African Research Universities Alliance - Imperial Education Seed Fund

Projects are expected to benefit students and staff at both institutions. Applicants must clearly state the impact that the award will bring to both institutions in terms of student experience, and, where possible, involve staff-student partnerships in the design and delivery.  

Projects which support development in the following areas are encouraged:  

• Research-led education: projects that are informed by the most recent research in the relevant topic. This could entail encouraging students to participate in research projects. 
• New applications for digital technologies: Projects that pursue innovative, inclusive and impactful online experiential learning opportunities. 
• Multidisciplinary, global challenge topics that may be linked to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). 
• Student entrepreneurship: Projects that provide students with the knowledge, skills, and resources to develop an entrepreneurial mindset through joint projects or creating experiential learning opportunities (e.g. joint hackathons). 
• Flexible lifelong learning: Projects that meet the needs of learners at different stages of their lives and careers.
• Learning analytics: projects that foster knowledge exchange on approaches to building learning analytics platforms, and structures, and designing metrics to support and enhance the student experience.
• Exchange of academic and professional knowledge: Study visits or workshops to clearly and demonstrably aid the exchange of academic and professional knowledge, including sharing of good practice to underpin the preparation of a long-term collaborative partnership (e.g. preparation of a PhD summer school, joint module development etc.) 

All projects are encouraged to incorporate digital innovations appropriate to achieving their project goals in line with institutional education strategies. 

Projects can be either curriculum based or extracurricular.  Interdisciplinary projects are particularly encouraged.  

This call has a total budget of £20,000 from Imperial, to be awarded to up to 5 successful ARUA and Imperial collaborating teams.  

Total project budget requests are not expected to exceed £10,000. Funds can only be spent on activities which fit the purpose of this call. Applicants are asked to itemise their budget using the tables in the application form (please see application form for details).   

All funds will be paid to the Imperial PI to manage locally and in line with standard College guidance.   

The applicants also declare that the grant award will not be used for any item(s) funded or pending funding from other sources. 

Eligible costs 

At Imperial, the fund is open to permanent members of staff only.  

One proposal per principal applicant per call is permitted.  

Each application should have one principal applicant based at Imperial and one principal applicant at an ARUA member institution and should contain:  

• A written case for support to address the following questions:  

1. Project Summary: A description of the project and collaboration proposed, a brief description of the intended use and impact of the funding. Please refer to point 2 above for guidance.  
2. Significance: Explanation of how the activities proposed will enhance education and teaching practices at both Imperial and the ARUA institution.  
3. Student experience: A description of how the project will benefit student experience at both institutions, and how it will facilitate students working together across institutions.  
4. Outcomes: Discuss how you will know if the collaborative project has been successful in achieving the intended outcomes.  
5. Sustainability: A description of how and when the project outcomes will become embedded into standard educational practices at each institution following the initial seed funding.
6. ARUA-Imperial partnership: A description of how the project team will collaborate throughout the project and the benefits of involving of team members from each institution.   

• A financial summary: Each application should provide information on the requested costs using the budget section of the application template (see ‘Funding Requested’). 

 The panel will rank the proposals based on: 

• how the activities proposed will enhance education and teaching practices at Imperial and the ARUA institution
• clarity of project outcomes
• how and when the project outcomes will become embedded into standard educational practices at each institution
• innovative use of new learning formats
• positive impact on student experience at both institutions
• extent to which the project demonstrates a full collaboration between the ARUA institution and Imperial team members in the design and delivery
• alignment of the budget with the fund’s guidelines regarding use of funding