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Utrecht ľ¹Ï¸£ÀûÓ°ÊÓ is committed to developing a future-proof educational culture focused on quality and innovation. Many educational innovations have therefore been realised at the university. We want to encourage successful innovations to gain a permanent place at the university. Sometimes it is necessary to investigate this in more detail in a business case. A business case can be drawn up with the aid of a USO Consolidation project so that a considered decision can be taken regarding embedding or marketing an educational innovation in the long term.

1. USO Consolidation and USO Education Innovation

This call for USO consolidation projects focuses on developing a business case for embedding an educational innovation in the organisation or marketing it, thus making it sustainable. There is also another call for inter-faculty USO innovation projects, which focuses on applications that can improve education at the UU with an innovative idea.

2. Goal of USO Consolidation

USO Consolidation focuses on (nearly) completed innovation projects that want to make a well-founded decision about the continuation of the project. The goal of USO Consolidation projects is to provide project leaders with the means to make a thorough business case. On this basis, a commissioning party (ie the faculty director) can decide to embed an educational innovation sustainably within or outside the university.

3. Terms and conditions

The application is submitted by a project manager and a commissioning party. This commissioning party is the person/ are the persons who, based on the business case, can decide on the adoption of the innovation. The duration of a consolidation project is maximum 1 year.

4. What kind of projects can apply?

Projects between €5,000 and €50,000 can be applied for. The budget is intended for the consolidation of innovations from the education domain. Projects concerning research or educational logistics are not eligible. The innovations may be with or without ICT. The goal may be to investigate whether the innovation can be embedded sustainably internally (for example, taking an application UU service management) or externally (for example, marketing it through a start-up).

The budget can be used to gather information for the preparation of a business case, and to further develop the business case. This involves activities to investigate, for example:

• Whether there is sufficient need for the sustainable embedding of the innovation and among which target groups.
• What actions, activities and investments are needed for sustainable deployment (privacy, security, functional development, organisation).
• What the operating costs would be (licences, management and support costs).

5. Procedure

The application deadline is 25 November 2022. Project leaders provide a brief description of the innovation for which a business case should be made, the activities that should be undertaken, the expertise required and a budget.

The application is submitted by the commissioning partner to the secretary of the USO committee, via cat@uu.nl.

The results will be announced before the end of the calendar year.

A second round is expected with a deadline in early March 2023.

6. Business case

The end product of a project granted from USO Consolidation is a business case. This business case outlines the benefits of embedding the innovation permanently within or outside the organisation and the costs associated with this. The costs and benefits are then weighed against each other. This way, a well-founded decision can be taken.

Want to know what a business case looks like? Click here for a business case format.

7. Application form

Due to the international composition of the evaluation committee the application form is in English.

• Application form (deadline 25 November 2022)
• Budget Format