculum Vitae

Use the Temerty Faculty of Medicine CV template (word doc). 

Your CV is one of the most important documents in your promotion dossier for reviewers.  Download PDF with list of common errors in CVs and tips on how to make your CV easy for reviewers to understand.

4. Most significant publications

List your five most significant publications, including a short paragraph describing the significance and your contribution.

Include copies of these publications in your dossier.

These papers must be since your last promotion or since your  appointment to LMP. 

6. Research documentation

Research Statement and impact (as a pdf document), if applicable.

Your Personal Citation Report: use Web of Science or Scopus, via The UofT Gerstain Science Library (UTORid needed)

Attach Data Summary Sheets where applicable (use the templates below)

• Data summary sheet, research awards
• Data summary sheet, refereed publications
• Data summary sheet, research supervision

7. Creative Professional Activity (CPA) documentation, if applicable

If this section applies to you, please read the LMP Promotions Task Force - CPA report.  

It is important to write a compelling narrative to describe your activities. 

• Complete the Creative Professional Activity (CPA) report template.

Your report must give the reader a clear and concise view of your accomplishments, the impact and the evidence of this impact. 

The report should:

• describe your key accomplishment(s) since your last promotion (describe each accomplishment separately), stating clearly your role in the accomplishment. It may be necessary for you to provide some background for reviewers who are non-specialist in your field. 
• explain the level of impact or influence – local, national or international position, and affected stakeholders (clinicians, hospital staff, public).
• include a brief description of how this accomplishment showed exemplary professional practice (e.g. was it adopted by other institutions, etc.).
• address the sustainability of the work. What is the vision for the future? Address funding sustainability, if applicable.
• include evidence/proof of impact. For example attach:
  • letter(s) of support from other organizations who have adopted your initiatives
  • invitations to address major conferences
  • conference organization activities
  • peer-reviewed publications
  • website
  • workshops
  • uptake of your program
  • new collaborations
  • editorials that illustrate international impact of publication
  • review articles referring to work
  • symposium presentations
  • samples of media reports and news clippings
  • membership in think-tank organizations
  • special awards and recognition received as a result of your work.

Attach supporting documents for each CPA activity. For each CPA activity, collate supporting documents into one pdf.

For Quality Improvement activities that have not been published, it is highly recommended that you submit a QI report, e.g. Standards for Quality Improvement Reporting Excellence template on the Squire website.

8. Teaching and education documentation

Complete a Teaching and Education Report template.

Your report must include:

• a statement of your teaching philosophy, including an assessment of the impact of teaching activities. See Developing a Statement of Teaching Philosophy on the Centre for Teaching Support and Innovation website.
• all your activities related to the administration, organizational and developmental aspects of education. Describe the nature and extent of your involvement and level of responsibility, clearly indicating when you had a major responsibility for the design of a course.
• a summary of your teaching goals within the next 5 years.
• teaching evaluation reports or assessments. For example:
  • summaries of course assessments, per course, per year
  • results of peer assessments of teaching effectiveness
  • solicited and unsolicited testimonial letters from colleagues
  • letters from senior members of the Faculty who have made personal observations at national meetings
  • CE courses and/or seminars and symposia (if applicable).
• Attach supporting documentation such as course and lecture outlines, letters of invitation to teach at other centres, etc.
• Data Summary Sheet, Teaching using the template (word doc).
• Data Summary Sheet, Mentorship using the template (word doc).

9. Administrative service documentation

Write a brief outline of your service activities for:

• the department;
• the Temerty Faculty of Medicine;
• the University;
• your discipline; and
• your professional community or other targeted communities.

You may attach supporting documentation such as relevant documents that demonstrate the nature and impact of your service achievements.

10. Referee lists

The Chair will seek assessments from other departments at the University of Toronto where you hold cross-appointments, and may seek assessments from other referees as well.

External referees

Complete the external referee form (word doc), ensuring contact information is up to date.

Submit a maximum of three referees.

These referees must be:

• external to the University of Toronto and its affiliated hospitals.
• arms-length referees: no former supervisors, collaborators (within the last 5 years), or students. They cannot be co-authors, co-investigators or co-applicants on grants.
• Their academic rank must be equal to, or greater than, the rank you are seeking for promotion.

Internal referees

These are no longer mandatory, but you may submit these if you wish.

Internal referees will be sought beyond your local institution and will not necessarily be those you submit.

Complete the internal referee form (word doc), ensuring contact information is up to date.

These referees must be:

• internal to the University of Toronto and its affiliated hospitals but NOT a faculty member of Laboratory Medicine & Pathobiology (no cross-appointed LMP faculty). See the directory for a list of LMP appointed faculty.
• arms-length referees: no former supervisors, collaborators (within the last 5 years) or students. They cannot be co-authors, co-investigators or co-applicants on grants.
• Their academic rank must be equal to, or greater than, the rank you are seeking for promotion.

Colleague referees

Complete the colleague referee form (word doc), ensuring contact information is up to date.

Colleague referees should be able to understand your scholarly contributions and its impact in the field.

It can be a current or previous collaborator (i.e. co-author on papers or co-PI/ co-applicants on grants).

Colleague referees can be:

• LMP faculty;
• affiliated with UofT; or
• external to UofT.

Preferably their academic rank should be equal to, or greater than, the rank you are seeking for promotion.

Student referees

Complete the student referee form (word doc), ensuring contact information is up to date.

Student referees can be current or former students.

Sample dossiers

You can review sample promotion dossiers from the LMP Office. Contact Xilonem Lopez to request access lmp.hr@utoronto.ca.

Deadline: Tuesday, September 2, 2025

LMP deadline might be adjusted pending Decanal Promotions Committee deadline.

Submit documents: via Academic Promotions Laserfiche (online submission)

1. Review your web profile

Review your research profile on the LMP website.

We will send your profile to potential referees to give them a brief background on your academic activities.

You can update your profile at any time by completing the online form or emailing lmp.communications@utoronto.ca.

2. Submit documentation via the Academic Promotion System

If the LMP Departmental Promotions Committee (DPC) recommends you move forward in the promotion process, you will need to submit your final dossier electronically using the Temerty Faculty of Medicine online academic promotion system, Laserfiche.

You will receive an email with your unique Promotion ID.

Upload documents as PDF with a maximum file size of 10MB. Separate large documents if necessary.

File names should not contain spaces, hyphens, commas, brackets or extra dots. Follow the naming convention as noted below in the table.