We wish to acknowledge this land on which the University of Toronto operates. For thousands of years it has been the traditional land of the Huron-Wendat, the Seneca, and the Mississaugas of the Credit. Today, this meeting place is still the home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island and we are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land
DDI Project Overview
- The Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics has ambitious plans to establish the Dunlap Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (Dunlap Institute) as a renewal of the memorial that founded the David Dunlap Observatory.
- The long-term future of the Dunlap Institute would be ensured by an endowment established on disposition of the lands of the David Dunlap Observatory, a 180-acre site in Richmond Hill.
- The resources available through the Dunlap Institute would elevate the University of Toronto’s astronomy and astrophysics work to a level matched only by the top centres internationally.
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The multi-faceted Dunlap Institute would assume a prominent leadership position in research, teaching and advanced training, and public outreach. Specific objectives of the Institute are to:
- Create an international centre of research excellence in astronomy and astrophysics.
- Participate in the development of scientific instrumentation for world-class observatories.
- Promote interaction and provide leadership to create major national and international research collaborations with a focus on the theme of ‘origins’.
- Engage in grand computational astrophysics problems.
- Promote advanced training opportunities for graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, and research associates.
- Organize and host international workshops and meetings.
- Provide a primary means for channeling information on astronomy and astrophysics to the general public.
- The Dunlap Institute would consist primarily of endowed chairs; support for permanent staff, research fellows, postdoctoral fellows and graduate students, and a visitors program; and an instrumentation and computing development fund.
- Rather than the costly proposition of operating a large telescope, the Dunlap Institute would develop access to major private facilities on a time-limited, project basis. This strategy produces tremendous opportunities for leverage, by providing seed or matching funds for development of instrumentation and/or by forming strategic partnerships with other institutions (one concrete example being the current collaboration with the Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington on the Magellan Project).
- The Dunlap Institute would be housed on the St. George campus, in close proximity to Astronomy and Astrophysics, the Canadian Institute for Theoretical Astrophysics, and Physics.