A gift advancing mental health research and celebrating academic excellence

British Columbia is in the midst of a public health emergency that continues to claim four lives every day. The province experiences the highest number of overdose deaths in Canada—a crisis that continues to challenge health systems, communities and families.

A gift from the Samit & Reshma Sharma Foundation is helping to advance the work of academically outstanding graduate students whose research builds community-wide knowledge to promote well-being, with a focus on substance use and mental health.

“Good mental health enables us to cope with challenges, build strong relationships, maintain physical health and contribute meaningfully to our society,” says Samit Sharma, who set up the foundation. “Hence, it's such an important area to study, educate, research and achieve excellence in mitigation measures.”

The Samit & Reshma Sharma Scholarship in Mental Health & Addiction was endowed in 2024, in part to celebrate the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research (CISUR) at the University of Victoria.

“In the past, mental health was not something we spoke about openly. It was such a taboo topic, people felt shame in admitting what they were going through and help seemed so far away,” Samit observes, crediting schools like UVic for advancing education, awareness and support programs to combat the stigma surrounding addiction treatment. “I feel that in the last couple of years more avenues have opened up and families are seeking help.”

Samit hopes that the annual scholarships will foster research that builds understanding and drives societal change to promote mental health and reduce the harms of addiction. He says he focused on UVic because of the university’s long-standing leadership in these areas.

“The aim of our initiative is to recognize this leadership and foster closer collaboration and synergy between industry, academia and government in mental health and addiction,” Samit says.

Recognizing UVic’s strengths

This scholarship is one of three established by the foundation at UVic, along with the Samit & Reshma Sharma Scholarship in Astronomy and the Samit & Reshma Sharma Scholarship in Earth & Ocean Sciences. Samit personally selected these fields to highlight areas where UVic excels relative to other Canadian universities—connecting his philanthropy to institutional strengths that reflect both global relevance and local impact.

In total, the foundation gave $300,003 to UVic, directing $100,001 to each of the three endowed scholarships.

A national vision for education and impact

Samit’s generosity toward UVic is part of a broader, nationwide effort to strengthen higher education in Canada. Through the Samit & Reshma Sharma Foundation, he has set out to create scholarships at 30 universities across the country, having already contributed about $10 million towards that goal. His initiative also extends to colleges, polytechnics, and high schools.

“I feel excellence in education is not the domain or monopoly of any particular region, institution or segment of population,” Sharma observes. “Each has something unique to offer.”

He approaches this mission by personally researching each institution to understand its character, ecosystem and strengths.

“We first engage universities by asking why they are world-class, whether it’s their ecosystem, infrastructure, unique facilities, people or location,” he explains. “From the responses, we analyze what they see as their core strengths and then conduct our own research, ultimately narrowing the focus to three key areas of strength.”

A journey of gratitude and giving back

Samit’s deep commitment to education is rooted in personal experience. He arrived in Canada in 1996 as a 23-year-old student from India, to complete a master’s degree in engineering from the University of Regina assisted with a graduate financial award.

After founding Gaia Power Inc., a successful renewable energy company, at age 50 Samit felt ready to invest in the next generation of students. Together with his wife, Reshma, and his sister, Raina, he established the foundation to ensure others could benefit from the same kind of access to education.

“I thought that our earnings should now be invested in society,” Sharma says. “Scholarship and financial assistance for excellence in education is the path that I could relate to, as looking back to my life, good education and timely guidance has been a key to my progress, and hence our family philanthropy evolved for this cause.”

To date, the Samit & Reshma Sharma Foundation has established three graduate scholarships in each of 24 universities, 4 scholarships in each of 10 colleges and one award each at four high schools across Canada.

With his gift to UVic, Samit hopes to encourage the university to continue excelling as a global leader in areas where it has built core strengths—especially in mental health and addiction research.