Funding Opportunities for Learning and Teaching Innovation

We welcome applications from across the breadth of the College and its Faculties, Departments, Institutes, and teams. We are keen to particularly encourage:

• Multidisciplinary and cross-College proposals, including from Global Institutes
• Proposals with potential for pan-College impact, and/or integration with other established College projects
• Proposals which are developed with students as partners

1. The deadline for submitting an Expression of Interest form is midday on Thursday, February 12th 2026 . Applicants are encouraged to attend the funding call briefing session taking place 15th January 2025. 
2. Expression of Interest forms should be submitted to education.office@imperial.ac.uk
3. Applications will be reviewed by a panel of College education leaders.
4. Applicants will hear back from the panel in March. Short-listed applicants will receive feedback from the panel which may include suggestions for additional departments/teams in College that may be interested in collaborating on the project.
5. Short-listed applicants will be supported to work-up their idea into a full proposal. A workshop will be facilitated by relevant teams including the Education Office, EDIC, CHERS, StudentShapers, and the DML.
6. Following the workshop, a deadline will be set for submitting the full proposal form for review.
7. Completed proposal forms will be reviewed by a panel. This will result in a funding decision or a subsequent feedback and proposal update stage.

In line with the College’s Learning and Teaching Strategy, the aim of the funding is to enable the realisation of creative new projects by providing resources and freeing-up time and space for staff to innovate, to develop and adapt known methods, and to introduce entirely new teaching methods while evaluating the effectiveness of these methods in the context of Imperial.

This funding call provides seed funding to allow staff to pilot projects and demonstrate potential for impact and integration across College. It is not anticipated that continuation funding will be available for projects funded via this call.  Shortlisted projects will be expected to outline plans for long-term sustainability, including how any required future funding will be sought (for example, via Faculty/Department buy-in or seeking external funding). Applications for funding must be supported by the Head(s) of Departments(s) or equivalent.

The resources needed to carry out a project will depend on local priorities, the scope, the size of the department/team and the extent to which the proposal develops entirely new activity or builds upon existing work.

Funding can be used for, e.g.:

• ‘Buyout’ of existing College staff
• Additional, fixed-term staff
• StudentShapers
• GTAs and UTAs
• Specific support from centralised teams. For example, Educational Design and Technology (e.g. from the Digital Media Lab, EdTech Labs, ICT or other partner departments)

Please submit completed Expression of Interest forms by midday, Thursday 13th of February to education.office@imperial.ac.uk