Strategic Mandate Agreement

What is the Strategic Mandate Agreement (SMA)?

Strategic Mandate Agreements (SMAs) are documents established through negotiations with the Ministry of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security (MCURES) that provide universities and colleges an opportunity to communicate priorities, identify areas of institutional strength/focus, set the level of domestic enrolment for which they receive operating grant funding, and establish weightings and targets for performance metrics.

Toronto Metropolitan University and the Ministry signed the 2025-2030 Strategic Mandate Agreement on April 3, 2025 and its technical appendices on June 30, 2025. 

Under its performance/outcomes-based funding system, the Ontario government will allocate 25% of operating grant funding for universities in 2025-26 and 2026-27 based on the achievement of SMA targets on 8 metrics. The government selected these metrics to reflect student success, community impact, research activity, and economic relevance. In addition, the government will undertake a funding formula review within the first two years of the 2025-2030 Strategic Mandate Agreement.