Grassroots grant
Do you have an idea to renew your education with the help of ICT? Then a Grassroots grant can support you in this process. The Grassroots grant is organized by TLC Central in collaboration with ICTS. Grassroots are small-scale, low-threshold projects in which teachers (and/or students) use an ICT application to enrich, improve and/or intensify education. The results of a Grassroots project are used directly in education.
Support through the Grassroots grant
A Grassroots grant gives you financial and other support in developing an educational innovation with an ICT application. You can submit an innovation proposal related to a particular ICT theme or an ICT theme of your own choice. Think of themes such as ICT in relation to Digitalization and Technology, Flexible Education and Lifelong Learning, Sustainability and Social Responsibility, Internationalization, Soft Skills and 21st-century Skills and Diversity and Inclusion. Each approved proposal will receive a maximum of €2,000 per teacher involved.
The next application round of the Grassroots grant is expected to start in December 2024.
Apply now for the Grassroots+ grant
Did you know that the Grassroots+ grant also exists alongside the Grassroots grant? This grant is for educators who have previously renewed their teaching with a promising ICT tool through an education grant. Are you one of these educators and would you like this innovation to apply more broadly within the UvA so that other educators, educations and/or faculties can benefit? Then the Grassroots+ grant may be for you! You can apply for it now. This grant supports educators with an amount of € 35,000 in applying their innovative ICT projects more broadly. In addition, they receive technical and didactical guidance from the Grassroots+ grant from TLC Central.
Video series Bits of Innovation
In the video series Bits of Innovation: the story behind the Grassroots grant, we follow 3 UvA teachers who want to improve their teaching with a UvA TLC Grassroots grant. In this three-part interview series, we join these grant holders as they fully develop their ideas. We dive into the world of cockroaches, tooth extraction and social city maps. But, above all, we tell the story of three inspiring teachers.
Keen to discover the story of these teachers?
Practical information about the grant
Teachers, students and support staff from the University of Amsterdam may submit an application. However, a teacher must always be involved in the application in order to ensure that the Grassroots project is incorporated into education.
These are the selection criteria:
- As a teacher you try something new in the context of your work. Or as a student you try something new in the context of your education. There is no elaborated regular support for this yet.
- The implementation of your Grassroots project is aimed at improving teaching. It may be based on a concrete problem or as an applicant you see an opportunity for innovation.
- The project uses ICT in a new way to you as a teacher or student.
- As a teacher or student you formulate a learning goal that you hope to achieve by implementing the Grassroots project.
- Are you submitting an application as a student? Then a teacher is associated with your Grassroots project.
- Are personal data being processed in your Grassroots project? If so, there is a focus on privacy and proper processing of these personal data.
- The Grassroots grant can be applied for annually.
- The next application round of the Grassroots grant is expected to start in December 2024.
Frequently asked questions
Grassroots are small experimental projects with an ICT application, carried out directly within the educational context. Whether the experiment is successful or not, most important is that it creates insight into a possible solution and the results can be shared.
Every teacher and student at the UvA can submit a proposal. Support staff may also do so, when the Grassroots project can be used directly for education.
Cooperation is encouraged. Grassrooters can learn a lot from each other and we like to see people who are working on the same educational innovation finding each other. This way, not every teacher or programme has to reinvent the wheel – or come up with new ideas separately. That is why we offer the possibility for several teachers to submit a proposal together. The requested budget is linked to the number of courses and/or programmes in which an innovation will be implemented. This way, you have more to spend and efforts can be shared.
Because a Grassroots project is only a small project, it is important to have a clear goal and a time schedule, and to make sure it is not too ambitious. The smaller and more concrete the Grassroots project is, the higher the chances of success. For individual Grassroots, it is recommended to carry them out within three months.
Representatives of TLC form a selection committee. This committee evaluates the proposals according to the criteria indicated above.
Participants who have been awarded a Grassroots grant are paid into a wbs number of the course/faculty. The costs of the Grassroots project can be claimed on this number. Students can claim the costs incurred on the declaration form ‘staff not in employment’.
For more information, please contact Sjoukje Kerman (Projectmanager Educational Development TLC Central).
Looking for more info?
For more information, please contact Sjoukje Kerman (Projectmanager Educational Development TLC Central).
Bits of Innovation: the story behind the Grassroots grant
In the video series Bits of Innovation: the story behind the Grassroots grant, we follow 3 UvA teachers who want to improve their teaching with a UvA TLC Grassroots grant.
Ongoing Grassroots
Read more about all the ongoing Grassroots.