Bonn–St Andrews Joint Education Seed Funding

This funding initiative is designed to support academic staff from all disciplines in identifying complementary strengths, exploring areas of synergy, and laying the groundwork for innovative future projects. The seed funding is intended to facilitate the initial stages of collaboration and is not intended to serve as full project funding.

Awarded projects should lead to concrete outputs and develop best practice in teaching and education. Awardees are asked to consider in the application how project results and best practice could be shared with other colleagues at their institutions.

All academic fields covered jointly by Bonn and St Andrews are included in the present call, and interdisciplinary projects are encouraged, as long as the resulting project is beneficial for both universities. Projects aligning with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals are particularly welcomed.

The supported activities should have a clearly defined focus and serve as a catalyst for the development of new joint projects. The activities can take place in Bonn and/ or in St Andrews or via digital formats. The motivation for holding the activity should be clearly explained, including how the involved Bonn and St Andrews Faculties and Schools can benefit long term from this cooperation. 

Possible formats for cooperation may include:

1. Pedagogical seminars or workshops 
2. Joint curriculum and course development
3. Collaborative teaching initiatives
4. Joint doctoral training activities
5. Joint mentorship and training schemes
6. Graduate summer/ winter programmes
7. Virtual exchange or Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL)
8. Development of shared educational resources or toolkits

Successful funding applications will be awarded up to £5,000/ €6,000 per project. Both institutions contribute matching funds towards the total funding (£2,500 from St Andrews and €3,000 from Bonn). Up to two projects will be awarded in the 2026 call of the scheme.

Co-funding of projects by the Faculty/ Department/ School/ Institute/ Centre, or external bodies, is welcomed.

Applications will be reviewed and scored by selection committees at Bonn and St Andrews. Proposals will be reviewed by selection committee members from multiple disciplines and must be written for such an audience. The selection committees will evaluate each application using the following criteria:

• Academic quality and innovation
• Anticipated outcomes and scalability of the project
• Impact and legacy
• Partnership and strategic relevance

The selection committees reserve the right to allocate less funding compared to the amount requested by the applicants. The selection shall take into consideration the project subject area and type, to encourage the widest possible range of activities.

Researchers of the University of Bonn who have completed a doctorate submit a joint proposal with faculty from the University of St Andrews. Bonn researchers must be able to show proof of their employment at least until the end of the collaborative research project.

The same proposal and budget for each application must be sent to the University of St Andrews and to the University of Bonn.

Completed applications should be submitted via the University of St Andrews’ online submission link and via the University of Bonn’s online form and must be received by both universities by Monday, November 10, 2025 (04:00 pm BST, 05:00 pm CET).

Each proposal must include the following items in the order listed below as one single PDF. Proposals will be reviewed by selection committee members from multiple disciplines and must be written for such an audience. 

1. Names, titles, Departments/ Schools and emails of Bonn and St Andrews Principal Investigators and any other academic staff involved in the activities.
2. Type of collaborative activity
3. Project title and layperson abstract of the proposed project (up to 250 words)
4. Narrative description of the proposed project for a multi-school, multidisciplinary audience  (two-page limit):
5. Brief description of how the project will address the selection criteria 
6. Budget and budget justification, with one section for Bonn budget and one section for St Andrews budget, explaining in detail all anticipated expenditures.
7. Short curriculum vitae (2 pages maximum) of Principal Investigators.
8. For St Andrews applicants only, a brief letter from Head of School endorsing the application.

Please refer to the detailed grant description (PDF) for more details.