Student Success Projects Fund

• Complete the online application form. This form can be saved and completed at a later date

• If you would like to discuss a project idea with the Inclusive Education Team, we are happy to meet with you. Email us at inclusive-learning@york.ac.uk

• In the application, applicants will indicate anticipated activities, outputs and outcomes, as well as how they will work with student partners, timescales and funding required

• A Panel will select the successful projects based on the specific criteria

• Wednesday 14 October, 2026 - Fund application process opens 
• Friday 27 November, 2026 (midnight) - applications close
• December, 2026 - Panel decisions will be shared no later than Friday 18 December.
• Please bear in mind that, due to institutional financial processes, it can take a further 14 days for funds to be available to you. You will also need to build time in for the recruitment of student partners, so do ensure these time frames are reflected in your project start date.
• The Panel may place conditions on successful applications - e.g. deeper and more equitable involvement of student partners.

The University welcomes proposals covering all aspects of learning, teaching and assessment, but they must align to one or more of the four strategic themes:

Inclusive Curriculum and Pedagogies

Definition

Inclusive curriculum and inclusive learning, teaching and assessment approaches ensure that the diverse backgrounds, identities and experiences of our students are represented in their learning experience, leading to an enhanced sense of belonging, engagement, and success. Inclusive practice offers an active and flexible approach to learning, allowing for engagement in diverse ways, connecting with students’ lives and lived experiences. Co-construction with students is central to this work, allowing for the centring of relationships, student perspectives, and agency in their learning.

Examples:

• ‘Learning through neurodivergence: Enhancing inclusive pedagogies and community in the School of Arts and Creative Technologies’ (2024-25 student success project)
• Co-development of inclusive Problem Based Learning (PBL) resources for tutors and students (Economics - 2023-24 Learning & Teaching Fund project)
• ‘Cohort Choice Initiative Data-Gathering Exercise’ (School of Arts & Creative Technologies - 2022-23 Learning & Teaching Fund project)

 

Decolonising and Diversifying the Curriculum

Definition

Critically engaging with current curricula, in partnership with students, to drive change at subject-level, focused on inclusive pedagogies and content that better reflects students' diverse experiences, wider global, political, and historical perspectives. Foregrounding marginalised voices, identities and perspectives makes curricula more inclusive, culturally diverse, and intersectional - enabling students from APP target groups to feel represented and see themselves in the curriculum, enhancing their sense of belonging, engagement, and academic success.

Examples:

• ‘YorTalk: creating a diverse conversational dataset for teaching, learning and research at the University of York’ (Sociology and Language & Linguistic Science, 2024-25 student success project)
• ‘Decolonising the accounting curriculum’ (School for Business & Society - 2023-24 Learning & Teaching Fund project)

 

Inclusive Assessment and Feedback

Definition

Assessment and feedback practices play a significant role in providing opportunities for learning. Evidence suggests that some practices can amplify and reproduce inequalities, impacting negatively on outcomes for underrepresented groups. Developing more inclusive approaches, based on a model of ‘assessment for inclusion’ (AfI), can improve students’ sense of belonging and success. AfI foregrounds practices such as: embedding diversity and optionality in assessment; authentic assessment; and developing student feedback literacy.

Examples:

• ‘Assessment optionality: Establishing a subject-specific case’ (Politics & International Relations - 2023-24 Learning & Teaching Fund project)

 

Student-Led Learning Communities (SLLC)

Definition

 SLLC is an umbrella term that encompasses a variety of approaches to student-led peer learning and student-led support. These approaches, according to Chilvers & McConnell’s (2025) recent definition, involve students collaborating and learning from, and with each other towards their educational goals and personal growth. Positive peer relationships can enhance students’ sense of belonging and working together offers the potential to improve students’ academic confidence and contribute to improved student success. SSLC approaches encompass activities where students interact with each other, either within the curriculum or as co- and extracurricular activities, for the purpose of enhancing their learning, development and/or sense of mattering within a learning community. SLLC projects could include work with student partners to co-construct a new approach - e.g.: 

• Curriculum-embedded - includes a range of active and collaborative learning approaches - e.g. group work; peer assessment & feedback; action learning sets; peer-led team learning, structured peer-led workshops (where students lead sessions focused on key concepts and practice questions).
• Co-curricula - additional opportunities that complement the curriculum and engage students in subject-specific content - e.g. peer-assisted learning (PAL); peer mentoring; peer coaching.
• Extracurricular - activities that foster collaboration, enhances academic confidence and builds a supportive community - e.g. specialist peer communities (e.g. centered around specific identities); student champions; student-staff partnership projects where staff work with students to co-construct department student-led learning community strategies. 

