Unique and ambitious proposal recognised  

The NRO awarded the grant because of the innovative and impactful nature of the proposal. The plan, which integrates affective learning within higher education through the Inner Development Goals (IDG) framework, stood out to the NRO for its ambitious nature and clear differentiation from other educational initiatives. ‘It is clear to the committee that this project is of great added value for future education at UvA and offers an important addition to academic education in general. In addition, the team contains a lot of relevant experience in educational innovation and the project is a logical outgrowth of the UvA educational vision’, the assessment report said.   

Project objectives  

The IIS and the TLC want to enrich education across the UvA by giving explicit attention to the influence of emotions and values in the learning process, in addition to knowledge content and academic skills. As a result, students will be better equipped to grasp socially complex challenges and come up with more appropriate solutions.  

The grant will expand learning lines of 14 different degree programmes at the UvA to include affective learning. ‘This approach meets the contemporary needs and challenges of our students and of society', explained Peter-Paul Verbeek, Rector Magnificus of the UvA. ‘We are enormously proud of this recognition, which confirms the future orientation of our education. Moreover, it underlines the need to embrace the emotional and ethical dimensions of learning, and to look one layer deeper within the complexity of the challenges we face as a society. This is something we have a responsibility to do as a university. This scholarship emphasises the crucial role of educational institutions to provide space for educational innovation so that we can best fulfil this role.’

About the Comenius scholarship  

The Netherlands Initiative for Education Research (NRO), on behalf of the Ministry of Education, Culture and Science, annually awards Comenius scholarships to teachers who can put their vision of education into practice. There are three different scholarships within the programme: the Teaching Fellows, Senior Fellows and Leadership Fellows. These grants for teaching innovation are inspired by NWO’s well-known Veni, Vidi, and Vici grants for research. 

About Linda de Greef and Ilja Boor  

Linda de Greef works at IIS and has been involved in interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary education and educational innovation for almost 25 years. She has played a central role in designing and implementing innovative interdisciplinary courses across a wide range of disciplines and programmes. De Greef: ‘I think that meaningful education, focused on personal development and social engagement, is essential to form the scientists and academics of the future.’   

Ilja Boor works for the TLC and has focused on higher education for the past decade, specialising in cross-curricular educational innovations, such as the UvA-wide Visible Learning Lines programme. She is a laureate of a Comenius Senior Fellowship (2018) and knows the changing landscape of higher education like no one else. This gives her unique expertise for this fellowship. Boor: ‘Our ambition is to train UvA students to be able to actively contribute to the major societal challenges we are currently facing, intertwined with the context of their education.’   

Get involved!  

Are you interested in participating in this innovation in education with your programme or module? Contact the scholarship holders Linda de Greef and Ilja Boor for more information.