Inside the Decade-Long Teaching Grant Experiment Reshaping a Major University

When King Saud University launched its Program for Excellence in Learning and Teaching (PELT) in 2011, few could have predicted how dramatically the initiative would evolve over the next decade. A new longitudinal evaluation published in Frontiers in Education has now traced the program’s full arc across eight funding cycles, revealing a teaching-grant scheme that matured from a high-volume inaugural phase into a selective, quality-focused model while maintaining remarkable completion rates and broad disciplinary reach. The findings offer one of the most detailed accounts to date of how a university-wide faculty development grant program adapts, pivots, and realigns itself with emerging educational priorities.

The research team, led by Saud Alkathiri and Ahmad Abdul-Wahhab Shahba from King Saud University’s Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching, analyzed 157 completed grants drawn from 477 total submissions received over eight cycles. Their multi-source evaluation combined longitudinal grant-database records with faculty surveys (108 respondents) and student surveys (413 respondents), alongside a descriptive benchmarking exercise against 11 internationally visible universities including Harvard, Stanford, Cambridge, Princeton, and Toronto. The study was approved by the university’s Standing Committee for Scientific Research Ethics and conducted using Python-based statistical analysis with non-parametric Mann–Whitney U-tests for comparative faculty ratings.

One of the most striking patterns the evaluation uncovered was the program’s strategic shift in selectivity. The inaugural cycle attracted 112 submissions and accepted 63 percent of them, awarding 71 grants in a single year. By contrast, acceptance rates dropped sharply to 25 percent in Cycle 2 and then stabilized between 23 and 28 percent through Cycle 7, before rising again to 37 percent in Cycle 8. Annual grant counts fell from that initial high of 71 to a more selective 6–11 grants per year in recent cycles. This trajectory mirrors a similar pattern observed at Harvard, suggesting common underlying factors such as quality-focused investment, resource consolidation, and natural faculty capacity limits following initial demand surges.

Despite the tightening of acceptance rates, the program maintained an exceptional 95.7 percent completion rate across all 157 funded projects. The researchers interpret this figure as evidence that the multi-stage review process effectively selects viable, well-conceived initiatives and that grantees receive adequate support to carry their projects through to fruition. PELT’s review structure provides guidance at conception, mid-implementation checkpoints, and final evaluation, facilitating early identification of implementation risks. This structured oversight, the authors argue, reflects a mature and rigorous program management approach that distinguishes prospective teaching grants from retrospective recognition awards.

Disciplinary participation remained remarkably balanced throughout the program’s history. Completed grants showed near parity among three core clusters: Humanities (34.4 percent), Science (30.6 percent), and Health (28.0 percent), with a smaller 7 percent originating from administrative and niche entities such as the Common First Year Deanship and the Deanship of E-Learning. College-level analysis revealed three tiers of engagement, with the College of Education leading at 26 grants across multiple cycles, followed by Arts (16), Engineering (14), and Applied Medical Sciences (13). Even colleges with limited participation demonstrated the program’s distributed reach across the university’s diverse academic landscape.

Thematic analysis of the 157 completed grants revealed three persistent pillars: Teaching and Assessment Strategies dominated at 51 percent, Curriculum and Course Content Development accounted for 30 percent, and Student Professional Development represented 16 percent, with 3 percent addressing niche needs. However, the program demonstrated notable strategic agility across cycles. Cycle 4 pivoted toward job-market skills, Cycle 5 emphasized e-learning and reusable electronic resources, and Cycle 6 focused exclusively on self-learning with learning resources and self-assessment tests, resulting in 100 percent allocation to curriculum development. Cycles 7 and 8 reverted to comprehensive innovation, incorporating generative AI, student partnership in learning, universal design for learning, and digital education.

The student survey provided compelling contextual evidence that aligns closely with PELT’s thematic evolution. Among 413 respondents, 71.9 percent prioritized professional skills development for job-market readiness, 52 percent favored problem-based learning, and 57 percent preferred project-based assessment over traditional written exams. Communication skills emerged as the paramount professional competency at 75.8 percent, followed by problem-solving (67.1 percent) and technical competencies (58 percent). The researchers note that these preferences correspond directly with the strategic focus of Cycle 4 and the current Cycle 9’s emphasis on professional certification integration, demonstrating potential alignment between institutional initiatives and learner needs.

The faculty survey revealed critical participation dynamics that the program must address going forward. Among 66 non-applicants, awareness gaps emerged as the primary barrier, with 54.5 percent reporting they were unaware of grant announcements and 45.5 percent lacking application guidance. Workload constraints affected 33.3 percent of non-applicants, while 25.8 percent cited insufficient financial support. A statistically significant perceptual divide between accepted and rejected applicants emerged on application clarity and ease (p ≤ 0.001), with large effect sizes (rank-biserial r = 0.72 for ease and 0.67 for clarity). The researchers caution that the small rejected-applicant subgroup (n = 11) limits the stability of these estimates, but suggest that outcome bias may color retrospective evaluations of the application process itself.

Successful grantees reported uniformly high satisfaction, with means ranging from 4.1 to 4.5 across all evaluated dimensions on a five-point scale. Overall satisfaction reached 4.5, and perceived impact on teaching practices scored 4.5 as well. Among rejected applicants, 45.5 percent had no intention to reapply, while those willing to resubmit planned improvements in innovation clarity, budget justifications, methodology, and alignment with strategic objectives. The authors propose formalized resubmission pathways and actionable feedback mechanisms to convert initial rejection into constructive learning steps rather than terminal outcomes.

The international benchmarking positioned PELT in alignment with corresponding teaching-grant schemes at leading universities. Annual grant allocations across benchmarked institutions ranged from 5 to 10 grants (Cambridge’s former TLIF) to peaks of 91 grants (University of Michigan), with PELT’s current 6–11 annual grants falling within the lower-to-moderate volume range. PELT’s 25,000 SAR funding cap aligns with 27 percent of peer institutions, though 64 percent employ tiered models extending above that threshold. The authors recommend tiered funding, targeted outreach, and expansion into service-learning grants—already initiated through a dedicated CELT program—as strategies to advance pedagogical innovation. They also suggest developing a PELT Ambassador network in each college and streamlined exemplar-based application guides to demystify the process for newcomers, positioning programs like PELT as a promising template for the design and evolution of university teaching-grant schemes worldwide.

Subject of Research: Education

Article Title: A longitudinal evaluation of a university-wide faculty development grant program: pedagogical innovation, student priorities, and programmatic evolution

Article References: Alkathiri, S., Shahba, A. A.-W., Alsadoon, E., Alharbi, A. A., Alrusaiyes, R., Ain, G., & Alnowibet, K. (2026). A longitudinal evaluation of a university-wide faculty development grant program: pedagogical innovation, student priorities, and programmatic evolution. Frontiers in Education, 11, Article 1862014. https://doi.org/10.3389/feduc.2026.1862014

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/feduc.2026.1862014

Keywords: faculty development, pedagogical innovation, higher education, teaching grants, King Saud University, PELT, student priorities, longitudinal evaluation, longitudinal, evaluation, university-wide, faculty