Funded projects: funding opportunities for learning and teaching innovation
We are funding projects which pursue the goals of the Learning and Teaching Strategy and enable experimentation in novel, digitally driven models of education and associated pedagogical approaches, to enhance the delivery of our education and an inclusive student experience.
On this page you can read about all the projects that have that have been funded under the Pedagogy Transformation, Excellence, and Digital Innovation routes.
2023 Funding Call
Learning How to Learn
Developing and evaluating a university-wide training programme to enhance student self-regulated learning and lifelong learning skills.
Project Leads: Magda Charalambous, Luotong Hui, Michael Fox, Iro Ntonia
Lead Departments: Department of Life Sciences, EDU/CHERS, Department of Physics
Duration: 2 Years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
Animated Inclusive Personae
The creation of Animated Inclusive Personae (AIPs) – furthering the progress made in developing inclusive digital personae and animating these for use in teaching and training material. [More information here.] link
Project Leads: Katie Stripe, Christopher Meadows
Lead Departments: Education Office/CHERS, Graduate School
Duration: 2 Years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
I-spire: Connect, Create, Collaborate
Developing and delivering a pilot course that provides proof-of-concept for a suite of enrichment courses for postgraduate students and the College’s wider global community.
Project Leads: Giskin Day, Ana Costa-Pereira, Magdalena Jara
Lead Departments: Centre for Languages, Culture & Communication and the Graduate School
Duration: 20 months
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
2022 Funding Call
A platform to support digital innovation in EdTech
Creating an online platform to make it easier for staff and students from any department to build new digital applications that integrate with other College systems, and to deploy them on reliable infrastructure, quickly and easily.
Project Leads: Robert Chatley, Richard Howells
Lead Departments: Computing and ICT Technology Office
Duration: 2 Years
Fund: Digital Innovation Fund
Addressing the impact of gender and ethnicity
Exploring and addressing the impact of gender and ethnicity on the professional identity development and practice of teachers at Imperial College
Project Leads: Jo Horsburgh, Órla Murray, Kate Ippolito
Lead Department: CHERS
Duration: 1 Year
Fund: The Excellence Fund
2022 Funding Call B
The Imperial Wiki Initiative
Developing, managing, and hosting a repository of student notes and other related content in a common virtual space.
Project Leads: Marsha Maraj, Jerry Heng, Vijay Tymms, Samuel Brzezicki
Lead Departments: Chemical Engineering, Physics, Mathematics
Duration: 2 Years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
Fostering Educational Diversity and Inclusivity
Working with key student support services across the College to synergise new and existing resources and expertise and co-develop these into an open access ‘fit to learn’ toolkit and a flexible student wellbeing learning programme.
Project Leads: Tiffany Chiu, Richard Bale
Lead Department: CHERS
Duration: 2 Years
Fund: The Excellence Fund
2021 Funding Call
Better Analytics for a Better World
Encouraging MSc Business Analytics students to hone their skills and solve analytics-related problems of non-profit organizations during their degree program under the supervision of PhD and post-doctoral students.
Project Leads: Associate Professor Sven Mikolon, Professor Wolfram Wiesemann
Lead Departments: Business School and Computing
Duration: 1 year
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
Furthering our Learning Analytics Capabilities
This programme of work will further the College’s Learning Analytics capabilities, establishing frameworks around data access and use, configuring core-college data streams for on campus and blended descriptive analytics, and furthering work on online interaction behavioural analytics.
Project Leads: Helen Walkey, Camille Kandiko Howson, Moira Sarsfield, Shireen Lock, Katherine Collet, Karlie O’Hara
Lead Departments: Faculty of Natural Sciences, Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Medicine, Imperial College Business School, CHERS
Duration: 3 years
Fund: Digital Innovation Fund
Performing in Science
Establishing an educational research network exploring what comes into view when we
consider professional practice in terms of performing.
Project Leads: Roger Kneebone
Lead Departments: Surgery and Cancer, ICCESS
Duration: 3 Years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
2021 Funding Call
Changing Feedback Culture with Reflective E-Portfolios
Utilising existing online tools to help students and tutors to engage in iterative feedback processes that promote action and continuous dialogue.
Project Leads: Magda Charalambous, Moira Sarsfield, Kate Ippolito
Lead Departments: Life Sciences, CHERS, FoNS EdTech Lab
Duration: 1 year
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
Anatomy of Assessment
Facilitating change in assessment practices by creating an online platform focusing on demonstrating both traditional and innovative disciplinary assessment from across faculties and departments.
