Education Awards

Education Awards

• Student Talent Award

  The Student Talent Award is intended for students who make a special social or cultural contribution, have a pioneering attitude and are involved students at VU Amsterdam. A student with organizational, administrative, creative or sporting talent - who can act as a role model. Each faculty board can nominate one student. The winner receives €2.000 and is paired with a VU alumnus of their interest. Only full-time final-year bachelor or master students are eligible, with no more than one year of study delay. Below you will find the prize winners of the past years.

  2024 - Lotte Witké (School of Business and Economics) 

  2023 - Amarylle van Doorn (Faculty of Medicine)

  2022 - Ramla Jamac (Master Science, Business and Innovation)

  2021 - Yatou Sallah (Bachelor Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology)

  2020 - Jardo Stammeshaus (Master Science Business and Innovation)

  2019 - Dymphe Mensink (Bachelor Law)

  2018 - Joyce Sombroek (Faculty of Medicine)

• Master's Thesis Award

  In the past, VU presented both a Bachelor's and Master's Thesis Award. In 2023-2024, the Bachelor's Thesis Award was discontinued and only the Master's Thesis was kept.

  The Master's Thesis Award is presented to the master's student who can best argue the potential societal impact of their thesis. Nominations are judged on the basis of the following criteria: (potential) societal impact, scientific quality and originality, relevance to the field and society, alignment with VU values. The winner of the Master's Thesis Award receives two thousand euros and is paired with a VU alumnus of their interest. Below you will find the award winners of the past years. 

  2024 - Riley Terzopoulos (Faculty of Science)

  2023 - Merel Stroes (School of Business and Economics

  2023 - Charlotte Parree (Faculty of Law)

  2022 - Andrew Tan (Bachelor Information Sciences)

  2022 - Tim Mocking (Master Bioinformatics & Systems Biology)

  2021 - Emily Kruidhof (Bachelor Sociology)

  2021 - Marie de Vries (Master Business Administration)

  2020 - Robin Weiler (Bachelor Computer Science)

  2020 - Leonardo Nunes (Master Spatial, Transport and Environmental Economics)

  2019 - William Harry King (Bachelor Computer Science)

  2019 - Sem Duijndam (Master Environment and resource management)

  2018 - Birgit Henrich (Bachelor Science, Business & Innovation)

  2018 - Inken Kröger (Master Accounting and Control)

• Van der Duijn Schouten Teaching Award (discontinued)

  The Van der Duijn Schouten Teaching Award was established in 2015 for senior lecturers, as a successor to the Education Award. The lecturers are nominated by the faculty boards. The prize is awarded once every two years. The winner receives seven thousand euros (to be spent on their own education). To be eligible for this prize, a lecturer must have been appointed at VU Amsterdam for at least ten years and not have been nominated before. 

  The nominated lecturer is assessed based on quantitative data such as course evaluations, nominations for prizes and qualitative criteria. The teacher has a clear vision on education and contributes significantly to didactic and content-related educational improvement. In addition, the teacher presents the essence of the discipline in an appealing and effective manner, and has an integrated vision of the relationship between education, research and society. The teacher stimulates and challenges the students. Below you will find the award winners of the past years. 

  2023 - Yvette Taminiau, Faculty of Social Sciences

  2020 - Marleen de Moor, Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences

  2018 - Ellen Bal, Faculty of Social Sciences

  2016 - Lodewijk Smeehuizen, Faculty of Law

  Previously this award was called the Education Award

  2015 - Meindert Flikkema, School of Business & Economics

  2014 - Sonja Zweegman, VUmv School of Medical Sciences

  2013 - Kilian Wawoe, Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences

  2012 - Theo Doreleijers, VUmv School of Medical Sciences

  2011 - Wolter Mooi, VUmv School of Medical Sciences

  2010 - Ad Kerkhof, Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences

  2009 - Erik Scherder, Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences

  2008 - Ad Verbrugge, Faculty of Humanities

  2007 - Ronald Griessen, Faculty of Science

  2006 - Sandjai Bhulai, Faculty of Science

• Educational Innovation Award

  The VU Educational Innovation Award is intended for (interdisciplinary or trans-faculty) teaching teams that develop an innovative project that focuses on improving teaching practice at VU. Projects that focus on giving innovative substance to the VU educational vision also have a chance of winning the Educational Innovation Award. The context in which the collaboration between lecturers takes place is relatively free. Thus, lecturers can also involve support staff, students and social actors in their project. 

  The jury designates two winning teams. The two winning teaching teams will each receive €15.000. The Centre for Teaching and Learning will provide free assistance to the two winning teams in scaling up their projects.

  From 2023 on, the Educational Innovation Award will be presented annually (the award was presented bi-annually in the past).

  Below you will find the award winners of the past years.

  2024 - Ana-Clara Cassanti's team, Faculty of Science, with the project Diversity and Inclusion as a means of a safe learning environment within Earth Sciences and BETA programmes.

  2024 - Joris Koene’s team, Faculty of Science, with the project Digital anatomy: the anatomy lesson of the future.

  2021 - Jantien Stuifbergen, Faculty of Law, won the innovation prize for her course Personal and Professional Identity.

  2019 - Marcelle Reneman, Jan Gooijer en Kaylee Zournas, Faculty of Law

  2016 - Marjolein Zweekhorst en Tjard de Cock Buning, Faculty of Science

  2015 - Pieter van Beukering, Faculty of Science

• Teacher Talent Award

  The Teacher Talent Award is presented to the best lecturer as seen from the student population and is coordinated by the University Student Council. The teachers are nominated by Faculty Student Councils. Both junior and senior lecturers may be nominated for the award. The winner receives two thousand euros to spend on education. Each year, the jury determines a theme and there are three categories of sub-criteria: inspiring qualities of the teacher, commitment of the teacher and didactic skills of the teacher. Below are the award winners from past years. 

