SURF Onderwijsdagen 2026

How do you move from isolated innovative ideas to a systematic transformation of your educational organization? How do you stimulate and support innovation, and ensure ideas are effectively integrated into the organization?
This workshop provides insight into how Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), through its BOOST! program for digital innovation in education, gave innovative ideas a push and activated the organization. Building on lessons learned, TU/e developed the follow-up program DRIVE to systematically pave the way for innovation and transform into an organization where educational innovation is no longer incidental, but an embedded process.
You will learn how to approach the scaling of innovations and the support structures required, and the strength of a programmatic high-alignment, high-autonomy approach to provide clear direction while enabling the organization to leverage its innovative capacity efficiently and effectively.

We highlight briefly key lessons from TU/e’s approach on how to stimulate, support, and scale innovation. You will learn to apply an adapted version of the “5 E’s model,” (Macharis & Kerret, 2019), providing a structured way to map stages of organizational innovation:

1. Estimate: Where does your organization currently stand? Is there a clear vision, defined policy, and supporting frameworks?
2. Engage: How do you involve the organization and stakeholders? How is policy translated into practice?
3. Educate: How is knowledge shared? What mechanisms are in place, and how effective are they?
4. Enable: How are innovation and transformation facilitated and supported?
5. Encourage: What incentives are provided? How is innovation recognized and rewarded?
   Equipped with this framework, you will briefly map the situation at your own organization, and then compare and discuss your insights in small groups with peers from other institutions. This helps you navigate the complexity of educational innovation, gain practical insights, and reflect on both your own context and that of others. The session concludes with a plenary discussion, in which key takeaways are shared and collectively synthesized into a clearer understanding of what is required to achieve systematic, organization-wide educational innovation.

Take-aways
1) A practical framework for analyzing and designing systematic educational innovation.
2) Insight into effectively supporting, stimulating, and scaling educational innovation.
3) An initial reflection on your organization’s readiness for educational innovation.

Macharis, C., & Kerret, D. (2019). The 5E model of environmental engagement: bringing sustainability change to higher education through positive psychology. Sustainability, 11(1), 241.