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Innovation Initiatives

VPTL’s innovation initiatives are designed to:

  • promote teaching and learning innovation

  • make Stanford research and scholarship more broadly accessible beyond campus

  • support all schools in their efforts to develop and extend their programs


Recognizing that modern technology opens new horizons and provides new ways of engaging students in individual study and collective inquiry, VPTL supports individual faculty innovation as well as department and school efforts to develop new and expanded programs that advance teaching and learning in Stanford’s classrooms—whether a course is being taught for the first time, or into its second decade. These range from active learning in innovative learning spaces to networked virtual classrooms bringing world cultures to campus to expanded distance opportunities for alumni and professionals.

Celebrating Stanford’s preeminent and wide-ranging research enterprise, VPTL also provides expertise and assistance in developing teaching and learning modules that convey research advances and provide broader impact for individual researchers, multi-university teams, and interdisciplinary research centers.

Along with this broader impact support for Stanford research, VPTL supports emerging research in the data science of teaching and learning in two ways: by fostering a research community of practice, and by providing data-oriented research services. 

For more information, please read about Digital Learning, Faculty College, the Course Design Institute, and our Grant program.