Project Leads: Monika Pazio, Vijay Tymms
Lead Departments: CHERS, Physics
Duration: 1 year
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
ViRSE - Virtual Reality for Student Education
Developing and implementing a virtual reality (VR) software system for Imperial that simplifies the production and deployment of particular applications, using expertise, concepts, and technical solutions developed in pilot projects.
Project Leads: Mark Sutton, Omar Matar, Lorenzo Picinali, Irene Kalkanis
Lead Department: Earth Science and Engineering
Duration: 2 years
Fund: Digital Innovation Fund
2021 Funding Call
Elevating Automated Mathematics Feedback
Producing an innovative digital platform that can be used to provide personalized automated feedback on mathematical questions to improve the quality, quantity, and timeliness of such feedback.
Project Leads: Peter Johnson, Phil Ramsden
Lead Department: Mechanical Engineering
Duration: 3 years, subject to yearly renewal meetings
Fund: Digital Innovation Fund
Exploring XR in Higher Education
We have brought together five bids from Medicine and the Digital Media Lab, which will explore the potential of AR, VR and XR in enhancing learning and teaching.
Project Leads: Daniel Mitelpunkt, Helen McKenna, Adrian Cowell, Nikos Mexis, Risheka Walls, Lisa Carrier, Kirsten Dalrymple, Samantha Gallivan, Fernando Bello
Lead Departments: Faculty of Medicine, DML, IETL
Duration: 3 years
Fund: Digital Innovation Fund
ReCoDE - Research Computing and Data Science Exemplars
Developing students’ research software and data science skills. Postgraduate students will work with expert research software engineers to develop project exemplars for the student community, based on their own research.
Project Leads: Katerina Michalickova, John Pinney, Christopher Cooling, Jianliang Liam Gao, Jeremy Cohen, Diego Alonso Álvarez
Lead Departments: Graduate School, Computing, Research Computing Service
Duration: 3 years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
2021 Funding Call
Developing an Online Course in A Level Physics and Chemistry
Developing an online course Physics and Chemistry A-level course intended to ensure all students have the same foundational knowledge, support widening participation efforts and offer life-long learning opportunities.
Project Leads: Paul Franklyn, Priya Saravanapavan
Lead Department: Materials
Duration: 2 Years
Fund: The Excellence Fund
Building a sense of belonging and a more inclusive culture
Supporting students in speaking out in response to harassment and building a sense of belonging by improving communication between staff and students on their experiences of inclusivity and diversity.
Project Leads: Christopher James Harvey
Lead Department: Faculty of Medicine BMA Charter Finishing Group and Faculty Education Office Welfare Team
Duration: 3 Years
Fund: The Excellence Fund
Embedding equality, diversity and inclusivity in the medical
Embedding equality, diversity and inclusivity in the medical curriculum and fostering a culture that understands and embodies the values of diversity and inclusivity within the curriculum and application of knowledge to real-life health-related problems.
Project Leads: Chioma Izzi-Engbeaya, Trisha Brown
Lead Department: School of Medicine
Duration: 2 Years
Fund: The Excellence Fund
2019 Funding Call
SIDUS
The Supporting the Identity Development of Underrepresented Students (SIDUS) project is a two-year study (2020-2022) aimed at promoting inclusion and supporting success for STEMM students from underrepresented groups at the university.
Project Leads: Tiffany Chiu, Jo Horsburgh
Lead Departments: CHERS
Duration: 3 years
Fund: The Excellence Fund
Approach to support students from under-represented groups
Developing a two-arm program with a self-supporting, inclusive framework and which has its
foundations in the lived student experience.
Project Leads: Sue Smith, Kevin Murphy, John Seddon, Margaret Callan, Trisha Brown, Ben Russell (ICSMSU), Alistair Ludley (ICSMSU).
Lead Department: Faculty of Medicine
Duration: 3 Years
Fund: The Excellence Fund
Strengthening Learning Communities
Enhancing sense of belonging in all students from different gender, cultural, ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, while developing diverse and inclusive assessment strategies in FoNS and beyond.
Project Leads: Mark Richards, Vijay Tymms, Camille Kandiko Howson, Dimitri Vvedensky, Morgan Wascko, Daniel Mortlock, Elizabeth Hauke.
Lead Department: Physics, CHERS, CLCC
Duration: 4 years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
2018 Funding Call
IMPACTS
Inspired by the daily practice of the scientific community, IMPACTS has been developed to strengthen Imperial students’ presentation and critical thinking skills by exposing them to tasks such as assessing what makes a research paper 'good' or 'bad'.
