There are some quite relevant news relating to the European Universities Project. As shown in the pic, among the eligible participating organisations there will be also “any other public/private organisation active in the field of education and training”. According to the first version of the document, there would just be higher education institutions – any other organisation could take part in the programme just as associated partner, as one can read in the third box here below.

Moreover, something has changed also regarding the amount of the maximum costs to be financed by the programme. The ceilings for staff costs, travel costs and individual support have in fact been removed.

As for the Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degrees, whose call has been published some weeks ago, there is a new criterion for the partnerships with Japanese higher institutions. They shall in fact be “master-degree awarding institution(s)”, to be paired with an institution from a Programme Country of the same level.

Eventually, there’s another change in the contribution to subsistence costs. They amount to EUR 1000 per month, but the rule of the three months (no grants for scholarship holders that stay in the hosting institution for more than three months) will not apply anymore for scholarship holders under the partnership between Erasmus Mundus and the Inter-Univeristy Exchange Project (IUEP).

L'articolo E+ Programme Guide 2019: corrigenda proviene da Youth Networks.

This immediately caught the eye of the Joint Association, as it deviates from the previous versions. In fact, such a change of plan implies that the process of managing the grant application for a Capacity Building should have been anticipated too; but, as it is the case of most of the associations and actors that usually take part in these Key Actions, the process is often long and therefore should have required a different kind of timing.    

The only other major change relates to the distribution of the points in the evaluation table. While in 2018 the Relevance of the project accounted for 20 points, in 2019 it is 30 points worthy. On the other side, in 2018 the Quality of Project Team and Cooperation arrangements accounted for 30 points while in 2019 it is only 20 points worthy (see page 183 of the 2019 Guide). As for the rest, the points given for the Quality of the project design and implementation stayed the same (for a maximum of 30), as well as the points for the Impact and dissemination of the project (for a maximum of 20).

Moreover, it results from the 2019 annual work programme for Education, Training, Youth and Sport that the total budget has been distributed slightly differently: 9 billion (one less than in 2018) for the Capacity Buildings in the field of youth, but over 117 million for the one in the field of higher education – two more than the previous year, when the amount accounted for nearly 115 million. Eligibility and award criteria stayed the same, even though an additional award criterion has been added: the feasibility of the project in the targeted regions (see pages 56 – 58 of the programme). In fact, European delegations will assess the feasibility of the projects together with the evaluation committee, taking into account the local context where it shall take place, the geographical representation of the countries taking part to the program and the proportion of the number of projects per country.

Sharing updates like the one mentioned above perfectly falls within the purpose of Youthnetworks: spreading news and, at the same time, keeping a network of the organizations operating in the field of international programs, may be the key to a wider concept of cooperation. So if you get to know about similar news please share them with us!

L'articolo Capacity Building, deadline anticipated to the 24th of January proviene da Youth Networks.