EXTENSION OF TESTBED PROJECT SUBMISSION TILL 13th JUNE !

TESTBED
COMPETITION

Are you ready to shape the future of education? Are you full of ideas that could transform learning into something more inclusive, innovative, and exciting? Then this is your moment!

The ENHANCE Alliance proudly invites academic staff & students from our partner universities to participate in the Testbed Competition 2025 — a unique opportunity to co-create and implement groundbreaking educational concepts with international peers!

A testbed is the platform for conducting transparent, and replicable testing of didactic theories or methods, tools or technologies.

The term is used across many disciplines to describe experimental research and new product development platforms and environments.

EXTENSION OF TESTBED PROJECT SUBMISSION

Who can apply for funding

Staff Members

Doctoral Candidates

Students

► of the ENHANCE Partner Universities:

Objectives

The main objectives of the competition are:

To enrich the ENHANCE learning opportunities
To modernize teaching methods and formats
To foster the exchange of good teaching practices in the field of international cooperation

To activate students’ co-teaching
To promote inclusivity in teaching and learning, ensuring equal opportunities and fair representation for diverse groups

Subject of the competition

The subject of the competition is to develop and implement innovative learning concepts, offered to learners representing at least three different Partner Universities, including:

Innovative formats (understood as original and innovative didactic solutions) for joint short-term learning activities such as:

Service-based learning
Learning activities/solutions co-created with staff members, doctoral candidates and/or students
Hackathons of a unique theme, scope and form
Solutions for students facing different barriers
Other innovative concepts

Innovative and unique training concepts at the university level, such as:

Evolutive Learning Factories
Related learning activities based on real industrial systems and their digital twins

Innovative pedagogical concepts, including the use of new technologies for future learners

Design out of the box

Budget Allocation

Testbed Total Budget

The budget for the support of the Testbed Projects is 84,000 EUR.

Testbed Funding

The Testbed Project funding is up by 8,400 EUR per Testbed Project in Edition 2025.

The budget categories eligible for funding include:

Direct costs related to salaries
Employee-related costs
Other direct costs such as software licenses

The purchase of fixed assets, including equipment, is not eligible.
Indirect costs cannot be added to the budget of the Testbed Project.
The funds will be distributed among the Partner Universities on the basis of the winning projects ranking.

ⓘ The Application must be sent to Anna.Smulska@pw.edu.pl

Competition Criteria

Quality of the concept including the didactic method and educational format
(20 points)
Novelty of the learning opportunity within ENHANCE Alliance
(15 points)
The joint preparation of the project by at least two Partner Universities
(20 points)
Inclusion of students and/or doctoral candidates in the development of the learning opportunity
(15 points)
The project completion within 18-month period and sustainability results beyond that period
(10 points)
The justification of expenses
(10 points)
The awareness of inclusivity and diversity in the project design
(10 points)

Downloads

Rules & Regulations Annex 1 - Application Annex 2 - Evaluation Card

FAQ

Join the online Q&A meeting on June 4, 2025 at 4 pm vis this link.

1. Budget clarification: Should the indirect costs (10%) be included within the 8,400 EUR limit or are they the separate cost ?

Indirect costs cannot be added to the budget of the Testbed Project. Unfortunately, it is the own cost of the University

2. Project description requirements: Are there specific character limits or length requirements for the project description table?

There are no specific requirements for the length of the table answers provided. However, please approach this with common sense. If the descriptions are very complicated and lengthy, the proposal will be difficult to understand. The answers should be concise, clear and straightforward.

3. The project must be completed within 18 months, but when do these 18 months begin? The guidelines mention "within 18 months of the date of publication of the grant information". If I have understood correctly, will the 18-month count start after the payment is made? And that can occur in the 3 months that follow the announcement of the results. Am I correct?

The project must be completed within 18 months from the date of publication of the competition result.

