Centres for Excellence in Teaching & Learning (CETLs)

The Centres for Excellence in Teaching & Learning (CETL) initiative was first proposed following the 2003 White Paper, 'The Future of Higher Education'.

Funded by the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE), the CETL initiative forms a strand of their enhancement of learning and teaching activity. They have two main aims: to reward excellent teaching practice, and to further invest in that practice so that CETL funding delivers substantial benefits to students, teachers and institutions. In total 74 CETLs were funded at 54 different institutions; 19 are collaborative.

Funding of CETLs will total £315 million over five years from 2005-06 to 2009-10. Each CETL will receive recurrent funding, ranging from £200,000 to £500,000 per annum for five years, and a capital sum ranging from £0.8 million to £2 million. This initiative represents HEFCE's largest ever single funding initiative in teaching and learning.

The Centre for Bioscience has identified 12 CETLs that are of particular relevance within the biosciences:

• Advancing Skills for Professionals in the Rural Economy - Aspire
• Applied Undergraduate Research Skills - CETL AURS
• Bristol ChemLabS
• Centre for Active Learning in Geography, Environment and Related Disciplines - CeAL
• Centre for Effective Learning in Science - CELS
• Centre for Excellence in Leadership and Professional Learning
• Centre for Open Learning in Mathematics, Science, Computing and Technology - COLMSCT
• Experiential Learning in Environmental and Natural Sciences
• Genetics Education Networking for Innovation and Excellence - GENIE
• Inter-disciplinary Ethics Applied - IDEA
• Applied and Integrated Medical Sciences - The Aims Centre
• Centre for Scientific Literacy - Write Now

Additionally, many other CETLs may be of interest to bioscience teaching staff from a general teaching and learning perspective, including those that are concerned with, for example, assessment, work-based learning, employability, enterprise, and HE in FE. Further information about CETLS of general interest.

New: The Centre has recently produced two publications which aim to raise awareness of CETL activities:

The CETL leaflet brings together brief descriptions of those CETLs with a specific bioscience focus. Download the CETL leaflet in pdf format The CETL booklet provides a more comprehensive introduction to both the bioscience related CETLs and CETLs of general interest to bioscience learning and teaching staff. Download the CETL booklet in pdf format If you would like to order paper copies of either publication please contact the Centre on heabioscience@leeds.ac.uk

A full list of the CETLs can be found on the HEFCE web site, along with a booklet that compiles the CETL summaries and lists the collaborating institutions.

Further details of the Higher Education Academy's support for CETLs is available from the Higher Education Academy web site.

You may also be interested in:

Leaflet produced by the Centre for Bioscience with information about e-learning related CETLs

Northern Ireland Centres of Excellence

Brief project outlines of some of the bioscience related CETLs, published in Bioscience Bulletin 15