Call for proposals: USO consolidation 2024
Utrecht University is committed to a future-proof educational culture, focused on quality and innovation. Many educational innovations are therefore realised at the university. We want to encourage successful innovations to have a permanent place at the university. Sometimes it is necessary to investigate this in more detail in a business case.
With the help of a USO Consolidation project, a project leader can draw up a business case and enter into discussions with stakeholders and a commissioning party, in order to make a well-considered decision (or have one made) on the sustainable embedding or marketing of an educational innovation.
Goal USO Consolidation
USO Consolidation is aimed at (almost) completed innovation projects, who want to make a well-founded decision about the continuation of the project. The aim of USO Consolidation projects is to provide project leaders with a sharp business case. Based on this, a client can decide to permanently embed an educational innovation within or outside the university.
Conditions
The application is submitted by a project leader and a commissioning party. This commissioning party is a person who is financially and functionally authorised to decide on embedding the innovation in an organisational unit (e.g. faculty) or on marketing. It is possible to involve several persons as a commissioning party in the consolidation application (e.g. a financial and an educational decision-maker).
The duration of a consolidation project is maximum 1 year. In it, the business case must have been prepared, and the decision taken for (future) embedding with the commissioning party.
What kind of projects are applicable?
The budget is intended for the sustainable embedding of innovations from the education domain. Innovations with and without ICT are both eligible. These innovations can have their origin in interfaculty, or faculty USO projects, but innovations with other sources of funding are also eligible. The aim is to investigate whether the innovation can be sustainably embedded internally (i.e. taking an application into use), or externally (i.e. marketing through a start-up).
Projects that deal with research or educational logistics are not eligible.
A total of €56,000 is still available for consolidation applications this year. Applicants can submit a budget of €28,000 or €56,000.
The budget can be used to gather information to draw up a business case, and to develop the business case further. This involves activities to investigate, for example:
- What sustainable embedding and/or upscaling will bring to the university.
- What the need is for the sustainable embedding of the innovation and among which target groups.
- What scaling up means functionally, financially and organisationally.
- What actions, activities and investments are needed for sustainable deployment (privacy, security, management, functional further development, organisation).
- What the operating costs would be (licences, management and support costs).
Procedure & assessment criteria
The application deadline is 31 May 2024. Project leaders briefly describe herein:
- The commissioning party/decision maker
- Project leader, and project members
- A brief description of the innovation and previous results.
- The expected benefits of the business case for the commissioning party and organisation.
- A plan of action for the set-up business case (objective, activity plan, budget, required expertise).
The above points also form the assessment criteria for approval. The application is submitted by the dean of the coordinating faculty to the secretary of the USO committee, via cat@uu.nl.
Submitters will be notified by mid-July whether their application has been accepted.
Business case
The final product of a project awarded from USO consolidation is a business case. This business case elaborates the benefits (advantages) of embedding the innovation sustainably within or outside the organisation and the associated costs. The costs and benefits are then weighed against each other.
The requested end result is a formal decision by the commissioning party on immediate or future embedding.
Want to know what a business case looks like?