Bring your sciences congress
to a city built on research
Toronto’s universities and research institutes put your field’s peers within reach of the venue. That local depth is what an international bid needs, and it needs a recognized name to carry it. That name can be yours.
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.
Global science comes to Toronto, led by researchers like you.
Leaders across the sciences have brought
their international congresses here
Leaders Circle has helped bring congresses in the sciences to Toronto, with more on the way. Recent and upcoming hosts include the 27th World’s Poultry Congress and the 24th World Congress of Soil Science.
In their words
“The theme that we’re proposing for our Congress is Soils in a Warmer World.”
In their words
“We’re delighted that now the whole field of Science Centres is coming to Toronto in 2019.”
In their words
“The theme of the World Congress is prevention in the Connected Age.”
Why Toronto for the sciences
For a scientific meeting, the host city is part of the draw. It shapes who joins your sessions, which institutions lend their depth, and how readily your sector's researchers can reach you. The Toronto region is home to several publicly funded universities and a dense network of research institutes, giving almost any scientific discipline a base of local collaborators. For your delegates, that is a program with local partners already in place.
Bringing your congress here connects that depth to a community of scientific leaders who have done the same, in one of the world’s most diverse cities and a major international gateway. A global delegation arrives somewhere that already feels open, and hosting your field’s meeting in Toronto puts your discipline, and your city, on the map. Toronto is a major international gateway too, with the connections a global scientific delegation needs — which matters most when your delegates travel from every part of the world.
Questions science leaders ask
Most scientific congresses rotate between countries on a set cycle, and each is awarded through a bid to the society that owns it. The bid needs a local host from within the field to put it forward, usually a researcher connected to the society, working with a team that prepares the case for the city. In Toronto, Leaders Circle brings the strategy and guidance, Destination Toronto delivers the bid services, and you provide the standing that comes from being known in your field. 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 research project connected to the congress. It is awarded after a win, not before, and has no bearing on whether Toronto is chosen. Past grants in the sciences have funded work that continued long after the meeting ended. Full details are on the Research Grant page.
Ambassadors join a standing network of researchers across Toronto’s universities and institutes, take part in Leaders Circle workshops, and are celebrated among their peers at the Leaders Circle Recognition Celebration. For many, the connections made across the sector outlast the congress itself.
Toronto has one of the largest concentrations of universities and research institutes in North America, so a congress here meets a community already working across almost every scientific discipline. Recent congresses hosted here include the World Congress of Soil Science and the World’s Poultry Congress.