Research Funding
Grants & Funding
PATRON is anchored by a seven-year SSHRC Partnership Grant and extends its work through internal University of Toronto programs and external funders. This page tracks open calls we are responding to, applications under review, and awards that have supported our research and student training.
● Awarded
● Submitted · Under review
● In preparation
● Planning
4
Applications under review (2027 cycle)
3
Open and upcoming calls
2
Student research residencies completed (2026)
01 · Open calls
Calls for Proposals
Open and upcoming funding calls PATRON is preparing submissions for. Faculty partners and graduate students interested in joining an application can reach the lab through the contact page.
● Open · closes Nov 13, 2026
Data Sciences Institute · Internal
Summer Undergraduate Data Science (SUDS) 2027
Call for faculty supervisors. DSI funds 14-week summer research placements for undergraduates, including a Data Science & AI for Social Good stream. PATRON is preparing a project.
● Open · closes Nov 27, 2026
University of Toronto · External (EU)
Horizon Europe Partnership Development Seed Grants
Seed support for building European research consortia under Horizon Europe Pillar II. Canada is an associated country, so Canadian partners can lead work packages and claim costs directly.
● Upcoming · 2027 call
Jackman Humanities Institute · Internal
Scholars-in-Residence 2027
Faculty supervisor call for JHI's May undergraduate research residency. PATRON hosted two residencies in 2026 and is preparing a 2027 proposal.
02 · University of Toronto
Internal Funding
University of Toronto programs that extend PATRON's SSHRC-funded core: institutes, strategic initiatives, and student research residencies.
Under review
Claude API
● Submitted · Sept 2026
Data Sciences Institute · Claude API Credits (2027)
Automating Canada's Bilingual Electoral Boundary Descriptions
Tests whether large language models can draft the legal English and French descriptions of Canada's 343 federal electoral districts from map data, comparing Claude with open-weight and Canadian-hosted models on geographic accuracy, cross-language consistency, and correction effort.
CRMP
● Submitted · Oct 2026
Data Sciences Institute · Software Development (2027)
The Canadian Redistribution Modernization Platform (CRMP)
In-kind developer support to move CRMP from a local prototype to a secure, bilingual web service where residents can draw alternative boundaries, submit map-linked comments, and see effects on population balance, contiguity, and compactness. Code to be released as open source.
CITADEL
● Submitted · Oct 2026
ISI Defence & Sovereignty Network (2027): CITADEL
CITADEL: Canadian Infrastructure for Threat Analysis and Defence of Electoral Legitimacy
A cross-campus network of political scientists and computer scientists planning secure, Canadian-hosted research infrastructure for democracy and election data, through roundtables, a partner symposium, dataset mapping and harmonization, and graduate training.
Lawson Climate
● Submitted · Sept 2026
Lawson Climate Institute (2027) · Themed Grants
Tracing the Local Impacts of AI Data Centre Development
A systematic Canadian account of where AI data centres are sited, under what rules, and what local water, electricity, and governance resources they draw on, with an environmental scan, a prototype public map, and a siting framework.
Awarded
● Awarded · Completed May 2026
Jackman Humanities Institute · Scholars-in-Residence 2026
The Digitization of Canada's Founding Debates (1867–1871)
An undergraduate residency that used modern OCR and AI-assisted cleaning to add Canada's earliest parliamentary debates to the Linked Parliamentary Data (LiPaD) corpus.
Project page →
● Awarded · Completed May 2026
Jackman Humanities Institute · Scholars-in-Residence 2026
Following the Money: Mapping Networks of Influence in Government Contracting
An undergraduate residency supervised by Michael Donnelly in partnership with PATRON and the Investigative Journalism Foundation, linking federal procurement records to networks of political influence.
Project page →
03 · National & International
External Funding
National and international funders supporting PATRON's partnership, data infrastructure, and collaborative research.
● Awarded · Active
Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council · Partnership Grant
PATRON–ROTIP: Political Accountability, Transparency, and Representation Oversight Network
A seven-year partnership led by Christopher Cochrane (Director) and Rohan Alexander (Co-Director), with 10 partner organizations and 35 directors, co-applicants, and collaborators, building a public-interest repository of linked data on representation, transparency, and accountability.
● Planning
European Commission · Horizon Europe (2027), Pillar II
European Consortium on Democracy Data Infrastructure
PATRON is exploring a Horizon Europe consortium (Cluster 2: Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society) that would connect Canadian democracy data with European research infrastructure. Canada's association to Horizon Europe lets Canadian partners participate on equal terms.