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. Ensure your idea doesn’t overlap with any current or past Grassroots projects.
• 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 starts in December 2025.

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’.