UvA Teaching & Learning Centre Central (TLC Central), together with the TLC Network, is committed to creating time and budgets for UvA educators and employees from all faculties to innovate their teaching methods. Do you have an idea that allows you to innovate your classes offline and/or online and do you want to experiment with it? Then the TLC Didactic Innovation grant might be something for you. This grant supports you in finding innovative solutions to your didactic challenges. With the goal: a contribution to behavioural change, involvement and knowledge transfer in education.

You can no longer apply for the Didactic Innovation Grant. The next application round will be in December 2025.

Theme of academic year 2024-2025: Student Engaged Learning

Student engagement is a critical factor for academic performance and student retention, and leading a group of engaged and energetic students through your course is extremely rewarding! From graduate level courses to PhD programs, face to face, online or hybrid learning environments, this grant is here to support you in the development of innovative and purposefully designed activities and strategies that aim to enhance your students social, cognitive, emotional, and behavioural investments in their education, peers and programs. The TLC Didactic Innovation grant changes its theme every year.

Click on the Infographic student engaged learning for more information or listen to the AI generated podcast:

The TLC Didactic Innovation grant provides support in various ways

The TLC Didactic Innovation grant is organised and supported by UvA Teaching & Learning Centre Central (TLC Central) in collaboration with the TLC Network. It gives you the opportunity to think up solutions to your teaching problem and test them.

The grant consists of a budget you can use to work out the improvement idea.
You get personal educational support: a coach (TLC educational expert) will guide you in the practical elaboration during the entire innovation process. Your coach will actively contribute ideas for the development of your concepts, methodologies, and/or products.
You can exchange ideas and experiences with other teachers who receive a grant.
You have the opportunity to collaborate with TLC Central to evaluate and potentially further develop the results of your project.

See all ongoing and completed projects TLC Didactic Innovation grant

For whom

You are an educator/employee or a team of educators/employees of one or more subjects at the UvA and have a role in their development.
You find it interesting to be involved in educational innovation.
You are willing to share your knowledge and inspire others.
You have an appointment at the UvA for at least 0.5 FTE for the duration of the project.
You have permission from your supervisor to spend time on this project.

Criteria

The following criteria will be used in the selection of applications:

Contributes convincingly to the objective of the grant: improve the learning process/experience of students in your teaching, through a didactic innovation.
Quality of the proposal. We assess the justification, the relationship between learning objectives and learning outcomes and the plan of approach.
The feasibility of the project within the timeframe.
Relevance to educational practice within the university.
Teaching experience and background of the applicant(s).
Distribution of applications across different courses/faculties.
Measurability of the expected improvement.

Available grants

There are 10 grants per academic year.
A budget is available per grant, depending on the proposal submitted.
Team members may choose to divide the budget on hours or tools.

Procedure

The applicant completes the application form.
If the grant is awarded, the applicant must be able to demonstrate that their department head or supervisor will allow them sufficient time to carry out the project.
The application is evaluated by a committee consisting of experts from various faculties, composed by TLC.
After approval of the application, an intake interview.
During the course of the project, TLC organises meetings and three hours of coaching per granted project.
Upon completion, the project is evaluated together with TLC. The results will be shared within the UvA and possibly included in a publication.

Application and reaction dates

The TLC Didactic Innovation grant can be applied for annually.
The next application round of the TLC Didactic Innovation grant starts in December 2025.

Get inspired!

What is student engagement?

Strategies to fuel student engaged learning

Dr. Lela Mosemghvdlishvili about a search for best practices of knowledge sharing among students

Lies Jacobs about teaching students three skills needed for (big) data collection

More information

Find out more?

For more information about the TLC Didactic Innovation grant, please contact Sjoukje Kerman (Projectmanager Educational Development TLC Central).

Mail Sjoukje Kerman

About TLC

TLC Central is part of the TLC Network consisting of seven faculty teams and a central team within the University of Amsterdam.

Together, the TLC’s provide support to UvA educators in the areas of professional development, education innovation and knowledge sharing.

Contact TLC

Looking for another grant?

Grassroots grant

Responsible AI grant

TLC Didactic Innovation grant projects

All UvA TLC Education grants