CFAs: Comenius Programme Senior Fellows 2025 (Netherlands)

The aim of the Comenius programme is twofold. First, the Comenius programme funds education innovation projects that contribute directly to the innovation and improvement of higher education in the Netherlands for the benefit of students. Second, the Comenius programme facilitates varied career paths for lecturers and researchers at universities of applied sciences and research universities by visibly recognizing excellent and inspired teaching. The projects of Teaching Fellows, Senior Fellows and Leadership Fellows are distinguished on the basis of their impact on education, which becomes broader at each ‘tier’ in the programme. The tiers of the Comenius programme in which teachers can further develop, are based on the Career Framework for University Teaching by Ruth Graham.

Themes

• Teaching Fellow projects should align with one of the four thematic spearheads below.
  • Theme 1: Education forms of the future
    • Projects within this theme focus on the question how new education forms can be developed in a successful way and implemented into higher educational, so these will benefit the students. For instance, student-driven education, learning communities, challenge-based learning or technological innovations.
  • Theme 2: Student wellbeing
    • Projects within this theme focus on improving the wellbeing of students, so their experiences during their student period are improved. For instance, projects that aim to improve students’ connection with education, energy sources or the resilience of students.
  • Theme 3: Societal issues
    • Projects within this theme focus on the question how students can be prepared for and contribute to the larger societal issues of the future. For instance, projects that focus on teaching important competencies or projects in which students will work transdisciplinary with other students and societal partners.
  • Theme 4: Open theme
    • Within the open theme, it is possible to choose from a wide range of topics. These are projects that contribute to the innovation and improvement of higher education for the benefit of students. Projects within this theme focus on topics that arise from the teacher’s curiosity in education design.

Projects in the Comenius Programme

• Improving education through evidence-informed innovation
  • The Comenius programme provides funding for innovation projects that are so innovative or entail such an ambitious improvement that they are also considered innovative outside the institution where the project is implemented. Projects can 1) implement an educational scientific, technological or didactic innovation in education, or 2) implement an existing innovation in a specific educational context, as long as the distinctive character of the project and how it can be beneficial to other educational professionals is convincingly substantiated. In both contexts a Comenius project reaches beyond a regular curriculum revision.
  • Aim of the innovation is to improve education. The innovation must be implemented in the student’s (online) educational environment. In the project’s aim, the following aspects should be taken into account:
    • Projects should focus on programmes in initial higher education or on pathways that improve access to initial higher education (e.g. transition programmes between intermediate vocational and higher professional education). This means that projects aimed at post-initial higher education, including pathways for PhD students, are excluded.
    • The improvement must directly benefit students at a publicly-funded Dutch institution of higher education, within the duration of the project. The development of education (material) that will only be used or implemented in education after the end of the Comenius project cannot be financed with a Comenius grant.
    • Projects whose primary objective is the professional development of teachers are excluded. Of course, the professional development of teachers can be a component, even a necessary one, of successful implementation of an innovation in the student’s learning environment.
• Contribution to educational careers by appreciating excellent teaching
  • A grant for innovation in education is an explicit recognition and appreciation of excellence in teaching and in providing inspired education. The grant will offer Comenius Fellows the opportunity to focus on improving their own teaching practice during the project period and for further development as a teaching professional.
• Senior Fellow project
  • The aim of the project is to contribute to the knowledge base of education in the field of the intended innovation. The proposal should make clear how the project fits within recent developments in this field, and what the project can add to this. In the dissemination plan, the applicant should look ahead to possible publication channels within and outside their own institution.
  • The Senior Fellow’s project team must have (educational) leadership but also experience with (practical) education research. It should also be shown that the Senior Fellow and team members have previously contributed to innovations in education, either small-scale or otherwise. The composition of the team should make it possible to:
    • contribute to the pedagogical-didactic knowledge of higher education in a particular field (e.g. an academic research field; a specific group of students; in line with societal and technological developments);
    • implement the innovation across the entire breadth of where the project is implemented, and thus involve all the stakeholders in this, such as teachers, students, and so on.

Funding Information

• The available budget for this Call for proposals is €2,200,000 in total.
• Within this Call for proposals it is expected that a maximum of 22 proposals will be awarded funding, divided equally between universities of applied sciences (Dutch acronym: hbo) and research universities (Dutch acronym: wo).
• A Senior Fellow project should take place within the context of a faculty, a large educational programme or a substantial department at an institution of higher education. The project can be carried out with a grant of €100,000 and a duration of at least 24 months and at most 30 months.

Who can apply?

• Applications can be submitted by education professionals working in publicly- funded higher education institutes in the Netherlands. One application can be submitted per faculty.
• The Senior Fellow must have at least five years of teaching experience in higher education and must demonstrate ambition in the area of educational leadership and/or in developing and researching education for his own discipline or area of interest.
• Applications can be submitted by teaching professionals as main- or co-applicant if they are working in one of the following institutions:
  • A university, as mentioned in article 1.8 paragraph 1 of the Dutch Higher Education and Research Act;
  • A university medical centre as mentioned in article 1.13 paragraph 1 of the Dutch Higher Education and Research Act;
  • A university of applied sciences as mentioned in article 1.8 paragraph 1 of the Dutch Higher Education and Research Act;
• A maximum of one pre-application/application may be submitted by each faculty or similar organisational unit, with a maximum of eight applications per institution. The pre-application/application is supported with a statement by the dean or faculty director.

For more information, visit NRO.