Bring your sector’s global
congress to Toronto
When your discipline’s congress comes to Toronto, you bring the world’s leaders in your sector to your city, and join the network that makes it happen. It starts with someone local willing to lead the congress bid. That could be you.
Hosting a congress is more than winning a bid. It’s about bringing your sector’s leaders together in one place.
What lasts goes beyond the meeting: stronger connections with peers and institutions, greater recognition in your field, and the opportunity to celebrate your contribution at the Leaders Circle Recognition Celebration.
A partnership, with you at the front
You bring the standing in your sector. We bring a team that knows how international congress bids are won.
Leading a conference bid means leading the academic expertise. Depending on the association’s guidelines, you judge whether an opportunity is worth pursuing, bring your institution and your peers to the table, shape the academic theme the proposal is built on, contribute to the bid proposal, and speak for Toronto when the case is made. Leaders Circle assists with the strategy and researches the case for the city, and Destination Toronto compiles the bid proposal, coordinates letters of support from government, and more.
Once a conference is won, its ambassadors may be eligible for the Leaders Circle Research Grant, up to $50,000 for a project aligned with the conference’s focus. Beyond the grant, ambassadors join a standing network of sector leaders and are celebrated among their peers at the Leaders Circle Recognition Celebration.
The world's medical congresses come to Toronto, led by people like you.
Leaders across medicine and the life sciences have brought their international congresses here
Leaders Circle has helped bring congresses in medicine and the life sciences to Toronto, with more on the way. Recent and upcoming hosts include the XXIX IFSO World Congress, the International Congress of Immunology, the World Association for Infant Mental Health, and the International Conference of the IEEE Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society.
In their words
“Toronto by far leads in the rehabilitation field but also, we have very strong academic departments.”
In their words
“It’s a big event and we were really excited to have our colleagues here in Toronto.”
In their words
“This conference in particular promotes that kind of collaborative discussion and research.”
A host city that doubles as a research partner
For a clinical or scientific congress, the host city is part of the science. Selection committees look for a place where the sector is already strong, where delegates can reach real labs and clinics, and where local researchers join the program. Toronto holds Canada's largest combined life sciences sector: more than 36,000 people in medical research, biotechnology, devices, and pharmaceuticals, over a billion dollars in research and development, and more than 1,400 clinical trials underway.
Fifty-three of the world’s top 100 life sciences companies operate here, anchored by the University of Toronto and one of North America’s densest hospital and research networks: University Health Network and its Princess Margaret Cancer Centre, the Hospital for Sick Children, Mount Sinai, Sunnybrook, and St. Michael’s, clustered in the Discovery District beside the MaRS innovation hub.
Toronto is also a tier-one international gateway, with direct connections from the major research capitals, the venue and hotel capacity a large international meeting requires, and a welcome your delegation will feel on arrival. The draw is measurable: in 2025, Toronto welcomed more international meeting attendees than any other city in North America.
Questions medical and life sciences leaders ask
International congresses rotate between cities, and each one is won through a formal bid, a case made to the association that holds the congress. A bid needs a local host from within the field to put it forward, usually a clinician or researcher connected to the association, alongside a team that prepares the case. In Toronto, Leaders Circle brings the strategy and guidance, Destination Toronto delivers the bid services, and you provide the standing and leadership that only a local expert can. There is no fee to take part.
After a successful bid, the ambassadors who led it may apply for the Leaders Circle Research Grant, for a project connected to the congress. In the life sciences it has funded work such as a clinical treatment database, research that continued long after the meeting ended. It is awarded after a win, and it plays no part in the bid decision. Full details are on the Research Grant page.
The congress bid is the beginning. Ambassadors join a standing network of clinical and research leaders across Toronto, take part in Leaders Circle workshops, and are celebrated among their peers at the Leaders Circle Recognition Celebration. Many ambassadors also have the chance to share their story in a filmed conversation or a written feature that reaches their field. The Events page has more on what the community involves.
Yes. You do not need to be the most senior name in your field, only known to your peers and willing to lead. Most ambassadors have never led a bid before, and Leaders Circle and Destination Toronto handle the process around you.