  2024 - Atze van der Ploeg, Faculty of Science

  2023 - Lachezar Yanev, Faculteit der Rechtsgeleerdheid

  2022 - Alexander Bijnsdorp (Faculty of Medicine / Amsterdam UMC)

  2021 -

  2020 - Johan Lievens, Faculty of Law

  2019 - Teun Zuiderent-Jerak, Faculty of Science

  2018 - Beatriz Gimenez Gonzalez, Faculty of Dentistry

  2017 - Lidewij van Gils, Faculty of Humanities

  2016 - Sjirk Zijlstra, Faculty of Science

  2015 - Janneke Oostrom, Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences

• Comenius fellows

  The Comenius programme contributes to the renewal and improvement of higher education in the Netherlands. This directly benefits students and gives education professionals the opportunity to develop further in their careers.  

  Within the programme there are three different grants: the Teaching Fellow, Senior Fellow and Leadership Fellow grant. The fellowships enable education professionals to put their ideas for educational innovation into practice. The scholarship award depends on the experience of the applicant. 

  All recipients of a Comenius Fellowship together form the Comenius Network, which focuses on the exchange and dissemination of knowledge about educational innovation. Below you find the Comenius fellows of the past years. 

  2022 - Anne de la Croix (Senior Fellow), VUmc School of Medical Sciences

  2022 - Amanda Porter (Senior Fellow), School of Business and Economics

  2022 - Oscar van Linden (Teaching Fellow), Faculty of Science

  2022 - Mohammad Rezazade Mehrizi (Teaching Fellow), Faculty of Science

  2021 - Dora Achourioti, Amsterdam University College

  2021 - Sean Telg (Teaching Fellow), School of Business & Economics

  2021 - Nadine Blignaut- van Westrhenen (Teaching Fellow), Faculty of Science

  2021 - Madison Carr (Teaching Fellow), Faculty of Science

  2021 - Denise van Diermen (Teaching Fellow), Faculty of Dentistry

  2020 - Renske Bouwer (Teaching Fellow), Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences

  2020 -  Carlo Ierna (Teaching Fellow), Faculty of Humanities

  2020 - Chris van Klaveren (Leadership Fellow), Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences

  2019 - Natalie Silvis-Cividjian (Teaching Fellow), Faculty of Science

  2019 - Erin la Cour (Teaching Fellow), Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences

  2019 - Hannah Leyerzapf (Teaching Fellow), VUmc School of Medical Sciences

  2019 - Marcelle Reneman (Teaching Fellow), Faculty of Law

  2019 - Jonáh Stunt (Teaching Fellow), VUmc School of Medical Sciences

  2019 - Leonore de Wit (Senior Fellow), Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences

  2018 - Chiel van der Veen (Teaching Fellow), Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences

  2018 - Jacqueline van Muijlwijk-Koezen (Senior Fellow), Faculty of Science

  2018 - Marjolein Zweekhorst (Leadership Fellow), Faculty of Science

  2017 - Anna van Luijn (Teaching Fellow), Faculty of Science

  2017, Maaike Muntinga (Teaching Fellow), VUmc School of Medical Sciences

• SURF projects

  Educational institutions wishing to experiment with open and online education could submit a project application until December 2021 for the Open and Online Education Incentive Scheme coordinated by SURF. This scheme consists of two pillars: 

  • online education - participants are challenged to enrich or redesign education with online forms of education. 
  • Open Educational Resources - participants will be challenged to build up collections of open educational resources with other subject teachers and to use them within the subject community.

  2020 - Marleen de Moor, Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences

  2018 - Hedwig van Rossum, Faculty of Law

  2017 - Kees van Gestel, Faculty of Science

  2017 - Laura Rupp, Faculty of Humanities

  2015 - Ines Lindner, School of Business & Economics 

• KnowVU Awards

  KnowVU - Kennisnetwerk Onderwijs VU - was an independent knowledge network that brings together lecturers (from VU Amsterdam, VUmc and ACTA). It is an initiative of participants in the first edition of the Educational Leadership Course and lecturers who have obtained the Senior Education Qualification (SKO). Each year, KnowVU presented university incentive awards for innovative educational ideas. Below you will find the winners.

  2019 - Carlo Ierna, Faculty of Humanities

  2019 - Danny Scholten en Maikel Wijtmans, Faculty of Science

  2017 - Trynke Hoekstra, Faculty of Science

  2017 - Knoek van Soest, Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences

  2016 - Agnes Willemen, Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences

  2016 - Loek van der Kallen, Faculty of Science

  2015 - Marijke Leijdekkers, Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences

• GrassRoots

  GrassRoots were incentive awards for small-scale IT projects in which teachers worked on improving their own education, in a way that corresponded to their personal ideas and needs. GrassRoots were intended for teachers with no or limited experience in the use of IT in education, and teachers who wanted to gain experience with new IT applications in their teaching. 

  The instructor was assessed on how the use of IT improves the quality of education, how clear that added value is, whether the application is new for the applicant, the concrete development of teaching material and whether it is actually applied, and the benefits for other courses and subjects. Each year, a maximum of five GrassRoots are awarded a thousand euros each. 

  2019 - Renske Bouwer, Faculty of Behavioural and Movement Sciences

  2019 - Jorick Houtkamp en Anneke Vuuregge, Faculty of Science

  2019 - Oscar Carreres Talens, Faculty of Dentistry

• Student Startup Competition - Entrepreneurship

  2022 - ASIF Student Startup Competition: Bamboi (VU + ASIF Best Startup), Madglove (Best Social Entrepreneurship Startup), ReAlliance (Best Sustainability Startup)