Canadian Leadership in Ageing Awards

The National Institute on Ageing (NIA) at Toronto Metropolitan University and RTOERO are hosting the 2025 Canadian Leadership in Ageing Awards competition. 

  • The graduate award ($1,000) will be presented to a graduate student enrolled at a Canadian college or university who has demonstrated leadership in policy development or advocacy in support of older adults and healthy ageing.

  • The undergraduate award ($1,000) will be presented to an undergraduate student enrolled at a Canadian college or university who has shown exemplary leadership in the area of older adults and healthy ageing through a project or research in the topic area.

Both of the awards will be offered Canada-wide and will highlight the leadership students have taken to address challenges and increase opportunities associated with Canada’s ageing population in the past year.

Entry Period:

September 26, 2025 - October 24, 2025

RTOERO LEADERSHIP IN AGEING AWARD TERMS AND CONDITIONS

How to Enter:

To apply for the Canadian Leadership in Ageing Award, please submit a cover letter (1-2 pages) to info.nia@torontomu.ca. In your cover letter, describe your leadership in policy development/advocacy or project/research and its positive impact on older adults.

Please include one of the following subject lines in your email to indicate your award category:

  • Graduate - Canadian Leadership in Ageing Award

  • Undergraduate - Canadian Leadership in Ageing Award

Additionally, within the body of your email, confirm whether you are an undergraduate or graduate student, and specify your university affiliation.

2024 RTOERO Leadership in Ageing Award Recipients

The NIA and RTOERO are proud to announce the winners of the 2024 Canadian Leadership in Ageing Awards. 

The prize for an undergraduate student ($1,000) was awarded to Nikita Chopra, a student at Queen’s University. In 2023, Nikita entered the Queen’s University Institute for Health Improvement Case Competition, where she was awarded first place for her ideation and pitch of the Ontario Program of Assisted Alternative Care (OPAAC). Nikita’s entry was in response to the inequities posed by Bill 7: the More Beds Better Care Act. Her OPAAC proposed policy program seeks to provide better suited care options through a four-stage process.

The prize for a graduate student ($1,000) was awarded to Josee Sunday, a Master’s in Healthcare Management student at McMaster University. A Mohawk woman from the Akwesasne Mohawk Nation, Josee also works as a Indigenous Transition Facilitator with Providence Care Hospital in Kingston, Ontario. Josee represents Indigenous people and their interests in healthcare within this hospital, and this OHT region, acting as Co-chair of the Indigenous Transition Facilitator Community of Practice (provincially) and Co-chair of the OHT- subgroup Indigenous Palliative Care Support Strategies (regionally). She has re-written pre-existing policies to better support Indigenous access to care and traditional medicines, specifically, implementing a smudging policy within her organization. Her work has helped to reduce barriers of communication between hospitals and Indigenous communities, greatly improving health information sharing between regions.