The 2025 Week of Education kicked off in celebratory style with the announcement of this year’s Brinksma Innovation Grant (BIG) winner. The team behind the project ReflectBuddy: Enhancing Skills Development through AI-Supported Feedback — Leonie Krab-Hüsken, Jéré van Lente, Linlin Pei, and Arnoud Onnink from the Chemical Science & Engineering programme in the Faculty of Science and Technology (TNW) — took home the top prize. The award was handed out during Monday morning’s opening ceremony, which featured an address by CES director Lieke Schreel. She reflected on this year’s theme, “Heartbeat of Education,” emphasizing the importance of community and innovation in teaching.
ReflectBuddy: The Winning Project
The ReflectBuddy project aims to streamline and strengthen the feedback process in education through AI-supported tools, enabling more timely and personalized skill development for students. When asked what the team plans to tackle first, Leonie Krab-Hüsken responded, “Speeding up the feedback process.”
Watch the video below to learn more about ReflectBuddy:
Other Finalists
The jury praised the high quality of all submissions this year, with strong entries from two other finalist teams:
Florian Ellsäßer (ITC Faculty) with TulipAssess: Scalable Conversational AI for Equitable Formative Assessments in Large Cohort Courses
Carissa Champlin & Johannes Flacke (ITC Faculty) with Developing Futures Literacy in Tomorrow’s Engineers
About the Brinksma Innovation Grant
The Brinksma Innovation Grant, named after former Rector Magnificus Ed Brinksma and established in 2017, recognizes educational innovation at the University of Twente. This year, three finalist projects were selected from a pool of competitive submissions. Winners receive a distinctive pig-shaped statue (a nod to the Dutch word "big") along with financial support and a €2500 voucher to support travel or project-related expenses.
As part of this year’s ceremony, a video was shown featuring Tracy Craig, last year’s BIG recipient, reflecting on her project and the impact the grant has had on her work and educational development.
Kickstarting the Week of Education
The BIG award ceremony marks the official start of the Week of Education, a university-wide celebration organized by the Centre of Expertise in Learning & Teaching (CELT) within CES. Throughout the week, educators and students alike will take part in sessions, workshops, and events aimed at spotlighting educational growth and community.
