Insight into Educational Innovation Grant – Netherlands

This Call for proposals helps promote open research and falls under the responsibility of the NRO Programme Committee for Higher Education (PCHO).

NRO programmes and finances research along the following lines:

• Research into key issues in education;
• Research into (the most promising) approaches;
• Open research aimed at the development of knowledge for the future of education;
• Talent, innovation and incentive grants for knowledge-driven work carried out by education professionals.

The grant round ‘Insight into educational innovation 2024’ is part of the research programme initiated by the PCHO. This consists of three related funding instruments: ‘Higher education for the future’, ‘Significant questions in higher education’ and this grant round ‘Insight into educational innovation’.

Objectives

• The innovations being studied are existing innovations. The studies may focus on existing educational innovations such as completed Comenius projects or innovations that have been locally developed. This grant round does not aim to develop new educational innovations.
• In Dutch higher education, there is increasing focus and space for innovations in education. Innovation projects are designed in an evidence-informed way where possible and evaluated after completion to determine whether the innovation has actually improved education. Such projects are often developed at a single university or university of applied sciences. It is often unclear whether the educational innovation works and whether it works in other settings – and if it does work, how does it work? This is the reason that it can be less appealing for other educational institutions to adopt existing innovations in their own degree programmes, which reduces the impact of innovations. To gain a better understanding of the effective principles of educational innovations, it is therefore important to examine the same innovation in at least two different educational contexts.
• Educational contexts include subjects, degree programmes, faculties, domains and education sectors in higher professional education and university education. The proposal will clarify what the added value is of the research in the chosen educational contexts. In addition, it will also become clear how the research will be of added value to the various contexts and what the added value is outside these educational contexts.
• Lecturers and researchers will conduct the research together to increase the relevance of the research for educational practice and to facilitate the further professionalisation of parties involved. The lecturers involved are knowledgeable about the relevant educational context within which the educational innovation will take place. The researchers involved have expertise in the field of educational research and perhaps educational innovation.
• The research that will be funded by this Call for proposals will foster the improvement of higher education by providing an understanding of the working principles of educational innovations. The purpose of the studies is to generate actual results or products that can be used by other education professionals. For this reason, there will be a focus on knowledge utilisation and knowledge sharing.

Themes

• Proposals can be submitted within one of the following themes:
  • Educational approaches of the future
  • Professional development of teachers
  • Student wellbeing
  • Diversity and inclusion
  • Societal issues
  • Connection to the labour market
  • Higher education institutes as learning organisations

Funding Information

• The available budget for this Call for proposals is € 2,600,000.00. Within this Call for proposals, it is expected that 13 proposals will be awarded funding.
• For a proposal in this Call for proposals, a maximum of € 200,000.00 can be applied for in total.
• The minimum duration of the proposed project is two years, the maximum duration is three years.

Who can apply?

• Professors, (university), (associate) lecturers at a university, (lecturer) reseachers, university lecturers and (associate) lecturers may submit a proposal if they have a paid position for the duration of the project or a tenure track agreement at one of the following organisations:
  • universities located in the Kingdom of the Netherlands;
  • university medical centres;
  • universities of applied sciences, as referred to in Article 1.8(1) of the Higher Education and Scientific Research Act.
• You are submitting your proposal on behalf of a consortium.
  • The consortium must consist of one main applicant and at least one co-applicant. No more than nine co-applicants may be listed;
  • At least one of the applicants must be a lecturer with an appointment at a university of applied sciences, a university medical centre or university, and at least one person must be researcher with a PhD and a research appointment at a university of applied sciences, a university medical centre or university.
• Extra condition
  • A researcher may submit a maximum of one proposal in this round, either as the main applicant or as a co-applicant.

For more information, visit NRO.