Updated June 28, 2022.

The Office of Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) resides in the Research Oversight & Compliance Office (ROCO) unit within The Division of the Vice-President Research & Innovation (VPRI). EHS has a comprehensive portfolio with a broad mandate for all three campuses with the objective of ensuring and facilitating a safe environment for all employees, students, visitors and contractors who engage in activities across our community and frequent any of our spaces.

EHS has an Executive Director of Research Safety and Compliance who oversees the regulatory/legislative landscape pertaining to research related institutional compliance within the laboratory environment and reports to the Associate Vice-President, ROCO.

EHS also has an Executive Director of Occupational Health & Safety (OHS) who oversees the Occupational Health & Safety regulatory/legislative landscape (as per the Occupational Health and Safety Act) and facilitates institutional compliance broadly across all workplace environments as well as ensuring effective general safety measures are in place for all university spaces. The Executive Director OHS reports to the Associate Vice-President, ROCO as well as the VPHRE.

UTM and UTSC both have EHS Managers who oversee all health and safety matters at their respective campuses. Both Managers report into the Director, Operations, OHS. EHS also works closely with various other units in different portfolios across the campuses in order to provide a comprehensive H&S framework designed to support specific client groups based on needs.

Our Mission

The mission of the EHS Department is to ensure that an environmentally responsible, safe and healthy work, research and study environment exists at the University of Toronto.

We do this by being proactive in identifying risks and emerging issues and by developing and implementing innovative, practical and sustainable processes to manage them, including training and awareness, teaching, provision of expert advice, emergency response and assurance.

Through close collaboration with all members of the University community we establish and maintain health and safety systems that are widely acknowledged to be of excellent quality and that, while not limiting or impeding academic freedom and freedom of research, maintain a high level of safety.

As part of the Division of the Vice-President, Research & Innovation, EHS is committed to equity and excellence in the pursuit of its mission because an equitable, diverse, and inclusive environment enables all UofT community members to reach their full potential and contribute to original, significant, and ground-breaking research across the University. Diversity strengthens the quality and impact of the research and academic experience by bringing together multiple ideas and perspectives. For more information of Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI), please refer to https://research.utoronto.ca/equity-diversity-inclusion/equity-diversity-inclusion.