Grassroots grants

The faculty makes Grassroots grants available each year to enable lecturers to put their ideas for educational innovation into practice. Here you will find information about the October 2026 application round. 

Grassroots grants at a glance

The grant aims to support educational innovation, with or without the use of ICT.

• The project will be carried out in 2027
• The project will be supervised by a coordinator from ECOLe.
• Per project, a maximum of 5000 euros is available for personnel(for example sa’s) or material costs.
• Your project contributes to the innovation of a course/curriculum and can be applied to other courses and/or training program.
• The knowledge gained will be shared with colleagues.
• Please check whether your institute manager and education director of the institute agree with your application, regarding personnel implications. Include the email correspondence with your application.
• Deadline: Applications can be submitted until 5 October 2026.

Examples of projects

A selection of some innovation projects of the faculty’s teachers in previous years is presented here:

2025

Due to budget cuts, no Grassfields grants were available this year.

2024

• Andrew Gawthorpe - Beyond Prohibition: Safe and Ethical Generative AI in International Relations and Studies Pedagogy: 
• Arnout van Ree en anderen - Human-E-Platform: Transferable Skills in the Digital Era 
• Carmen van den Bergh - Map-IT: Interactieve stadswandelingen in kaart
• Jenny Doetjes - Dubbel Toegankelijk: Open Access vocabulairemethode Frans-Nederlands/Engels met o.a. Wooflash. 
• Katarzyna Cwiertka - Online module Plastic Environment and Society for broader use within Humanities. 
• Lettie Dorst- Practice makes Progress
• Petra Sijpesteijn - Mapping burials in the premodern Islamic world

2023

• Ben Arps- Javanese in Leiden re-embodied
• Dario Fazzi- On exchange without leaving your student room
• Jaap Kamphuis- International studies textbooks
• Jessie Morgan-Owens "Thesis Strategies: a flexible learning pathway for thesis writers in MA North American studies, and beyond"
• Jurriaan Witteman- Ontwikkelen leerlijn ‘empirisch’ academisch schrijven in de BA Taalwetenschap 
• Keiko Yoshioka - Inclusive foreign language teaching: Assessing the needs of dyslectic learners in a Japanese classroom environment.
• Dr. Limin Teh- Storymapping the Chinese Civil War 
• Willemijn Waal- Een diepe duik in bronnen van het verre verleden
• Soledad Valdivia - Bring the field to you 2.0 - Technologies enabled (remote) fieldwork for area studies.

2022:

• How can I help my students to recognise their unique skills? – Erasmus+ project ASSET-H
• Actively working with the teaching material in the classroom – Paz Gonzales
• Improving student reading comprehension through interactive texts  – Eric Storm
• The Activating Podcast Method – Astrid Van Weyenberg
• Break the familiar routine of papers and write a blog post! – Yasco Horsman and Astrid Van Weyenberg
• Scientific journal for and by students – Paz Gonzalez

2021:

• Flipping the classroom – Ben Arps
• Leiden Graduate Journal & Master’s students create Graduate Journal – Nanne Timmer and Astrid Van Weyenberg
• Practising International Studies – Sarita Koendjbiharie

2020:

• Challenging the digital natives – Sara Brandellero

Grants for larger innovations

Several different funding options for educational innovation are available, such as:

• Comenius grant: The Comenius programme offers grants to teachers who want to set up innovative teaching projects. There are three levels of grants: Teaching Fellow, Senior Fellow and Leadership Fellow. You can find more information about the Comenius programme here.
• Erasmus+ and other EU grants: Various EU programmes offer grants for educational innovation projects, such as the Erasmus+ programme.

To find out more about the options, please contact ECOLe for advice.

You can also look at the projects of Leiden University teachers who received a Comenius grant in the past:

• 2024: seven teachers
• 2023: four teachers
• 2022 : four teachers with a Teaching Fellow grant
• 2022: three teachers with a Senior Fellow grant
• 2021: five teachers

Small-scale implementation

If you do not apply for or receive funding for an educational innovation project, you can still improve the learning experience of students with a few minor adjustments. Some ideas you might consider include:

• Experiment with a variety of active teaching formats and use supporting tools such as Wooclap.
• Flip the Classroom: Ask students to prepare for the class with knowledge clips, and use contact time for in-depth learning. Some helpful tips are given here.
• Digital tools: Use tools like FeedbackFruits for peer feedback and collaboration.
• Encourage creativity: use different assignment formats, for example a video or podcast project.
• This page describes a step-by-step plan for designing (or redesigning) your course.

If you’d like to brainstorm about the right approach or would like more support, please contact ECOLe. Our advisors can assist you themselves or refer you to the right specialists.

The professional development section also offers a range of interesting starting points. Even a single workshop or short training session with colleagues can be a source of much inspiration, so be sure to regularly check the various upcoming expertise sessions.