Examples:

• Disability Community Ambassadors: Working to improve attainment, retention, progression and experience for disabled and neurodiverse students through community creation (2024-25 student success project)
• ‘Learning from Experience: developing inter-year undergraduate student academic learning communities at York Law School’ (2024-25 student success project)

 

Student voice

Definition

While student voice and co-construction are imperative to all the SSPF themes, this new theme for 2026-27 is specifically aimed at projects where student voice / student insights are required to enable further work to take place, either as phase two of a multi-year project and/or to inform strategic activity in departments - e.g. relating to No-gaps action plans. Student voice projects may also focus on the innovation and evaluation of student voice practices. Examples may include:

• Staff working with student partners to gather qualitative data regarding students’ lived experiences of learning, teaching & assessment;
• Student partners working with staff to design peer-led dialogues with students - e.g. focusing on exploring the causes of award gaps and how to address them; and/or
• Designing, piloting and evaluating innovative student voice approaches with student partners - e.g.
  • Surfacing student voices in curriculum development and/or evaluation.
  • Amplifying underrepresented student voices through active and/or creative methods.

To be considered by the decision-making panel, projects must demonstrate a clear alignment to one or more of the strategic themes:

• A clear indication of intended outcomes and outputs and a rationale for how they will contribute to closing gaps and/or amplify work on inclusive education priorities in the participating department(s)
• Demonstrates some knowledge of relevant and existing educational literature and/or engagement with department/school-level data on student outcomes and gaps
• A well developed plan for how the project will involve student and staff partners, including funding required and timescales
• A well considered rationale for how activities and/or practices could be embedded, sustained and operationalised within curricula - e.g. across multiple modules and programmes
• Demonstrates the potential for institutional-level impact (e.g. outputs / activities / practices that can be applied across departments and disciplines) when sustained and scaled up. 

Level of Funding

• Single year projects - funded up to £5000
• Multi-year projects - funded up to £7500

Length of funding awarded

• Single year projects
  • Projects can apply for single year funding, up to £5000
  • Please note, we anticipate the majority of the funding in 2026-27 will be allocated to single year projects
  • The total budget must be spent by 31st July 2027
• Multi-year projects
  • Historically, the funding has been limited to one academic year, however, this year we are accepting multi-year project proposals up to £7500, profiled across two financial years, where there is a clear rationale for a phased approach. 
  • Applications must provide a rationale and breakdown of how the funding will be profiled across 2026-27 and 2027-28. A strong rationale will be one that demonstrates phased milestones and activities and a clear indication of how student partners will be involved across the different phases. 
  • We would not expect to see applications that simply prolong the spending window of a single-phase project or that propose a significant imbalance in the budget profiles - e.g. £500 in 2026-27 and £7000 in 2027-28
  • Projects will need to demonstrate progress for phase one of the project against an agreed set of criteria before funding for the second phase (in year two) is released. The total budget must be spent by 31st July 2028
  • Please note that multi-year awards reduce the total pot available in subsequent years, meaning that we will only be able to fund a limited number in 2026-27. An example might be:
    • Phase 1 (2026-27) - reviewing literature, co-designing and developing plans for an enhanced approach to assessment.
    • Phase 2 (2027-28) - implementation / piloting & evaluation of assessment enhancement.
      

Ethics

• Where necessary colleagues should apply for ethics approval from the relevant committee.

Reporting and dissemination

• Multi-year projects will submit a progress report in July 2027.
• You are expected to share an evaluative case study report after the completion of the project.
• You will be expected to disseminate outcomes and good practice from your project through, for example, presentations within your department, at university-wide events and/or external conferences.

Approvals

• Proposals must be supported and signed off by both the host department / school and other. participating departments / schools (s) i.e. Head of Department or delegated deputy.

Who can apply?

• All academic departments / schools / centres are eligible to apply
• The Fund is not aimed at central professional service staff (PSS), although departmental colleagues can invite central PSS to participate in partnership. Whilst projects must be led by academic departments, this does not prohibit PSS in departments / schools from applying, as long as all other eligibility conditions and criteria are met.
• Members of the awarding Panel are not able to apply (or be part of the team applying)

 

Integrated & Evidence-informed Projects

The SSPF aims to catalyse joined-up inclusive educational enhancement across the University. We strongly encourage applications that are explicitly connected to and amplify existing or emerging strategic enhancement work, either at departmental / school or faculty level. For example, applications may seek to build upon, or directly accelerate No-gaps action plans. Speak to your teaching & learning leads about your departmental /school No-gaps action plan and/or other key priorities.

