Centres & Labs

Led by Dr. Cheryl Thompson, Black Creative Lab aims to be an incubator for Black artists, dancers, filmmakers, writers, and creative individuals. Through public engagement, digital content creation, and collaborative projects, Black Creative Lab is creating space, encouraging dialogue, and developing opportunities for persons who identify as Black.

FDSC supports research and knowledge exchange that cultivates inclusion, equity and decolonization in the field of Fashion Studies and the fashion system more broadly. Our work centres fat, disabled, trans, gender non-conforming, Indigenous, Black, racialized and/or other bodies that have been marginalized in and by fashion. Our projects use participatory and decolonizing methodologies to centre the experiences and ideal futures of these wearers and makers and to redesign the field of fashion for and with them.  

The Centre for Free Expression focuses on issues related to freedom of expression and the public’s right to know. This includes campus free expression, academic freedom, hate speech, censorship, disinformation, access-to-information, whistleblower protection, anti-SLAPP legislation, corporate and government surveillance, and freedom of the press.

The Centre for Packaging Innovation and Sustainability (CPIS) is Canada’s leading hub for researchers and industry professionals, dedicated to advancing knowledge and sharing expertise across all facets of the packaging industry, ranging from consumer behaviour, packaging design and performance, and sustainability.

The Children’s Media Lab participates in and leads research that is relevant to today’s content creators. There is so much research that could be helpful but doesn’t ever get to producers, writers and app makers. And there are so many content creators who would love to have distilled research but don’t have access to academics or the time to pursue comprehensive academic reports.

Colour Media Lab pioneers an interdisciplinary approach to analyzing color in modern culture and media. We combine research from the history of technology; media and communications; and aesthetics to reframe traditional disciplinary attitudes. By placing color at the center of our analyses, we generate original and cutting edge insight primed for global dissemination. Current topics of interest include: synthetic color, electronic media and screen culture, urban aesthetics, architecture, fashion, textiles, and pattern.

The Creative Communities in Collaboration research lab (CCC) investigates how creativity and cultural production enable resilience and strength in communities. Not only a driver of 21st century economies, culture and creative expression also enhance the wellbeing of individuals and communities. The CCC examines emergent and community-based responses to social, economic, political, and cultural problems. 

Founded by David Gauntlett, The Creative School’s Tier I Canada Research Chair in Creative Innovation and Leadership, Creativity Everything takes a deliberately broad and inclusive approach to creativity, connecting ideas from a range of disciplines, and seeking to embrace a diverse range of creators and creative practices. This includes three core themes: a) Exploring how best to support the development and exchange of ideas and innovation; b) Researching new and diverse models of leadership and inspiration; c) Developing new ways of engaging wider audiences with these issues.

The DMRC focuses on documentary as the “creative treatment of actuality”, as John Grierson defined it, with an emphasis on the two terms: “creative” meaning current, multidisciplinary and multiplatform forms of representation and “actuality” as a reference to subject matter that is discovered in the situated conditions of the world. We foster research and creative activity across a diverse range of media, including film, photography and new media.

The Experiential Media Institute (XMI) develops new insights, analysis, models, and practices for understanding mediated experience design across industries, technologies, production modes, and content strategies. XMI explores the opportunities offered by the convergence of media practices in four target areas: content creation, audience relationships, emergent business models, and the applications of media in disparate industries.

In partnership with Cirque du Soleil, the largest theatrical producer in the world, FOLiE conducts boundary-pushing research into the future of live entertainment. Through a distinctively interdisciplinary approach at the crossroads of technology and creativity, the lab tackles questions of how changes in audience preferences, emerging technologies and shifting economic conditions are creating new possibilities for live entertainment, as well as potential for social, educational, and commercial impact.

Toronto Metropolitan University's Healthcare User Experience (HUE) Lab is a research hub that uses interdisciplinary design principles to make healthcare better for patients, practitioners, and caregivers. The HUE Lab approaches design challenges using collaborative methodologies, and creative knowledge mobilization to connect faculty, students, patients, and medical professionals. In a dynamic healthcare environment, the HUE Lab works with community partners to solve healthcare problems with unique and effective solutions.

The GCGL supports academic research on key questions related to the structure and governance of communication industries and aims to provide a platform for developing and sharing knowledge and expertise. It provides learning opportunities and physical space for certain dynamic Toronto Met students to contribute to professional scholarly research.

The GXS Lab is the connection between scholarly research and industry practice in sport and sport media. GXS focuses on the intersection and knowledge transfer between Globalization; Digitization; and Commercialization to create new opportunities in sport and sport media interdisciplinary research design and experience.

The Infoscape Research Lab hosts research projects that focus on the cultural and political impact of digital media, particularly with regards to social media. The lab develops collaborative software based research tools and experimental research methods that seek to analyze content and use of new media platforms.The lab also supports research creation projects, including but not limited to documentary film.

This is a period of dramatic upheaval, excitement and uncertainty for journalism and journalists. At the Journalism Research Centre, we examine the impact of these changes, and study trends in journalism and what they mean for society and the news business. We also explore the impact of technological innovation and encourage the development of new tools for producing great stories.

A globally recognized lab for spearheading innovative research and education in Digital Asset Management and fostering partnerships with organizations nationally and internationally across diverse sectors.

Stitched! is a research and production lab focused on the development and expansion of live journalism models. At stitched! we respond to multiple challenges the journalism industry faces, including exploring new ways to present reported stories, building trust and engagement with audiences, exploring interactivity and applying practices from complimentary fields including - but not limited to -the field of documentary and verbatim theatre. 

The Sustainable Packaging Research Lab conducts research that contributes to the creation of sustainable packaging systems and design. Specifically, its research theme is based on the concept that sustainable packaging solutions can only be achieved when mechanical interactions between packaging components during distribution, environmental performance of different packaging systems and design, and human-packaging interactions are quantitatively examined in a system-based design manner.

As a patron of the Canadian fashion industry, Suzanne Rogers has witnessed the strength of emerging design talent at the starting line of their careers. Year after year, as one  designer after another debuted their collections at Ryerson Fashion’s year-end show, Mass Exodus, her main question became “what happens next?”

Presented with a unique opportunity to provide meaningful support and fill a gap between fashion education and practice, the answer to her question became The Suzanne Rogers Fashion Institute. This dynamic fellowship program is set to enrich the next generation through its long-term and unconditional support for emerging designers in the onset of their careers.

A laboratory that brings together students, staff and faculty, as well as, artists, activists, and media scholars from across the GTA and beyond to mobilize knowledge across the city on topics related to media activism and its role within a society. This includes organizing a yearly roster of symposia, speakers’ series, workshops, and student/faculty research creation outputs. 

The Synaesthetic Media Lab (Synlab) at Toronto Metropolitan University explores emerging modalities in new media. Our research focuses on tangible and embodied interaction technologies that support creative practices that bridge the physical and digital worlds. Applications range across media arts, computational sciences, entertainment, and educational domains.

Projects developed within the Technological Research in Performance Lab aim to expand performance beyond a human-centred medium and challenge what constitutes as performance in an ever changing technological ecosystem. Our goal is to explore how audience-performer relationships change and differ with the integration of emerging technologies: including show control, non-humanoid robot performers and AI. We examine how they can further develop and explore reciprocal human-robot empathy and enhance audience experiences in a vast variety of performance spaces.