The Education and Innovation Fund has helped staff and students at Sussex try out fresh ideas in teaching and learning. From AI tools and climate education to student teamwork and sustainability, the projects have made a real difference—leading to new resources, publications, and presentations. 

Launched on 21 October 2022 the Education and Innovation Award fund has now awarded £127,918 in funding for 31 transformative projects. 

This university initiative was designed as a three year fund for projects that explore new ideas in teaching and learning at Sussex. Funded projects were evaluated with the possibility of shaping future investment at Sussex 

Some of the outcomes from the projects include 

Luis Ponce Cuspinera and Iacopo Vivarelli  Evaluation of an AI-assisted marking and feedback tool 

Module conveners were asked to re-mark at least one question using Graide to assess feedback quality and quantity, staff satisfaction, grading speed, and the overall impact of AI. They expressed a strong interest in continuing to use Graide, highlighting its value and impact. Additionally, analysis showed that in many cases, over 50% of grading tasks were completed with “AI full assistance,” demonstrating the tool’s capability to autonomously deliver effective feedback. 

Emily Danvers  How Students Learn at Home 

Together with Abigail Wells, Emily published an open access article about her project, where they explain the concept of homeification as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Paul Gilbert  Student Researchers in the BLDS Legacy Collection: Tricontinental, Mujeres, and the Worlds they Invite us to Imagine 

Paul published the results of his winning project as Teaching with Tricontinental: A sourcebook for students working with radical periodicals, which is the outcome of a set of collaborative staff-student workshops at the University of Sussex that sought to engage students in working with radical periodicals as primary sources. 

Anke Schwittay  Making Critical Hope Practical: Connecting Students, Solutions and the Curriculum 

Anke’s winning project has generated one blog post for the School of Global Studies and one video titled Critical Hope in International Development Studies at Sussex University.  She also presented at the 2024 Sussex Education Festival 

Verona Ni Drisceoil  Walk with me: Understanding, and Navigating, Community, Belonging and Inclusion in Higher Education 

Verona has recently published on community and belonging as part of the wider work she has been doing as part of her winning project.   She also presented her findings at the 2025 Sussex Education Festival. 

Steven Follen  ‘Making it real’ – embedding sustainability and making into the curriculum 

Steve’s winning project was featured in another prize winners work – Jeremy Sheldon’s Sussex Innovative Teaching film, For a Better World, which was shown at the 2024 Sussex Education Awards.  The film is now being used as part of the package of materials for new academic hires across the university.  Steve’s work was also featured in Created by US, The Occasional Sussex Product Design Newsletter, and he presented at the 2024 Sussex Education Festival 

Susan Robbins  Develop Your English: with the UN Sustainable Development Goals 

Susan has had a great deal of success with her winning project, part of which was to fund activities associated with the writing and publication of an e-textbook  Develop Your English: with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals , an e-textbook for upper intermediate/advanced level English language learners. Further details of her work around the project can be found in this document. 

Olivia Taylor  The Sussex Climate Classroom: A Toolkit for effective and empowering climate education 

Together with Melissa Lazenby Olivia published a book chapter based on some of the outcomes & lessons learned from her EIF prize – Routledge Handbook on Climate Crisis Communication | Alison Anderson,  Olivia and Melissa also presented at the 2024 Sussex Education Festival. 

Xuan Huy Nguyen  Developing entrepreneurial teams among students across disciplines as a strategy to promote inclusivity, belonging and enhanced curricula 

The findings from Xuan’s winning project have generated two outputs, which were presented in the form of conference presentations – A Cross-disciplinary Approach To Marketing Education at King’s College, London in 2025, and at the Sussex Education Festival, also in 2025 

Other prize winners also presented their project outcomes at the Sussex Education Festival, including: 

Carli Rowell (Sussex Education Festival 2024), Adhip Rawal (Sussex Education Festival 2025), Alexander Stuart (Sussex Education Festival 2025), and Kathryn Lester (Sussex Education Festival 2025)

The awards were split into six rounds of funding, and the winning projects were as follows; 

2023/24 

First round winners January 2023 

Second round winners May 2023 

Third round winners September 2023 

2024/25 

First round winners December 2023 

Second round winners May 2024 

Third round winners October 2024 

The impact of the fund continues to be felt across the University – more engaged students, inspired educators, and new ways of thinking across subjects. It’s helping Sussex stay ahead in creating a more inclusive, creative, and student-focused learning environment.