The Leadership Foundation for Higher Education is a higher education sector body, established by and for the sector. It contributes to the effectiveness of the sector by providing a dedicated service of support and advice on leadership, governance and management for the UK’s universities and colleges of higher education. As part of that contribution we are pleased to invite proposals from member institutions for funding for the 2011 round of Small Development Projects (SDPs). We plan to fund a further ten projects, bringing the total number of SDPs supported since 2004 to 60.
Use this link for for details of previous projects.
The key principles of the Small Development Project scheme are that it supports innovative activities that would not normally attract funding from within an institution, or that would not be viable without an element of external funding, and that there is a clear benefit to the wider higher education community to learn from the process and outcomes of the project.
Proposals can be submitted at any time from Friday 1 October to Tuesday 30 November 2010.
2 Project guidance
1 SDPs can be funded up to £10,000 and will be deliverable within 12 months of the start date (which will normally be from
Tuesday 1 February 2011).
2 Proposals are welcome from all staff groups.
3 Proposals are welcome from individual HEIs and from consortia.
4 The Leadership Foundation will only support proposals which have potential for sector-wide impact/application. To that end, in some cases we may choose to ring-fence funding for projects involving particular groups or networks (eg professional associations) or target areas identified as emerging priorities (eg ‘managing in hard times’).
5 A key outcome of each SDP will be to contribute to publications, conference workshops, papers, seminars etc, and as widely as possible. Guidance will be given by the link person at the appropriate time (and see Dissemination below). Further advice and recommendations will emerge from the current SDP impact review process.
6 Project proposals may benefit from demonstrating a link to key development priorities from Leadership Foundation research and practice.
Use this link to find out more: Leadership Foundation research
7 Project outcomes will be published on the Leadership Foundation website.
3 Proposals
Proposals should be presented under standard headings as indicated below, so as to facilitate the SDP panel’s decision making. The information provided should be sufficient to enable panel members to make informed decisions about what is being proposed, how the work will be managed and what outcomes can be expected.
Please keep proposals brief (approximately 1000-1500 words). Proposals should include:
1 Project title
2 Names of a project leader (with contact details), steering group members and the project’s administrative ‘home’ HEI
3 Aims and objectives. These must clearly be relevant to those of the Leadership Foundation
4 A description of the proposed methodology, including how the project will be tested in practice
5 A description of proposed outcomes and outputs
6 A description of the intended benefits to project partners and the wider HE Community
7 Milestones (quarterly)
8 Financial breakdown
9 Plans for dissemination (which should be reflected in the financial breakdown) – how will the learning be captured and shared?
10 A letter of support from an in-house ‘champion’ (normally a member of the lead institution’s senior management team).
4 Selection criteria
Applications will be assessed by a panel comprised of Leadership Foundation staff and leaders of successfully completed SDPs.
They will be assessed against the following simple criteria:
1 Does the proposal clearly conform to the ‘key principles’ as described under Context above?
2 Is the proposal within the broad theme of Leadership, Governance and Management?
3 Is there synchronicity with Leadership Foundation aims and objectives?
4 Are there sector-wide applications and/or impact?
5 Are all applicants HE institutions Leadership Foundation members?
6 Are all the requirements listed under ‘Proposals’ above met?
5 Dissemination
Dissemination will normally be via publications, papers and conference presentations, although innovative additional suggestions are welcome. The most appropriate dissemination route(s) can of course be agreed by the team but might typically include ‘road shows’, papers/presentations at such conferences as UPA, SRHE, Staff Development, AUA, ARC or publication in an appropriate journal, academic or professional, web based material, video clips, etc. Projects will be expected to arrange their own dissemination programme. All projects will feature at some stage in a Leadership Foundation publication, normally Engage or In Practice.
6 Submission of proposals
Proposals can be submitted between Friday 1 October to Tuesday 30 November 2010, electronically either
as plain text or in MS-Word to Louise Taylor
To discuss proposals informally call:
Stuart Hunt, SDP Co-ordinator, 01524 388492
Professor Bob Thackwray, Director, Membership & Organisational Development 01582 467396
Return to Small Development Projects lead page