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Grants and Resources for Sustainability

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OLT Seed Grants to Experienced Academics for Projects Promoting Excellence in Learning & Teaching Innovation

Deadline: 22 June 2015

Office of Learning and Teaching Grants (OLT) are available to seed projects/pilot projects which test and evaluate an original idea, or stand­alone, small­‐scale projects, or projects which build the capacity of early career academics. Applications are thus invited from academics with cumulative experience teaching in a higher education school for partnership/ single institution projects or collaborative projects.

Grants of up to $40,000 are available for one year.

Seed projects can be:

  • pilot projects which test and evaluate an original idea including those that plan to build into full proposals
  • single-institution, small scale projects
  • pilot projects
  • projects to build the capacity of early career academics, including projects which are led by early career academics.

Funding Priorities

Applications can address any of the priorities for Innovation and Development Grants-

  1. Academic standards
  2. Assessing equivalence of qualifications and learning outcomes
  3. Assessment and promotion of student learning (on selected topics)
  4. Curriculum design (on selected topics)
  5. Employability skills
  6. Improving institutional pathways across higher education
  7. Improving access to and outcomes in higher education for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people
  8. The contemporary PhD

Project Specification

A good seed project application:

  • Identifies an important area in learning and teaching and an awareness of the issue that needs attention
  • Demonstrates a passion for improving learning and teaching
  • Considers the project’s value, need and impact beyond the home/partner university
  • Addresses the priority areas and links to national priorities
  • Is well grounded in current literature
  • Displays innovative strategies and approaches
  • Matches aims and activities to deliverables and outcomes
  • Has well thought-out dissemination strategies
  • Shows good cross-institutional collaboration and engagement with industry
  • Considers the work of past OLT projects
  • Uses plain English
  • Has a well justified budget
  • Has a realistic project plan that balances projected project outcomes with proposed budget, timeline and available resources
  • Has reasonable and justified travel costs

Eligibility Criteria

  • Applicant can be of any nation with no fewer than two and no more than five years’ cumulative experience teaching in a higher education school.
  • Applications must address any of the priorities for Innovation and Development Grants.
  • Applications can be made via
    • partnerships & single Institution Projects or
    • Collaborative Projects
  • The circumstances for funding single institution projects are that proposed work will:
    • Include case studies of an issue, idea or approach of importance to the higher education sector;
    • be able to be applied within other institutions;
    • include a comprehensive and convincing strategy to ensure outcomes and project materials take into account different institutional contexts and can be applied in those different contexts;
    • include a comprehensive plan for dissemination to the relevant audiences: sharing has to be embedded in the conduct of the project.

Application Evaluation Criteria

  • Applications for funding need to address the following criteria:
    • Project rationale and need for the project
    • Project outputs (or deliverables)
    • Project impact
    • Project approach
    • Project team and governance
    • Project budget
  • All criteria need to be addressed under separate headings in the application available online.

For more information regarding OLT grants, visit OLT Grants 2015.