Seedcorn Fund

• All EEA members who are involved in higher education teaching can apply for the Seed Fund.
• Applications are welcome from individuals and teams (where team members can be part of one or multiple institutions). For team applications, at least one person on the team must be an EEA member. Each application must contain at least one individual who will be teaching in the 2025/26 academic year.
• There are no restrictions on the career stage of applicants, but applicants must ensure that the duration of their institutional affiliation covers the entire period of funding (January 2026 – August 2026). PhD students can apply as part of a team but cannot submit an individual application.
   

At least one award of up to €2000 is available. The EEA has the discretion to fund more than one award, depending on the quality of applications.

Applicants can combine the Seed Fund with other sources of funding. Applicants who plan to do so much provide sufficient detail in the application form to allow assessment of the project’s feasibility. Matched funding is not required.

This funding can cover direct expenses incurred in planning, implementing, and evaluating the project, including focus groups, surveys, workshops or similar events, and research assistance. The funding can also cover non-consumables (items that are not ‘used up’ during the course of the project) such as books or digital technologies for teaching and learning, provided that applicants give sufficient justification for these resources in the application form.

This funding cannot be used to cover indirect costs such as institutional overheads, salary cost of applicants, replacement teaching costs/teaching buyout, personal travel and maintenance costs.

Funding will be awarded based on the following criteria:

• Extent to which the project is innovative. (Note that ‘innovative’ does not necessarily mean “completely new”; projects that trial an established technique in a new context can also be considered innovative.)
• Feasibility of conducting the proposed project within the specified timeframe
• Evidence of need for funding and clear description of what the funding will be used for
• Evidence of potential value, reach and impact of the project, particularly on student learning but also in influencing the practice of academic staff
• Potential to extend the into a larger funded project at the end of the seed funding period.
• Plan for evaluation

Complete an application form (link at bottom of this section).

Applications must be submitted by 23:59:59 (CET) on December 15, 2025.

Successful applicants will be notified by mid-January 2026. As part of the award, successful applicants will be required to participate in some dissemination activities, which may include presenting their project in the EEA Annual Congress in August 2026 (exact date to be confirmed) and writing a case study or summary report of their project for the EEA website.

If you have any queries about the application form or the Seed Fund, please email the Education Committee at eea-education@eeassoc.org.

Proceed to application form here

• Tomasz Kopczewski (University of Warsaw), for the "know thyself" methodology for teaching microeconomics.
   
• Benjamin Elsner (University College Dublin), for the "intuitive metrics" approach to teaching econometrics by curating data visuals and narratives or explanations to help students understand the material from an intuitive standpoint.
   
• CTaLE, for an innovative way to host their hybrid TeachECONference, aimed at improving engagement and networking for both digital and in-person participants. 
   
• Antonio Rodriguez Gil (University of Leeds), for a series of field experiments to investigate how “nudge” interventions affect students’ study habits and educational outcomes.
   
• Paul Cox (University of Bath) & Chi Wan Cheang (University of Liverpool) for their project to use students’ job application experiences to develop a toolkit that supports engagement and employability in the classroom.