QAA announces funding for 16 new Collaborative Enhancement Projects

We are adding 16 new Collaborative Enhancement Projects to those we’re funding from previous rounds. The new projects will begin from January 2023.

Collaborative Enhancement Projects offer a fantastic opportunity for higher education providers to work together to explore areas of shared interest and engage students. Each project will also lead to the development of outputs that not only benefit the partners directly involved but also support the wider QAA membership and higher education sector.

This year the full suite of funded projects includes one led by a QAA International Member.  We’re pleased to include our international members in the enhancement project approach, providing a focused way for UK and international providers to network around topics of mutual interest.

The response to our call for expressions of interest was very positive, building on previous years, with 65 individual project proposals received.

These new projects, each led by a QAA member, involve 70 partners from across the sector, including UK higher education institutions, colleges, independent providers, international universities, and Students’ Unions.

Topics addressed embrace:  

Pedagogy

• Evaluating the impact of block delivery
• Incorporating experiential learning fully into STEM education: a toolkit for enriching the student experience
• Harnessing Multimodality in Higher Education: Principles for New Learning, Teaching and Assessment
• Embedding multiple disciplinary affiliation identities in shared modules to enhance curriculum design.
• Developing Patient Consultation Observed Structured Clinical Examination (OSCE) for Evaluating Cultural Sensitivity Competences in Pharmacy Students

Assessment

• To be competent is to have the necessary experience, knowledge and self-awareness to do something effectively.
• Student choice in assessment

Employability, enterprise, entrepreneurship and global citizenship

• Evolving the current inclusive curriculum discussion to make employability development intrinsic to good quality teaching & learning
• Student Intrapreneur and Entrepreneur (SIE) Toolkit and Community of Practice

Innovative and evolving quality processes

• Enhancing Learning and Teaching Quality through Collaborative Observation (ELTQCO)
• How are staff supported to undertake student-staff partnership opportunities?
• When Quality Assurance (QA) meets Innovation in Higher Education (HE)

Evaluation and evidence-based decision-making

• Developing a pilot Peer Evaluation system
• Evaluation and evidenced based decision making
• The Learning Together Project (LTP): developing cross-institutional evaluation of inclusive learning, teaching and assessment

Educational Gain

• Accounting for Student Success: Measuring Educational Gain

Dr Ailsa Crum, QAA’s Director of Membership, Quality Enhancement and Standards said: ‘This was a very strong response to our Collaborative Enhancement Project funding call. We’re looking forward to working alongside the project leads and their partners to deliver on the ambitious aims of their projects. Our Collaborative Enhancement Projects also contribute to enhanced practice across the higher education sector through sharing the project findings and outcomes with our wider membership community.’

You can view information on all of the funded projects, including those which have completed, via our Collaborative Enhancement Projects webpage – from here you can select the topics you’re interested in or search for a project lead via the map.