Project Leads: Wayne Mitchell, Sophie Rutschmann, Katie Stripe, and Jeffrey Vernon
Lead Department: Faculty of Medicine
Duration: 3 Years
Fund: The Excellence Fund
Culture, gender, and robotics education
This project allows final year MEng students taking a new module - Robotics 2 - to propose projects that address the gender and cultural diversity of users and designers.
Project Leads: Thrishantha Nanayakkara, Petar Kormushev
Lead Department: Dyson School of Design Engineering
Duration: 3 Years
Fund: The Excellence Fund
Developing evidence-based inclusive methodologies
This project is empowering students to recognise the value of diversity and to use the most effective study strategies for their situation, while equipping teaching staff to develop inclusive and accessible curricula.
Project Leads: Sara Rankin, Kate Ippolito, David Mooney
Lead Department: NHLI, EDU and Disability Advisory Service
Duration: 3 Years
Fund: The Excellence Fund
2018 Funding Call B
Pride and Prejudice in Higher Education
The project is conducting a root and branch review of the reading lists in Imperial’s Masters in Public Health course and is working with module leads and external speakers to ensure that diverse sources are included as much as possible in the curriculum.
Project Leads: Matthew Harris
Lead Department: School of Public Health
Duration: 4 Years
Fund: The Excellence Fund
Cross-Faculty digital transformation
Increasing the capacity and capabilities of the Faculties of Engineering and Natural Sciences in order to support the introduction of digitally enhanced teaching and learning.
Project Leads: Omar Matar, Emma McCoy, Phil Ramsden, Kristel Fobelets, Moira Sarsfield, Shireen Lock.
Lead Department: Faculty of Engineering, Faculty of Natural Sciences
Duration: 5 Years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
Using VR to teach Fluid Mechanics
Developing an interactive, multimodal environment for the exploration of 3D phenomena in mechanics-based modules.
Project Leads: Omar Matar
Lead Department: Chemical Engineering
Duration: 1.5years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
2018 Funding Call C
Using Jupyter notebooks in lectures
Replacing static lecture notes with interactive Jupyter notebooks, which will provide the students with the freedom to manipulate data.
Project Leads: Peter DiMaggio, Klaus Hellgardt, James Campbell
Lead Department: Chemical Engineering
Duration: 1 Year
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
Flipped classroom and automated assessment
Working collaboratively across College to develop a shared repository of programming exercises using Python and Jupyter notebooks, incorporating automated assessment.
Project Leads: Gerard Gorman
Lead Department: Earth Science & Engineering
Duration: 2 years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
Dyson visualisation and collaboration platform
Transforming modules by developing a digital platform where projects can be proposed, discovered, developed, submitted, and showcased.
Project Leads: Stephen Green, Freddie Page
Lead Department: Dyson School of Design Engineering
Duration: 4 years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
2018 Funding Call D
Developing Data Science modules
Meeting the growing demand for courses and degree programs in Data Science.
Project Leads: Seth Flaxman, Marina Evangelou, Niall Adams, Yike Guo
Lead Department: Mathematics, Data Science Institute
Duration: 3 years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
Translating face-to-face learning to online
Taking a rigorous approach in producing a theoretical model exploring the translation of learning methodologies from a face-to-face to an online learning environment.
Project Leads: Edgar Meyer, Iro Ntonia, Vasiliki Papageorgiou
Lead Department: Business School, CHERS
Duration: 5 years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
Chemical Kitchen
Chemistry students will take part in an innovative module that mixes lab skills with those needed in high-end gastronomy - the Chemical Kitchen.
Project Leads: Roger Kneebone, Alan Spivey
Lead Department: Chemistry
Duration: 3 years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
2018 Funding Call E
Opportunities for active learning in Physics
Requiring students to think about challenging concepts through small group and paired discussion and activities that develop ideas and understanding.
Project Leads: Vijay Tymms, Yasmin Andrew
Lead Department: Physics
Duration: 4 years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
Postgraduate Medicine - Attributes and Aspirations module
Developing a new cross-Faculty module to deliver new tools, activities and opportunities for students to take ownership of their professional future.
Project Leads: Katie Dallison & Sophie Rutschmann
Lead Department: Faculty of Medicine, Careers
Duration: 5 years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
Entrepreneurship coaching
A coaching manual outlining the principles, methodology, resources and organisation of coaching entrepreneurs.
Project Leads: Harveen Chugh
Lead Department: Imperial College Business School
Duration: 2 years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
2018 Funding Call F
Faculty of Medicine teaching transformation
Developing forms of student-centered learning that emphasise students’ insight into their own progress, self-efficacy and resilience, and independent learning with online and blended materials.
