From March till June 2023, Higher Education Institutions can apply for funding for international cooperation projects within the Erasmus+ programme. In a new series of articles the experts of Nehem will present Erasmus+ Key Actions and calls that provide various funding opportunities in the field of Higher Education.
What does the Erasmus+ programme look like?
Erasmus+ is the EU programme for education, training, youth and sport. The programme is divided into three different programmes or Key Actions, of which we will highlight the Key Actions that provide the best funding opportunities, starting with Key Action 2:
Key Action 2 Cooperation among organisations and institutions
This key action supports the following actions:
- Partnerships for Cooperation
- Partnerships for Excellence
- Partnerships for Innovation
- Capacity Building.
These actions provide various funding opportunities for higher education institutions that want to strengthen or further develop their education programmes in collaboration with other Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) or professional partners. In this article we will focus on ‘Partnerships for Cooperation’.
About Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnerships
Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnerships are aimed at establishing or strengthening partnerships between European organisations, specifically in the field of education. Setting up and participating in such a partnership is a good opportunity for HEIs that intend to use international collaboration to develop or modernise education programmes or education curricula. Think of the development of new educational modules, training modules for teachers or the strengthening of the link between education and professional practice.
What kind of collaboration is this?
The Erasmus+ programme has two types of Partnerships for Cooperation:
- small-scale partnerships for small projects
- cooperation partnerships for larger projects.
To be eligible for this grant, a collaboration project must meet various conditions. Below we briefly present the main points:
| Small-scale partnerships | Cooperation partnerships | |
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| Eligible costs | The funding contributes to the direct project costs. This may concern, for example:
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| Project duration |
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Funding amounts and application rounds
The amount of funding depends on the type of collaboration and the overall project costs. Funding is done via lump sum financing:
- small-scale partnerships involve lump sum grants of 30,000 and 60,000 euros
- cooperation partnerships involve higher amounts: 120,000; 250,000 and 400,000 euros.
Grant applications can only be submitted within official rounds. The deadlines for the 2023 application rounds are the following:
- 22 March (for both Cooperation Partnerships Higher Education and Small-Scale Partnerships)
- 4 October (only for Small-Scale Partnerships).