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Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies

Fair, Resilient & Inclusive Societies (FRIS) grant

Do you aim to contribute to a more socially just, inclusive society through your teaching? Would you like more time and space to work with students and colleagues to better understand and respond to major transitions in today’s world in your education? To develop yourself as an innovative educator, and (co-)create more vitalising, inclusive or agency-enhancing learning with and for students? Apply now for this FRIS grant opportunity organised by the Institute of Interdisciplinary Studies and the Teaching and Learning Centre. This grant can give you the time and space to develop and co-create a teaching innovation project related to FRIS themes. Your proposed project can focus on innovating the content, pedagogy or design of an existing course, or you could propose a small-scale action research project connected to your education innovation project. You can apply between 10 December 2024 and 31 January 2025, see below for more information.
Copyright: Shutterstock Angelina Bambina

Why?

The UvA is committed to contribute to a fair, resilient and inclusive society, and to integrate this commitment into the way we offer our academic education. This is especially important since we live in times of rising inequalities and major societal and ecological challenges. In the FRIS Special Interest Group (SIG), we ask ourselves, what role can we, as university educators, play in understanding and addressing FRIS-issues with and by our students? How can we contribute to the university as a place for inclusive, emancipatory and society-oriented learning? FRIS projects are designed based on the premise that transformative learning and innovative work in systems should be linked to a process of internal personal and professional development. The focus of the FRIS SIG, as a community of education innovators, is to focus on system change initiatives. We aim to do so by:

1) increasing our understanding and awareness regarding our role as teachers in relation to global and local challenges;

2) developing an inclusive and developmental learning culture;

3) developing skills that contribute to meaningfully contribute as socially engaged teachers

The FRIS grant is organized and supported by the Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies (IIS) and the network of UvA Teaching & Learning Centres (TLC). It gives you the opportunity to think up solutions to your teaching problem and test them.

  • The grant consists of 80 development hours you can use to work out the improvement idea.
  • You get supervision in the area of education: a coach will guide you in the practical elaboration during the entire innovation process.
  • You can exchange ideas and experiences with other educators who receive a grant.
FRIS grant projects

Would you like to know more about how teachers are working on the theme Fair, Resilient & Inclusive Societies, and how they are using the grant for innovation?

Find out which projects are currently in progress
FRIS café

Fresh, innovative and creative. Once in a while, the FRIS community gets together to talk informally about each other's projects and experiences.

More on the café and what it means for grant recipients
  • For whom

    • You are an educator or team of educators who teach a course at UvA and you are responsible for the assessment of your course.

    • The main applicant holds a position at the UvA for at least 0.5 FTE, which will last (at minimum) for the duration of the project (2025-2026).

    • Your supervisor has granted you permission to invest work hours in this project.

    • You see more potential for the education you are involved in to serve FRIS aims, and you want to develop your own capabilities as an educator and better align/engage with others (students, colleagues, societal stakeholders) in doing so.

    • You are curious and open to rethink, renew and redesign your education and are enthusiastic about becoming part of and contribute to a co-creative FRIS community (see the recently published FRIS guide).

    Before applying, kindly read about other relevant FRIS grant projects which received funding in the past years as you might find inspiration here: FRIS projects - UvA Teaching and Learning Centres (TLC). Please note that you can become a member of the FRIS community regardless of receiving the grant funding.

  • Criteria

    The following criteria will be used to evaluate the applications:

    • Delivers a compelling contribution to the main objective of the grant.
    • Quality of the proposal (e.g. rationale, relation between learning objectives and end terms, design, etc.).
    • Feasibility of the project within the given amount of time.
    • Relevance for the teaching practice of the university.
    • Teaching experience and background of the applicant(s).
    • Distribution of the applications over the different faculties and courses.
  • Available grants

    • We can award approximately 4 FRIS grants amounting to a maximum of € 6500 per project.

    • The funding can be split between several colleagues and or student assistants, and we do encourage co-working and co-creating.

    • The intention is to use this budget to compensate for teaching hours, so you create time to work on your teaching innovation project and actively engage in the FRIS community.

    • Before submitting your proposal, ensure that you have discussed and calculated the amount of hours your requested funding (with a max of €6500) results in for yourself and (if relevant) other team members with the financial contact person of your department. Include a detailed and feasible time planning based on these hours in your proposal.

    • Importantly, you need your manager(s) approval of your proposal, so that you are ensured that you can integrate these FRIS grant hours in your PLAN for next academic year if the grant is approved.

    • The eventual awarded amount is subject to the number of applications we receive and their respective quality and feasibility (see below for selection criteria).

  • Procedure
    • You can submit your proposal by completing the FRIS Application Form 2024 (download and save under new name) and email this to FRIS organiser Nithya Subramanian (n.subramanian@uva.nl) with cc to FRIS chair Mieke Lopes Cardozo (t.a.lopescardozo@uva.nl) with the e-mail subject: “FRIS application round 4” by 31 January 2025.
    • The application will be assessed by a committee consisting of experts on FRIS and education innovation from different faculties assembled by IIS and TLC.
    • After granting you are supported by FRIS organiser Nithya Subramanian and supervised by FRIS chair and thematic expert dr Mieke Lopes Cardozo.
    • The project will be evaluated together with the IIS/TLC and you will be invited to share your results within our SIG and on our webpage and possibly included in a publication.

    The following criteria will be used to evaluate the applications:

    • Alignment with FRIS aims
    • Quality and coherence of proposed innovation project
    • Feasibility and scope of project=
    • Applicability and relevance in education context
    • Willingness to contribute to knowledge sharing/shared learning
    • Quality and relevance of the profile/experience of the applicant(s
  • Questions and contact

    Questions? Contact Mieke Lopes Cardozo (t.a.lopescardozo@uva.nl) for content related questions and Nithya Subramanian (n.subramanian@uva.nl) for questions related to process and administration.