Quality funds
How did the GSLS spend the Quality funds?
After the introduction of the student loan system in 2019, the Faculty of Science and the Faculty of Medicine received funds to enhance the quality of higher education. The Graduate School of Life Sciences used these funds to realise several initiatives. On this page, you can read more about some of these initiatives.
Extra student counselling
The programme coordinators within the School are given extra hours for student counselling. Some programme coordinators use these extra hours to schedule individual meetings with students to discuss study planning and wellbeing for example.
Project Life Sciences Academy (LSA)
The LSA project aims to develop generic skills such as critical thinking and a problem-solving attitude. The Life Sciences Academy helps students to achieve these skills, starting with assignments in the Introducing Life Sciences Week (ILS) and Navigation Towards Personal Excellence (NTPE) workshops.
Stimulated by the quality funds, the LSA now offers several activities: the (online) career events, the GSLS buddy programme, and an elective tutoring course, 'Professional Identity education' (PIE).
On a general level, the school aims to improve the study ability of the GSLS Masters' programmes, training competencies with writing skills and career-oriented workshops, and, in due time, expand honours education. Plans are to expand the Life Sciences Academy even further.
Project Digital Education
Several digital innovations have been and are currently in the developing phase. This project focuses on effectively using the U-Learning platform within the educational setting. It will drive existing education into a more flexible environment and is used to improve and develop (scalable) courses.
Within Utrecht University, various educational advisory projects are in progress, some directly involving GSLS education. These projects concentrate on blended learning, learning analytics, redesigning education, and strengthening activating work forms. For GSLS students, the possibility of developing a Master course planner is also part of one Digital Education project.