Applications that provide an evidence-informed rationale for their design will be prioritised. This does not mean applications are expected to provide a substantial literature review. Rather, the decision-making Panel will be looking for an effective description of the relevant information drawn upon as the foundation of the project - e.g.:

• Relevant and existing educational literature;
• Theoretical or conceptual influences; and/or
• Engagement with department/school-level data on student outcomes and gaps. You can access the data directly via the No-gaps workbook on tableau - you will need to be logged onto the VPN to gain access

Project Types

The University is committed to funding new enhancement projects oriented towards inclusive education. Generally, applications tend to be focused on educational research, learning & teaching enhancements, or a combination of both. The University is also committed to projects focused on developing learning communities. Examples of the types of projects funded by the SSPF:

• Learning, teaching and assessment enhancements 
• Developing, piloting and/or evaluating enhancement areas and/or resources e.g. new pedagogies, assessment and feedback designs, inclusive teaching activities; discipline-specific toolkits, teaching resources

• Educational research / Scholarship of Teaching & Learning
  • Inquiry into how students learn in your discipline or in specific educational settings (e.g. field trips or placements). The University’s Academic Practice Team has some excellent resources on SoTL, including on SoTL methods and design of projects. 

• Innovations in building learning communities
• Developing or evaluating approaches to peer learning or student-led peer learning
• Developing or evaluating student-led approaches to skills development, induction and/or transition activities

Project proposals centred on typical revisions to content or delivery, minor changes to assessment, or an adjustment in service or support offered to students, are not recommended. If curriculum development is part of your proposal, you should make it clear why this idea is an innovative project and isn't 'business-as-usual' teaching practices.

Funding will be allocated on a project basis, depending on the scope and anticipated outputs. You are encouraged to ask your Department / School about match funding - e.g. should you require more resources and/or where you know your Department / School is interested in funding enhancement projects. Interdepartmental applications are also welcomed, so match funding could be shared between departments, where feasible (or taken on by one department).

As a guide projects include costs for:

Paying student partners

• In your application, you will be asked to identify the rate of pay you are using for your student partners and the number of hours they will work 
• For consistency, and to reflect the project-based nature of the work, we suggest using the ‘student ambassador rate’, which is currently £13.52. If you want to depart from that - i.e. where you think the student partner role(s) better aligns to a different hourly rate - please provide a short rationale in the ‘budget’ section of your application. For more information on pay rates and employing casual workers - see the University’s casual workers page 
• When specifically recruiting PhD students - e.g. to facilitate workshops or training for other student partners - previous projects have used graduate teaching assistant (GTA) rates (£16.63)
• When working out your budget for student partners, remember to add on holiday pay (which is added automatically, but not included in the rate of pay) - 12.7% of the hourly rate for casual workers; 17.12% of the hourly rate for GTAs

Incentives for student participation

E.g. consultations, evaluative research (surveys, focus groups), co-design workshops etc. The University recommends payment by gift / voucher for this type of student engagement:

• Surveys - the University recommends using ‘student prize draws’ for student survey participation, but total costs of vouchers for a survey should not exceed £200, unless there is a strong case for engaging a large number of students - e.g. a large-scale faculty or institution-wide project. It is up to the project to decide how they breakdown the costs - e.g. 5 prizes up to £40 or two larger prizes of £100
• Focus groups - for more involved and discursive forms of engagement - e.g. focus groups, workshops, discussion events - the standard University approach is £15 (worth of vouchers) per hour or £20 for an hour and a half

Staff costs

Costs linked to the actual expenses of the role required in the project - e.g. additional hours for part-time staff and/or hiring a graduate teaching assistant (GTA) and/or a casual staff member

Production costs

Such as graphic design, printing, video editing and production (where this can’t be supported in-house)

Delivery of discussion and dissemination events at York

E.g. payments for student partners to participate

Funds cannot be spent on:

Food and drink

One exception to this is if you want to use catering as a preferred method for incentivising students to attend a focus group or listening event. In this instance, food and drink would be provided instead of vouchers (not in addition to)

Payment for duties that should already be the responsibility of departments / schools

E.g. routine course development and other activities that staff should do as part of their usual roles

Costs linked to dissemination outside of the UoY

E.g. conferences 

Equipment or software 

A department / school would normally be expected to purchase in ongoing budgets

All proposed projects should include a clearly defined and feasible evaluation plan that sets out how you will assess whether the research or enhancement has met its intended outcomes. Evaluation approaches might include how you are going to assess feedback from student partners (e.g. about the process of co-construction) and/or students more broadly (e.g. if you pilot or implement an enhancement). Proposals should also note down ideas for how you might identify and measure long-term impact (e.g. once enhancements, findings or resources are embedded). If you need assistance with developing an evaluation plan, prior to submitting, just get in touch with the Inclusive Education Team (inclusive-learning@york.ac.uk).

Within 4 months of the project finishing, the ‘lead applicant’ and team will be expected to produce a short evaluative report, which will be published on the Inclusive Education Team webpages. We strongly encourage Student Success Projects to provide copies or links to any final outputs - e.g. teaching resources, journal/newsletter articles, conference papers or presentations.

Nick Glover (inclusive-learning@york.ac.uk) - project lead for the Student Success Projects Fund and also Inclusive Education Adviser for Social Sciences.