SoTL Grants

The Utrecht University Scholarship of Teaching and Learning (SoTL) Grant aims to stimulate and support teachers that want to conduct such a systematic and meaningful inquiry of their own teaching practice. Teachers are invited to examine their own classroom practice, improve the learning of their students, record their successes and failures, and importantly also share their experiences so that others may reflect on their findings. The SOTL Grants are intended for all teachers, starting and more experienced, and you can apply for small (e.g. one lecture or seminar) and somewhat larger (e.g. a whole course or significant part of a course) projects that you are involved in. 

The main requirements are that the application is related to your own classroom practice, and it concerns a systematic, research informed (SoTL) approach of your teaching.

You can submit an SoTL application twice a year (deadlines are October and 3rd of April, look at the call for the exact dates). The most important requirements are that the application is related to your own educational practice and is based on an SoTL approach: you research your education in a methodologically sound way. You can apply for €10,000 in total. A maximum of €5,000 of this can be allocated as hours/time for the SoTL researcher. In addition, a maximum of €10,000 can be spent on (student) assistance (e.g. for support with data collection and analysis, focus groups), material costs (e.g. incidental expenses, computer hardware or software to carry out the scientific project, data transcription, translation) and dissemination costs (e.g. presenting the project at a conference, open access costs). Both SoTL researcher hours and other costs should be spent on the SoTL research, and not on designing or implementing teaching.

Funding may be used for:

• Project support, such as consultancy fees for educational expertise (e.g. by Educational Consultancy and Professional Development) or (student) assistance (e.g. for support with data-collection and analysis, focus-groups).
• Material costs that are project related, such as incidental expenses (e.g. photocopying, telephone, postage), computer hardware or software needed to conduct the scholarly project, data transcription, translation, or catering to arrange external meetings or focus groups.
  NB Only additional costs may be funded. That is, costs that are not part of the costs to deliver the education (costs for delivery should be covered by the educational programme or department).
• Other substantiated requests for cost coverage are negotiable.

Proposals will be assessed based on the following criteria (in order of importance):

1. The expected impact on student learning and/or student experience:
   Proposed projects should have an impact on student learning or experience in the teaching practice of the applicant. The impact should be evident from the educational and/or subject-specific pedagogical literature/theory used to underpin the analysis of teaching activities. Indirectly the project should contribute to the professional development of the teachers involved in the project.
2. The feasibility of the proposed initiative:
   Proposed project should be small-scaled, classroom based and doable within the proposed time frame.
3. The scholarly character:
   Projects should be conducted in a systematic manner, research informed (underpinned with literature), ethically and methodologically sound (clear description of the research methods).

Four decisions can be made by the SoTL-grant committee:

• Accepted
• Accepted with minor revision: the applicant is asked to make minor revisions and send them to the committee. The final decision is made outside the regular submission deadlines.
• Accepted with major revision: the applicant is asked to make major revisions and send in a new version for the next submission round. Applicant will be made aware of the possibility to consult a SoTL expert for questions, guidance and support.
• Rejected