The Learning and Teaching Fund

The University has set out a clear strategic vision to provide an education that empowers: developing innovative pedagogies and curricula, widening access locally and globally and eradicating awarding gaps. 

The Learning and Teaching (L&T) Fund reflects this vision and is principally supported by the University’s Access and Participation Plan (APP), which seeks to close gaps in continuation, progression and awarding for less represented students. A fundamental aim of the L&T Fund is therefore to support projects committed to developing and/or implementing actions to reduce gaps and enhance inclusive practices in learning, teaching, assessment and feedback.

The Fund also aims to support broader enhancement in learning, teaching and assessment. This means that projects sitting outside of the scope of the APP will also be supported - eg those involving (and/or benefiting) international students or postgraduates.

Who can apply? 

• Academic Departments.
• The Fund is not aimed at professional service staff, although departmental colleagues can invite central professional service staff to participate in partnership. However, projects must be led by academic departments.

Funding availability 

Staff can apply for grants of between £1000-£10,000, for pedagogical or development projects aimed at enhancing learning, teaching, assessment and feedback practices 

We welcome proposals focused on all areas of learning and teaching. We particularly welcome bids which focus on the following themes:

• Curriculum innovation: curriculum review, curriculum enhancements, and decolonising and diversifying the curriculum. This could be an extension of an ongoing action plan to address gaps in your Department/School. Or an opportunity to evaluate and reflect on a new module.
• Co-designing action plans to address gaps in continuation, awarding and progression, through the development of inclusive education approaches.
• Innovations in assessment  - eg assessment for inclusion, co-creation in assessment, embedding optionality in assessment
• Enhancing feedback practices - eg the development of feedback literacy for students.
• Developing inclusive and innovative teaching approaches.
• Supporting student progression - eg embedding employability and skills development into curricula.
• Environmental sustainability - eg pedagogical approaches that promote sustainable development goals.
• Transitions - eg into university, between stages and progression on to employment or further study.

Specifically, projects will be expected to meet the majority of the below criteria:

• Demonstrate a clear alignment to the priorities of the Fund and to one or more of the thematic areas we have set out in the section above.
• Aim to benefit as many students as possible within the context of your department or the departments applying.
• Include a rationale for how you will be inclusive in your project approach - with particular attention being paid to the involvement of students who are less represented within higher education. Note: international students are not defined by the Office for Students as ‘underrepresented’. However, we feel it is important to recognise that international students do face forms of exclusion within HE and we would welcome projects that address gaps in experiences and/or outcomes for international students.
• Be designed by, and directly involve collaborative working with, both students and staff.
• Involve the recruitment of one or more paid students.
• Have a defined project output and planned legacy (ie that activities and/or outputs may be repeated, embedded and sustained in further academic years and that it is clear how this could be funded beyond the lifetime of the Learning and Teaching Fund)

• The project budget must be used by 31 July 2024.
• Where necessary colleagues should apply for ethics approval from the relevant committee.
• You will be expected to share a final evaluation report (within two months of the completion of the project), which addresses the outputs, outcomes and impact of the project, as well as experiences of partnership working between staff-students and/or students-students.
• You will be expected to disseminate outcomes and good practice from your funded project through, for example, presentations at internal or external conferences.
• Proposals must be supported and signed off by both the host Department/School and other participating Departments/Schools (s) ie a Head of Department or delegated deputy. 

Funds can be spent on:

• Staff (eg yours as project lead) costs can be funded. However, this expenditure must be linked to actual expenses of the role required in the project - ie the actual cost of hiring/backfilling additional staff to cover the duties being released. The money could also be used to pay for extra hours for a staff member who is already working part-time.  
• Employing one or more student partners. To work out your budget request please use £14 p/h for the student partner element. This figure is based on the current hourly rate for student interns (£12), plus holiday pay (which is added automatically).
• You can of course use a higher rate, depending on the roles being carried out by your student partners, but make sure you include the holiday pay in your calculations (12.07 percent). For information on pay rates, see the University’s casual worker pages.
• Dissemination of project outputs - eg proportionate spending on travel and conferences etc.
• Food and drink - only where this will support the aims of the project - eg incentivising wider student participation (at focus groups or discussion events etc).
• Production of materials.
• Paying for technical assistance.
• Training and development specific to the project - eg a workshop on a specific topic.
• Transcription, data processing costs etc.
• Equipment - eg assisted technology - that enhances learning and teaching.

Funds cannot be spent on:

• Food and drink for regular project meetings
• Payment for duties considered to be work that should already be the responsibility of departments, such as routine course development, which staff would do as part of their usual role.
• Costs linked to dissemination - eg conferences - should be proportionate to the project. For example, if you’re given a £2,000 budget, it might not be proportionate to spend £1,800 on conferences.
• Equipment a department would normally be expected to purchase in ongoing departmental budgets.

The Panel and what they will be looking for

Proposals will be assessed by a Panel composed of representatives of the Inclusive Education Team, student officers from the Students’ Unions and at least one senior academic colleague from each of the Faculties (eg Associate Deans or Deputy Associate Deans). 

Applications will be assessed against the specified criteria and their overall quality. The Panel will be looking for a clear focus on outputs, outcomes and addressing gaps, both in relation to the University’s strategic priorities and the Department’s local context. The Panel will also consider scope (how many students will benefit and feasibility), the sustainability of proposed projects and distribution of funds across Faculties and Schools/Departments. 

The Panel encourages applicants to consider, in particular, the sustainability (ie the potential for projects/innovations to continue in future academic years) and transferability (ie the potential that all, or aspects of, the work in your area could be adapted across other subject areas in the University) of their proposed projects. 

