The Leadership and Institutionalisation of Teaching Excellence (LITE) project is an Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnership in higher education running from 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2027. It is led by Charles University (Czechia) and brings together the University of Copenhagen (Denmark), the University of Bologna (Italy), and the Global Governance Institute (Belgium). LITE was designed in response to a persistent challenge across the European Higher Education Area: while universities are under growing pressure to improve and reward teaching, leadership approaches, support structures, and institutional practices remain uneven and often disconnected. In particular, the project starts from the observation that two elements are essential for advancing teaching excellence, but are rarely addressed together in a systematic way: strategic leadership and the effective development of Centres for Teaching and Learning (CTLs). LITE therefore aims to equip university leaders, academic managers, teaching staff, and administrators with the tools, competences, and frameworks needed to institutionalise and reward teaching excellence more effectively across Europe.
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At the core of the project is a strong evidence-based approach. LITE begins with a large-scale European mapping of leadership and teaching excellence practices, combining desk research, a large survey, focus group interviews, and a self-assessment tool to identify how universities support, reward, and institutionalise excellent and innovative teaching. This work looks in particular at the relationship between leadership practices and institutional support structures such as CTLs, while also drawing on selected examples beyond the EU. The purpose of this mapping is not only analytical. It provides the evidence base for the project’s practical outputs, helping the partners identify best practices, gaps, and transferable lessons for universities working in very different national and institutional settings.
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Building on this, LITE develops a set of practical resources and training offers for universities. The project will produce a comprehensive Mapping and Best Practice Report, four tailored training curricula, and four blended leadership training programmes focused on leadership for teaching excellence, the creation and development of CTLs, the impact of CTLs, and the strategic institutionalisation of support for innovative and excellent teaching. Alongside these, LITE will develop a blended learning environment and online portal, a peer mentoring scheme for leaders, a CTL institutionalisation guide, a Start-up Kit, a Self-Assessment Tool, and a series of policy briefs. Through these outputs, the project is intended not only to support universities that already have established teaching and learning structures, but also to help institutions that are still building them from the ground up.
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A key ambition of LITE is to ensure that its results lead to lasting institutional and policy change. To support this, the project includes a strong dissemination and sustainability dimension, including a storytelling campaign, targeted outreach to university leaders and policymakers, a final stakeholder conference, and the creation of ENLITE, the European Network for Leadership and Institutionalisation of Teaching Excellence. Hosted by GGI in Brussels, ENLITE is intended to serve as a long-term hub for policy dialogue, training, knowledge exchange, and future cooperation beyond the formal life of the project. In this way, LITE aims not only to generate tools and training materials, but to contribute to a more connected European conversation on how universities can strengthen leadership, embed support structures, and give teaching excellence a more durable institutional place.