About Trent University
Recognized nationally for its leadership in teaching, research, and student satisfaction, Trent University attracts excellent students from across the country and around the world.
Committed to a learning environment that builds a life-long passion for critical thinking and the ability to “challenge the way you think,” Trent emphasizes inclusion, leadership, and positive social change.
Trent University was founded on the ideal of interactive learning that is personal, purposeful, and transformative and its students, alumni, faculty, and staff are engaged global citizens aiming to develop sustainable solutions to complex issues.
Trent University has more than 11,700 undergraduate and graduate students at two campuses.
These students connect and collaborate with faculty, staff, and their peers through diverse communities that span residential colleges, classrooms, disciplines, hands-on research, co-curricular, and community-based activities.
Trent offers over 100 dynamic and diverse academic programs across the arts, sciences, social sciences, and professional programs; enjoys a long-standing reputation as a leader in Indigenous education and reconciliation, and is internationally recognized for its programs in environmental studies.
Trent was the first university in Canada to develop academic programming in Environmental Studies, Indigenous Studies, and Canadian Studies. Innovative and prestigious Schools at Trent include:
• School of Business
• School of Education
• School of the Environment
• Chanie Wenjack School for Indigenous Studies
• Trent/Fleming School of Nursing
• School for the Study of Canada
The School of Graduate Studies at Trent University facilitates a learning environment that fosters
intellectual growth, in-depth collaboration, strong community ties, and a legacy of forward thinkers.
Home to a close-knit community of scholars, the School of Graduate Studies at Trent is large enough
to offer a comprehensive range of programs with access to top research facilities and instrumentation, while small enough to cultivate close interactions and collaborations with leading professors.
Trent’s School of Graduate Studies offers 28 research and professional Masters and Ph.D. programs in 38 streams of study to approximately 700 students.
With 800 international students representing 79 countries, and formal exchanges with more than 50
universities worldwide, Trent University is connected to the world.
Domestic applications to Trent have been growing at the fastest rate in Ontario. As applications grow, so does the quality of Trent students: the percentage of students with a greater than 80% average increasing by approximately 33% over the past decade.
To ensure that undergraduate students feel that they are part of a close-knit and supportive community, every incoming student is affiliated with one of Trent’s five Colleges, providing them with many opportunities to be involved and engaged.
For eleven years in a row, Maclean’s has ranked Trent as the number one primarily undergraduate
university in Ontario.
Within its category, Trent is ranked first in Ontario for Overall Reputation, Scholarships, Student Services and Student Awards, and Student Satisfaction. In national primarily undergraduate rankings, Trent currently ranks third in Canada for overall reputation, first in promoting Indigenous Visibility and in Academic Advising.
Trent University’s Durham Greater Toronto Area (GTA) campus delivers a distinct mix of programming in the east GTA, just 40 minutes from downtown Toronto. Trent Durham GTA provides students with academic programs across the humanities, social sciences, and sciences in a personalized, teaching-focused learning environment that has one of the best student-to-faculty ratios of any university in Ontario.
In addition, an expanding and innovative array of applied programs emphasize hands-on
experience and career-ready skills.
A $35 million expansion project on the campus opened in 2020, with 200 residence spaces, state-of-the-art academic spaces, and central outdoor areas.
Trent’s principal campus is located in Peterborough, Ontario, an active and affordable city of 90,000
just 90 minutes from downtown Toronto. The campus boasts award-winning architecture in a
breathtaking natural setting on the banks of the Otonabee River. It includes water access, 30 kilometres of hiking trails, wildlife areas, an experimental farm, and a new research park devoted to clean technology on more than 1,400 acres of land.
Trent is the city’s third-largest employer, with more than 1,150 faculty and staff. In Peterborough, the university has recently opened a new student centre on the banks of the Otonabee River and has completed an $18 million project which has transformed its iconic Bata Library into the library of the future.
Additional information about Trent University is available at www.trentu.ca.
RESEARCH AT TRENT
Trent has been widely recognized for its research excellence in a broad range of areas.
The University is focused on integrating interdisciplinary research and teaching to anticipate the problem solving and opportunity development needs of our society and economy. Research is central to Trent’s mission.
Trent’s Strategic Research Plan identifies a set of principles for research that includes excellence in
research with national and international recognition, diversity of research across scholarly disciplines,
an emphasis on interdisciplinary research, and involvement of students in research.
Trent University’s Strategic Research Plan has been developed around three integrated, interdisciplinary research themes organized around Trent’s strengths (often at a world-class level) and the strategic directions in which the University’s research is heading:
• Humanities and Culture: Characterized by an interdisciplinary overview of the human condition;
• Healthy and Sustainable Communities: A research theme that has global impact through
collaborative and community-based research in Psychology, Nursing, Education, Business, and,
specific to Trent, a critical mass of research and community building knowledge within
Indigenous Studies; and
• The Environment: A key theme at Trent for several decades.
Trent has 8 Canada Research Chairs and receives approximately $1,000,000 in research funding
annually.
Current projects include the development of Cleantech Commons at Trent University, an 85-
acre research park, created to be a Canadian hub for collaborative clean, green, low- and zero-carbon, and sustainable technology research, innovation, commercialization and entrepreneurship.
Trent is also developing a long-term care facility, which will reflect the work of the University’s internationally recognized Trent Centre for Aging & Society. Trent has the following research institutes and centres:
• Indigenous Environmental Institute
• Institute of Integrative Conservation Biology
• Institute for Watershed Science
• Institute for Environmental Studies
• Archaeological Research Centre
• Canadian Environmental Modeling Centre
• Centre for Health Studies
• Centre for Materials Research
• Centre for the Study of Theory, Culture and Politics
• Frost Centre for Canadian Studies and Indigenous Studies
• James McLean Olive Ecological Centre
• Natural Resources DNA Profiling and Forensic Centre
• Trent Biomaterials Research Program
• Trent Centre for Aging & Society
• Water Quality Centre
• Trent Centre for Communicating Conservation
Additional information about research and innovation at Trent, including the 2018-2022 Strategic
Research Plan is available at https://www.trentu.ca/researchinnovation/