Key Dates

• The Fund application process will open on Monday 20 November 2023.
• The application process will close at midday on Monday 8 January 2024.
• We will aim to notify you of the Panel’s decision by Tuesday 30 January 2024.
• Please bear in mind that, due to institutional financial processes, it can take a further 14 days for funds to be available to you. You will also need to build time in for the recruitment of student partners, so do ensure these time frames are reflected in your project start date.
• The Panel may decide to provide feedback and allow for resubmissions.
• The Panel may also place conditions on successful applications - eg deeper and more equitable involvement of student partners. 

Funding options

• You can apply to the Learning and Teaching Fund for between £1000 and £10,000.
• You are encouraged to ask your Department about match funding - eg should you require more resources and/or where you know your Department is interested in funding enhancement projects.
• Interdepartmental applications are also welcomed, so match funding could be shared between departments, where feasible (or taken on by one department).
• All applications received will be assessed against specified criteria (see above), ensuring that successful proposals are of high quality. It is anticipated that each year many high-quality proposals may need to be rejected due to limited funds.
• You will be expected to provide a breakdown of what you will use the funding for (see the application form), including the recruitment of one or more student partners (at living wage).

Nick Glover (inclusive-learning@york.ac.uk) - project lead for the Learning and Teaching Fund and also Inclusive Education Adviser for Social Sciences.

• The Inclusive Education Team believes strongly in the idea that students should and can play an active role in their education. We believe education is most empowering when students and staff work together to co-create educational spaces, learning and teaching, curricula, scholarship, institutional structures and projects. 
• Key criteria for the grants, therefore, will be a clear commitment to staff working with students, in partnership, for example to co-produce, co-design, co-evaluate, co-research elements of learning and teaching. We encourage applicants to think critically and creatively about how students can be involved in their projects and what unique angles of vision they could bring. 
• All projects will be required to involve students as partners, but some may also choose to make student-staff partnerships the focus of their project (ie thinking about how you can foster stronger collaboration between students and staff within curricula and classroom settings).

• Any current (UG, PGT, PhD, international or home etc) student from your Department or a partner Department can participate.
• We’re looking for genuine partnerships between students and staff, so we’re not expecting colleagues to simply default to recruiting GTAs or PhD students who they work most closely with.
• It is important for projects to think about how you’re recruiting and what barriers there are for certain students. Be mindful about your promotion and comms (eg consider info sessions about your project; promote your project as flexible and for everyone etc) and your selection criteria (eg emphasise factors such as collaboration, diverse experiences, empathy etc.) 
• It is important to be mindful about recruiting the ‘usual suspects’ and/or the loudest most confident voices - eg already super-engaged students, such as Reps. 

• Student involvement should go beyond simply collecting data from students, they should be active participants in the implementation and have a say in how the project progresses. 
• Students are not likely to be part of bid teams, but as soon as applications are approved by the Panel, the Inclusive Education Team will work with project teams to recruit student partners, so they can be involved in developing and shaping the project.
• Departments will be expected to lead on the recruitment of students - eg advertising, shortlisting and interviewing etc.
• Get in contact with the Inclusive Education Team if you require support with student recruitment.
• Students will be recruited on a casual basis, but it will be up to the department to decide the appropriate rate, depending on the role being carried out by the student partner. Note: the majority of student casual workers are paid £12 per hour, which is the rate for interns and student ambassadors. However, be aware that holiday pay is added automatically for casual workers, at a rate of 12.07%, which will need to be factored into your budget.
• You can find out more about recruiting and paying students here, but also be aware that casual engagements must not last for more than 12 weeks. The 12-week engagements can be broken up, however, so students don’t have to work for 12 consecutive weeks. 
• If the engagement is to be extended beyond 12 weeks, it should be a short fixed-term appointment.

• In short, yes you can.
• However, the funding must only be spent on either backfilling a role (paying for a colleague to fulfil the role vacated by the person working on the project) or buying extra time for a colleague who already works part-time.
• The funding cannot be used to ’buy out’ your time. 

• Once the funding applications have been approved, information will be shared with the University Finance Team, in order to set up the individual work orders for each project.
• The Inclusive Education Team will then write to the Project Leads confirming the funding and the individual work order to use. We will also share the information with the relevant management accountant for your department. 

• If colleagues would like some support developing their idea, they can speak to a member of the Inclusive Education Tea: inclusive-learning@york.ac.uk.
• The Inclusive Education Team will be on hand to answer questions about the application process and will run a short online information session (recorded and circulated) to explain the aims of the Fund and provide more information on the key criteria.
• The Inclusive Education Team can support departments with recruitment and training of paid student partners, but departments are expected to lead on recruitment where they can.
• You will be encouraged to use the Inclusive-Learning@York toolkit, which includes guides, case-studies and reflective questions on the following areas: inclusive curriculum design; inclusive learning and teaching; building inclusive community and belonging; and co-construction, students-as-partners and student voice.

• Consider asking your department to match fund your project - eg to fund a research assistant or multiple student partners. 
• You can use a Learning and Teaching grant to support a larger project - eg where you have sourced part of the funding from another body, including external funding.
• Sourcing match funding from your department or externally may also allow you to continue your project expenditure beyond 31 July 2024. 
• However, you can’t use a Learning and Teaching grant for a project you have already sourced funding for in full. 

• A key output of the project could be a presentation at an internal conference (eg the annual Learning and Teaching Conference or another conference(s) focused on teaching, inclusive practice and/or partnerships) and/or a contribution to a publication such as Forum Magazine or York SoTL Journal.
• We want staff to share practice and learning from projects as far as possible, both within departments and across the institution. This focus on dissemination is about ensuring that outcomes, learning and practice are shared across the York community, benefiting colleagues and students beyond the project teams and inspiring future innovations.