Sustainability Fund

The Sustainability Fund aims to promote green initiatives and living labs on campus through transdisciplinary collaboration. The fund itself is an initiative of the Sustainability Office and was established to contribute to the university’s ambition to become a more integrated institution where research, education and operations collaborate effectively towards common goals. Such as, transitioning towards becoming a socially and environmentally sustainable institution.

The Sustainability Office currently offers two funding opportunities. The Green Spark Grant, associated with the Green Office, aims to help realize practical sustainability initiatives on the university campus. The Campus Sustainability Grant is associated with the Centre for Living Labs and aims to encourage the establishment and growth of living labs on the university campus.

Both grants have different application and assessment criteria, please read through the document below carefully.

Criteria and procedure Sustainability Fund

Green Spark Grant

The Green Spark Grant aims to help realize practical sustainability initiatives on the university campus. Associated with the Green Office, this grant hopes to promote smaller scale sustainability ideas and initiatives from members of the UU community. The grant is intended to enable the implementation of activities and the realization of the initiatives. Consider material funding, room hire, food/drink, salary costs, etc. The maximum amount to be disbursed for this grant is €5,000 per application.

Applicants are students and/or employees of Utrecht University.
The grant is primarily intended to finance the costs incurred by students and/or staff in carrying out the project.
The project contributes directly to environmental and/or social sustainability of Utrecht University, in line with the university's sustainability goals. Examples of goals are becoming equitable CO2 neutral and zero waste by 2030, restoring and enhancing local biodiversity and making sustainability accessible to all.
The project will be carried out and implemented within the time frame of one year and will be reviewed at mid-term and afterwards through a progress report and impact summary.

A sustainability initiative or activity can be submitted by any student or employee of Utrecht University to the Green Office UU. The Green Office will check with the initiators what the possibilities are and what stakeholders inside or outside the university can contribute to the realization of the initiative or activity. To assess an application, at least the following five questions must be answered:

What is your initiative or activity?
What is the goal of your initiative or activity?
What will it bring to the sustainability of the university?
What is your plan of action to achieve your goal?
What do you need to realize your plan of action?

Applications in both Dutch and English will be accepted. There is no deadline and applications for the Green Spark Grant will remain open and be accepted as long as funds remain available. Please submit your application in pdf format via email to sustainabilityfund@uu.nl, any questions you have can also be sent to the above-mentioned email.

Campus Sustainability Grant

The Campus Sustainability Grant aims to fund the development of campus living labs that work towards enhancing sustainable development at the university grounds. Members from all disciplines are invited to apply, given that the funds are used to initiate a campus living lab or scale up an existing one. The living lab project should result in an output report and/or a presentation. There are two categories: small (€3,000-€10,000) and large projects (€10,000-€50,000). While the criteria for all applications regardless of the amount is the same, projects of a larger scope will also be asked to pitch their application to the Living Lab Board.

The grant is primarily intended for resources needed to develop a living lab. This primarily includes but is not limited to staff costs, materials for the living lab and acquiring expertise or information from external stakeholders. The maximum amount to be disbursed for this grant is €50,000 per application.

The project contains research and experiments, in the form of a living lab that enhances sustainability on campus.
The living lab contributes to the environmental and social sustainable development of Utrecht University, in line with the university's sustainability goals, such as; CO2-neutral and zero waste by 2030 and restoring and enhancing local biodiversity.
The living lab must be on campus, realized in two years or less, is replicable in case of proven innovation and/or usefulness, scalable and has measurable impact.
One follows the living lab methodology in setting up the living lab. This means the project:
- is transdisciplinary in nature and the participation of university stakeholders (operations, research and education) is required;
- provides space for experimentation and learning in a real-life setting;
- is user-oriented and involves co-creating with different stakeholders.

It is considered a plus if the project:

has a clear applied research question and tests new technologies for sustainability innovation;
connects with the local community;
has an educational component, giving students the opportunity to co-learn/research in the living lab.

For the entire application procedure, please refer to the document 'criteria and application procedure'.

Please note the following days in your calendars, you are expected to be available (if applicable to you) on both dates.

Living Lab Board Pitch: March 11, Tuesday from 11:00 to 13:00.
Official kickoff session with all awardees: March 25, Tuesday (time to be decided).

We encourage all applicants to get in touch with the CLU team before submitting their applications, we remain available to brainstorm together and provide guidance on the application. Applications in both Dutch and English will be accepted. For the Campus Sustainability Grant please refer to the submission timeline. The deadline for the second round of applications closes on January 31. These must be submitted in Word format with a maximum word count of 1500 words.

For any other questions about the Sustainability Fund and to submit your application(s), please email: sustainabilityfund@uu.nl