Steven Hermans is an Institutional Strategic Initiatives Officer, and previously held a position as a Partnership Development Officer in the Division of the Vice-President, Research and Innovation, at the University of Toronto.  For over 10 years, Steven has supported the development of collaborative and partnership-based research – research that engages teams working across multiple institutions and sectors. With expertise and experience in multi-disciplinary collaboration and partnership building, he helped cultivate new partnerships, supported the development of good partnership practices, and contributed to strategies and proposals to secure funding for partnership-based research.  By advising emergent and established partnership-based research teams about funding opportunities and strategies, he supported UofT researchers’ participation and success in SSHRC Partnership Programs (PG, PDG, and PEG) and other competitive funding programs.