When the University of Toronto’s School of the Environment announced in October that it will no longer accept donations from the fossil fuel industry, the news sent waves through the growing movement to get coal, oil and gas companies off campuses. Among other things, that means banning fossil fuel corporations from financing academic research.

“This victory shows students have the ability to enact institutional change,” said Erin Mackey, a leader of the group Climate Justice UofT, which pushed for the fossil fuel money ban. “That’s especially important when, at many universities, students who want to make change are having the door slammed in their faces.”

Mackey and other Climate Justice UofT leaders decided to launch a fossil free research campaign, possibly the first in Canada. They joined organizing calls with a network of students across the U.S. and U.K. then known as Fossil Free Research, who were exchanging ideas and experiences as they built their own campaigns.

“We did teach-ins, rallies and banner drops,” Mackey said. In 2023, she and other students from Climate Justice UofT released a report finding that between 2008 and 2018, the university accepted over $64 million from the fossil fuel industry.

The students also began direct talks with faculty about a fossil free research policy specific to the School of the Environment. Responses from faculty members were generally supportive.