TLC Didactic Innovation grant
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.
The upcoming application round will be on 1 December 2025.
Theme of academic year 2025-2026: Reimagining Assessment
Assessment is at the heart of learning; it shapes how students engage, what they value, and how they grow. This year’s TLC Didactic Innovation Grant invites you to go beyond the expected and reimagine assessment in bold and creative ways.
This theme is about innovation in every aspect of assessment: not only in the forms we use, but also in how we design, mark, and give meaning to them. You might experiment with authentic projects, multimodal portfolios, or AI-enhanced feedback, or rethink the entire process through ungrading, programmatic assessment, or approaches that emphasise assessment for and as learning. Perhaps you want to shift the focus from product to process, or explore how assessment can become more collaborative, reflective, or resilient in the age of GenAI.
If you’ve ever wondered “what if assessment could look and feel different?”, this is your chance to explore it. Use the grant to prototype, test, and showcase new approaches while keeping assessment valid, reliable, feasible, and transparent, the essential qualities that ensure your innovations truly enhance learning.
Innovation Festival
The Innovation Festival will take place on Thursday, 2 April, at Spui25. All new grant holders, as well as those from 2025, are invited to present their plans or outcomes. The event is a chance to exchange innovative ideas, share experiences, and gather practical tips, celebrating creativity and collaboration in reimagining assessment.
The TLC Didactic Innovation grant provides support in various ways
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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.
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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.
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You find it interesting to be involved in educational innovation.
- You are willing to explore literature on similar cases.
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You are willing to share your knowledge and inspire others.
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You have an appointment at the UvA for at least 0.5 FTE for the duration of the project.
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You have permission from your supervisor to spend time on this project.
- 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.
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There are 10 grants per academic year.
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A budget is available per grant, depending on the proposal submitted.
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Team members may choose to divide the budget on hours or tools.
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The applicant completes the application form.
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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.
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The application is evaluated by a committee consisting of experts from various faculties, composed by TLC.
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After approval of the application, an intake interview.
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During the course of the project, TLC organises meetings and three hours of coaching per granted project.
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Upon completion, the project is evaluated together with TLC. The results will be shared within the UvA and possibly included in a publication.
- The TLC Didactic Innovation grant can be applied for annually.
- The next application round of the TLC Didactic Innovation grant starts in December 2025.
More information
For more information about the TLC Didactic Innovation grant, please contact Sjoukje Kerman (Projectmanager Educational Development TLC Central).
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.