Affordances of funding for enhancing scholarship of teaching and learning: gifts for growth?

Funding has become an established means of promoting the professionalisation of teaching and learning. Various funding schemes in Higher Education have incentivised innovation and research aimed at developing a scholarship of teaching. However, a causal relationship is impossible to prove and the underlying subjective processes of scholarly development are contested. It has been suggested that funding might become another instrument to achieve a neoliberal agenda of increased performativity. This paper explores the affordances generated at a particular institution in South Africa from the perspective of recipients of relatively small awards. Qualitative data were generated in face-to-face individual interviews and analysed thematically. Insight generated included how funding acted as a catalyst for further scholarly development of individuals, disciplines and project teams. A culture of flexibility, nurture and care-full operational management were considered enablers. Using 'slow scholarship' as a lens allowed understandings of developmental pathways and multiple contextual influences on scholarly trajectories.