Strategic Scholarship Programme: Representation Matters 

About Representation Matters 

In the Manchester 2035 Strategy, as part of the leap to develop flexible, personalised and digitally-enabled learning, we commit to tackling differential attainment through inclusive curriculum and assessment design and provide earlier, data-informed support. 

Representation Matters is an internal project funded by the University’s Teaching and Learning Strategy Fund, which responds to that strategic aim by addressing disparities in awarding and retention for disabled and racially marginalised students (APP priorities 4 and 6).  The first phase of the project involved work with students and staff to co-create an academic development resource to promote and support inclusive and representative assessment practices. An initial draft of the resource is being “road tested” in a small scale pilot this semester (and you can find it here), but now we seek a cohort of 30 early adopters to trial the resource in your own area as part of your own scholarship. 

What does this opportunity involve? 

Taking place over 20 months, from November 2026 to June 2028, participants will be given a series of training sessions, introducing the resource, the project and the wider strategic context it aims to address, and guiding you to develop a scholarship project in your area which will involve early adoption of the resource to address strategic challenges around inclusive practice as they present themselves in your context. 

We anticipate involvement in this project will take roughly a couple of hours a week (though understandably time commitments will differ over the duration of the project), with support in developing your scholarship project through an “action research” lens so that it is embedded within your teaching and learning practice (whatever your context), rather than adding additional workload.  

We cannot offer any buy out for your time, however we can offer up to £300 per project to cover the costs of scholarship activities (e.g. refreshments for focus groups, high street vouchers for participants) and further funds for project dissemination costs may be available (although not guaranteed). 

Timeline:

UoM Strategic Scholarship Innovation Programme:  Embedding Research Engaged Learning early in the curriculum  

About the ‘Embedding Research Engaged Learning in the curriculum’ strand 

In the Manchester 2035 Strategy, there is a commitment to developing partner enabled learning. Embedding Research engaged learning in the core curriculum is one approach to building student autonomy, competence and relatedness (Walkington and Ommering, 2022). Such capabilities are the groundwork for developing partner enabled learning at scale.  

This internal project, funded by the University’s Teaching and Learning Strategy Fund, responds to the strategic aim for Partner enabled learning by ensuring that students are supported to engage with their learning in research mode early in their degree programmes. Developing and integrating research into the taught curriculum early can provide access to a wider group of students than in optional modules and can be an important step in preparing students for working with partners. Several evidence-based strategies provide the starting point for a focus on scholarship in the area of embedding research-based learning early in the curriculum (Mieg et al (eds) 2022), these include:  

• ‘Meet the researcher’ sessions (Fung, 2017) 

• Teaching research methods by doing research 

• Authentic research experiences (pro bono, consultancy, live projects e.g. liveprojectsnetwork.org) (Anderson 2019 a,b) 

• Authentic audiences for student research (public web pages, in class conferences, designing in opportunities for students to communicate their research beyond the university) (Barker and Gibson, in Mieg et al, 2022; Kneale et al 2016; Walkington et al 2016)  

This academic year colleagues are invited to join a small cohort of approximately 10 T&S colleagues, to plan, implement and evaluate one of these internationally recognised strategies for integrating research into the taught curriculum in a supported way as part of their own scholarship. 

What does this opportunity involve? 

Taking place over 9 months, from November 2026 to July 2027, participants will benefit from meeting as a small and supportive cohort, have one to one coaching / mentoring from an external expert in Research based learning, and have access to a series of training sessions, guiding the development of a scholarship project in your own programme context.  

We anticipate involvement in this project will take roughly a couple of hours a week (though understandably time commitments will differ over the duration of the project), with support in developing your scholarship project (whatever your context), rather than adding additional workload.  

We cannot offer any buy out for your time, however we can offer up to £300 per project to cover the costs of scholarship activities (e.g. refreshments for focus groups, high street vouchers for participants) and further funds for project dissemination costs may be available (although not guaranteed). 

Timeline: 

• November/December 2026: Introduction to Research based learning and the opportunities for curriculum embedding 

• November 2026 – February 2027: 4 dedicated 1-2hr workshops (online) 

• Developing your scholarship question and methods 

• Developing your evaluation strategy 

• Applying for ethics 

• Considering your dissemination strategy 

• February/ Semester 2 – implement your intervention 

• March – May 2027: Supported period to develop your project (peer to peer and one to one external coaching/mentoring support) 

• June 2027: Cohort gathering to share findings and reflections 

• July 2027: Dissemination at the UoM L and T conference