Project Leads: Martin Lupton
Lead Department: Faculty of Medicine
Duration: 2 years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
Can computers do our marking?
First-year undergraduates learn a new programming language (Lean) which is powerful enough to understand and verify mathematical theorems and proofs, providing fine grained, timely, dialogic feedback.
Project Leads: Kevin Buzzard
Lead Department: Mathematics
Duration: 1.5 Years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
Robust & inclusive teaching for socially relevant problems
Students are getting the chance to incorporate their individual voices, experiences and differences into learning materials and collaborative work thanks to a new initiative from the Centre for Environmental Policy (CEP).
Project Leads: Mike Tennant
Lead Department: Centre for Environmental Policy
Duration: 1 Year
Fund: The Excellence Fund
2017 Funding Call
Cross-College Mathematics pilot
Exploring opportunities to work across Faculties to identify significant overlaps in Mathematics content and develop a common approach.
Project Leads: Emma McCoy, Phil Power, Phil Ramsden, Sam Brzezicki
Lead Department: Faculty of Engineering
Duration: 6 months
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
MBBS social accountability
Taking a systematic approach to embedding social accountability within the undergraduate primary care curriculum, enabling student interaction with and positive impact on the local community.
Project Leads: Sonia Kumar, Arti Maini, Jo Horsburgh
Lead Department: Primary Care and Public Health
Duration: 4 years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
Scientific Computing – A platform for interactive learning
Developing a platform for the efficient and effective acquisition of literacy and mastery in scientific computing by providing an active and interactive learning and teaching environment.
Project Leads: Peter Schmid
Lead Department: Mathematics
Duration: 5 years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
2017 Funding Call B
Restructuring the MBBS BSc
Restructuring the BSc to have an emphasis on creating consistent foundations in scientific skills, from which students can grow and develop into competent clinical scientists.
Project Leads: Alison McGregor
Lead Department: School of Medicine
Duration: 2.5 years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
Educational Communities of Practice and External Teaching
Developing new internal, national and international teaching and research collaborations for the Undergraduate Primary Care Education team.
Project Leads: Sonia Kumar, Arti Maini, Jo Horsburgh
Lead Department: Primary Care and Public Health
Duration: 4 Years
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
MBBS academic coaching
Improving medical students’ performance and skills through academic coaching.
Project Leads: Mike Emerson, Arti Maini
Lead Department: School of Medicine
Duration: 1 year
Fund: Pedagogy Transformation Fund
2016 Funding Call
Making tomorrow's doctors today’s teachers
This project will use third year medical students in the process of course and curriculum design, utilising students’ educational experience and use it as a driver for learning and teaching innovation.
Project Leads: Ged Murtagh
Lead Department: Surgery and Cancer
Duration: 2.5 Years
Fund: The Excellence Fund
Online interactive visualisations – ImpVis
The team will create a suite of online interactive visualisations for explaining key concepts within Physics and other STEM subjects.
Project Leads: Caroline Clewley
Lead Department: Physics
Duration: 3 Years
Fund: The Excellence Fund
CHEMTRACK - Personalised journeys through chemistry
The aim of CHEMTRACK is to create a programme of chemistry education, placing students at the centre of the design and implementation of the laboratory activities.
Project Leads: Oscar Ces, Joao Malhado, David Mountford, Laura Patel
Lead Department: Chemistry
Duration: 2.5 Years
Fund: The Excellence Fund
2016 Funding Call B
IMPLEMnT
IMPLEMnT is a digital platform incorporating a toolkit to empower teachers to create original resources that support blended learning.
Project Leads: Katie Stripe, James Moss
Lead Department: Faculty of Medicine
Duration: 3 Years
Fund: The Excellence Fund
Data analysis of online learning
This project will bring together existing data analysis expertise and technologies in Mathematics and Chemistry with data created through the Business School’s online learning platforms.
Project Leads: Mauricio Barahona, Sophia Yaliraki, David Lefevre
Lead Department: Imperial College Business School
Duration: 2 Years
Fund: The Excellence Fund
Imperial College Concept Collaboratory (ICCC)
The ICCC will utilise inquiry based activities, interactive virtual labs and innovative learning materials such as comics and games that can be accessed by staff and students across a range of courses and disciplines.
Project Leads: Klaus Hellgardt, Bradley Laedwig, Clemens Brechtelsbauer, Umang Shah, Andreas Kogelbauer
Lead Department: Chemical Engineering
Duration: 4 Years
Fund: The Excellence Fund