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FSW Grassroots & Grass shoots grants

Are you an FSW lecturer with a great idea to innovate your teaching? Put your idea into practice with a Grassroots or Grass Shoots grant!

The winners of the Grassroots en Grass Shoots 2024-2025 are announced!

Seven (teams of) lecturers will receive an innovation grant this coming year to realise their plans to innovate their teaching practice.

Read about the projects

New: applications within a theme

For 2024-2025, grants are available for innovations of your own idea. In addition, this year there is an extra €16.000 available for innovations that fit within the theme 'Providing effective and efficient (peer) feedback on student work'. For this theme, consider, for example:

  • Use of the FeedbackFruits Automated Feedback Coach where students are coached by AI while giving feedback.
  • (Peer) feedback on reflection assignments to increase students' self-regulation skills.
  • More effective teacher feedback through the use of standardized feedback.
  • The use of peer feedback in activating large-group teaching.

Innovating your education with a Grassroots- or shoots can be done in many ways. For example: 

  • Embedding blended learning into your course, for example by using a digital application to practice skills or further process lecture material.

  • Selecting and/or developing and offering open learning materials.

  • Experimenting in teaching or testing with digital tools and/or new working forms for improving (peer) feedback to students, or encouraging self-regulated learning. 

Previous participants worked with knowledge clips and peer feedback, created an online eLearning module and used VR to give students conversational experience.

Grassroots projects (maximum €2,000) are intended to carry out promising experiments or implement educational innovations of modest size. Teachers are completely free to choose a topic. There are conditions regarding feasibility, planning and budget. 

  • You can apply for €2,000 per project. 
  • The project will be carried out in the academic year 2024-2025. 
  • Your project proposal contains a concrete outline to evaluate your experiment or innovation.  
  • Each project proposal must be approved by your Programme Director; make sure to discuss your idea with them in due time. 

Grass shoots projects (maximum €8,000) are intended to implement educational innovations of considerable size. We ask that you carefully consider 1) the impact on student success, 2) the likelihood that applicants will be able to successfully complete the project, and 3) the scale at which the project will be implemented. 

  • You can apply for €8,000 per course. 
  • The project will be carried out in the academic year 2024-2025. 
  • The project proposal contains a rationale for the expected effects, based on literature or previous results – for instance results obtained from digital innovations during the COVID-19 crisis. 
  • Your project proposal contains a concrete outline to evaluate your experiment or innovation.  
  • Each project proposal must be approved by your Programme Director; make sure to discuss your idea with them in due time. 

The Grassroots and Grass shoots grants are an initiative of SOLO. For the 2024-2025 edition we have a total budget of €40,000.

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