By Rachel Edwards, U21

"U21 is delighted to announce the winners of the Global Education Enhancement Fund offering $5,000 per institution to support members in delivering and enhancing higher education for a rapidly changing and uncertain future.

Thirteen U21 members from ten countries, working in partnerships, have all been awarded funds to carry out work on better and robust solutions for online teaching, learning and assessment which can be shared as resources within the U21 network within the next twelve months.

Professor Bairbre Redmond, Provost of U21 said, ‘The response to the funding call was overwhelming, with fifty-two projects proposed. The eight winning projects (covering 14 universities) will share US$110,000 in funds, and they are all designed to deliver clear outcomes within one year. These will not only benefit the partners in each project, but will also produce sharable resources for use across the whole network. 

My warmest congratulations to the winners and sincere thanks to all who took the time to apply. I enjoyed reading all of the proposals which reflected the responsive educational innovation taking place across the U21 network, under very difficult circumstances. Such innovation will go a long way to support your students as they seek to navigate their way through a very changed higher education landscape.’

The winners are as follows:

• Title - Developing effective resources for online teaching and assessment of mathematics
• Lead Institution - The University of Edinburgh
• Partners -  University of Auckland

• Title - Learning together in a global pandemic: Practices & principles for teaching & assessing online in uncertain times
• Lead Institution - The University of Queensland
• Partners - Lund University, The University of Edinburgh

• Title - Hands-on clinical skills in a hands-off world: Enhancing digital capacity for online teaching, learning and assessment in health and rehabilitation sciences
• Lead Institution - The University of Queensland
• Partners - University of Johannesburg, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

• Title - Policy in Practice: Co-Designing an International, Student-Led Collaborative Public Policy Research Tool to Reduce the Digital Divide
• Lead Institution - University of Auckland
• Partners - McMaster University

• Title - Interactive online demonstrations for undergraduate organic chemistry laboratory experiments
• Lead Institution - UNSW
• Partners - The University of Melbourne, University of Birmingham

• Title - Global Classroom and the UN Sustainable Development Goals: a U21 Pilot Project
• Lead Institution - University of California, Davis
• Partners - Tecnológica de Monterrey, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

• Title - Climate in the Cloud: Web-enabled cloud-computing educational resources for climate, atmosphere, and ocean science
• Lead Institution - UNSW
• Partners - The University of Melbourne

• Title - Global Health Challenges Digital Module
• Lead Institution - University of Birmingham
• Partners - The University of Melbourne, The University of Queensland, Tecnológica de Monterrey, University of Johannesburg

Applicants had to demonstrate collaboration between U21 member universities, with a partnership comprising 2 or more U21 members. Multi-national applications were particularly welcomed. The innovation had to include at least one of the following innovative aspect:

• New technology
• Using technology in new ways
• New course design or structure built around the goal of Global Education/Internationalisation
• New approaches to online assessment.

Read the full article on U21's website.