4. Does the proposal prepared by students need to be consulted with Education Officers?

Yes, because of the need to establish the novelty of the proposal and the acceptability of the financial issues involved.

5. As I understand it, we also include a partner university in the application. What is the role of this university in the submitted project? Does it participate in the preparation of the application and later in the preparation of the materials?

In order to fulfil the evaluation criterion of the project, the partner university should take part in the preparation of the project concept (the joint preparation of the project by the two universities), and during the implementation phase, and at least students from the two partner universities should take part in the planned activities. Of course, the participation of

the academic staff from the partner universities in the implementation process is most welcome.

6. Can the project include the modernisation of classes, or does it have to be the whole subject (e.g. 15h lab/project)? Is it possible to focus on the implementation of one topic within the subject in fewer hours than the whole subject? E.g. I have a class consisting of 9 exercises, can I submit an extension of 1 exercise? Or is this an extra activity to the exclusion of the class (students do not receive ECTS for such meetings)?

It is more about innovation of the whole cycle of classes, e.g. all labs in a semester. Please note that we are talking about innovation and not modernisation. Additionally, please note that we are talking about innovation at the consortium level. The innovative activity can be carried out in the form of a separate workshop, for which students should be able to gain additional ECTS.

7. Are we to include cooperation with a partner university in the budget? Does this cooperation include a trip?

Within the framework of cooperation with a partner university, the travel costs can be taken into account. With regard to teachers' salaries, the internal regulations of the university responsible for the project should be taken into account.

8. We want to raise funds for organising a hackathon. The award to the winning teams will be participation in a conference at ETH Zurich. Can we request the travel costs for the winning teams to attend the mentioned conference? Are they considered the direct costs?

Travel costs to Switzerland are unfortunately not eligible from the project budget. We are basically not allowed to use any project funding for activities taking place in Switzerland. As ETH Zürich is an associated partner and not a beneficiary of the Erasmus+ project, no project funding can be allocated to it.

ETH Zurich has decided to pay for their ETH staff who would receive a grant from the ENHANCE Testbed competition. Further information for ETH staff is found on the following website: ethz.ch

9. We would like the students from non-ENHANCE universities to participate in our hackathon, making it more inclusive. Is that possible or should our proposed activity be directed only to ENHANCE-university students?

The hackathon organised within the Testbed should be implemented within our Alliance. It is possible for non-ENHANCE university students to participate in the hackathon, however their costs cannot be covered from the Testbed funds.

10. Whose names should be included in the proposal – only the personnel from the leading institution, or should at least one responsible person from each participating university also be listed?

The application should clearly state the name of the project leader and co-leaders, and the university they come from. It does not have to list the entire team involved in the preparation and implementation of the project.

11. Who should be indicated as the project manager in the proposal – a PhD student or an experienced professor (i.e., which option is likely to be viewed more favourably)? Additionally, who is formally responsible for submitting the proposal?

Preferably, the person submitting the proposal should be the person responsible for the whole process of realising the project, its implementation and financial part. This can be the person at the professor level or below. It cannot be a student as he/she is not employed by the University and there may be problems in providing him/her with funding.

12. Can one of the partners be from the same country (e.g. Politechnika Gdańska and Politechnika Warszawska)?

Yes, it can.

13. Can we grant students ECTS points for participation/completing the workshop? How to organise it to be valid for all participants from various universities? Does ENHANCE help in this?

The ECTS recognition process is rather different at each Enhance university. Therefore, it is best to identify this possibility with your co-partner already at the project preparation stage.

14. If travel to UPV can be the prize, can we fund other prizes from Testbed? E.g. mugs or other gadgets for participants?

Yes, you can.

15. Who will be evaluating the propositions of the projects

Each university nominates a representative to the Evaluation Committee – the Jury.

Address

Center for International Cooperation

pl. Politechniki 1 room. 234
00-661 Warsaw, Poland

Contact

Anna.Smulska@pw.edu.pl

Warsaw University of Technology

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