Since the beginning of the ‘Erasmus+’: the Union Programme for Education, Training, Youth and Sport many things changed, but not the growing tendency of the funds for the actions under this programme! In 2014 the amount of the fund was almost 1.8 billion euro, when for this year the founds reached almost 3.4 billion euro!

The programme aims to provide over 4 million Europeans with the opportunity to gain competences and have a personal, socio-educational and professional development through studies, training, work experiences or volunteering abroad. Furthermore, the programme also fosters quality improvements, innovation, excellence and internationalisation of organisations active in education and training, youth and sport, and promotes initiatives that support policy reforms at all levels.

In the fields of education, training and youth, the Erasmus+ Programme supports three types of Key Actions:

Key Action 1: Learning mobility of individuals;

Key Action 2: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices;

Key Action 3: Support for policy reform.

As you can compare with the Annual Work Programme of “Erasmus+”: the Union Programme for Education, Training, Youth and Sport for the year 2019, these main 3 Key Actions remain the same as last year.

In addition to these three Key Actions, specific activities are also covered by Erasmus+, namely activities related to European integration through Jean Monnet and activities in the field of sport.

Through its different actions, the programme aims to reach a positive and sustainable impact on education, training, youth and sport policies and practices.

Check out the article to learn more about the opportunities supported by Erasmus +: New Erasmus+ Programme Guide!

And enjoy the possibilities we are given!

L'articolo Where the European money will go in 2020? proviene da Youth Networks.

During his state of the Union address in 2018, Commission’s president Jean-Claude Juncker launched the new Africa-Europe Alliance for Sustainable Investment and Jobs. It stated the necessity to “build a true partnership among equals and deepen the EU’s economic and trade relationship with Africa, through strategic investment and job creation”. The goal within the end of the seven-year period 2014-20 is to reach 35.000 mobilities.

Which programmes?

Mobilities for teachers and learners are the most popular initiatives. Students, researchers and staff traveled through short-term Erasmus+ University exchanges between Africa and Europe.

There have been also many projects under capacity buildings in the field of youth. Between 2014 and 2018, 206 projects in Africa have been approved, covering 39 African countries from Benin to Zimbabwe. 8.500 young people and youth workers from European and African countries are involved. Projects cover topics from human rights to inter-cultural dialogue, migration, rural entrepreneurship, digital empowerment and innovative learning platforms.

Capacity Buildings in Higher Education are very important instruments too. Since 2015, 146 projects have focused on Africa. The 35 projects involving African institutions selected in 2019 are helping to foster innovative learning and new methodologies, supporting entrepreneurship, laboratories of Innovation and Business for Young
Actors of Start-ups, new study programmes on climate change.

Almost 1.200 have also benefited from Erasmus Mundus Joint Master Degrees scholarships, in order to spend a period of studies abroad in the above mentioned countries.

A new project for mobility in vocational education and training (VET) has been launched, covering a three-year period. it is a pilot project, the selection of the institutions is still ongoing. It aims to develop technical skills and revitalise vocational education.

This pilot project will offer an Erasmus-type cooperation between VET providers in the EU Member States and all regions of Africa, combining capacity building and learner and staff exchange programmes in the priority fields of engineering, manufacturing and construction, agriculture and tourism/catering.

The magnitude

“Empowering young people in Africa is key in building a better future. This means promoting education, and this year, we have focused in particular on boosting cooperation with businesses to ensure that young people in Africa acquire all the skills they need for their professional life” said Tibor Navracsics, Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport.

“Our Africa-Europe Alliance is first and foremost about people. We want to invest in quality education in Africa. We want to strengthen the connections between European and African students and higher education institutions. Giving them the chance to exchange know-how and inspire one another will boost inclusive socio-economic growth, and reduce poverty and inequality. On top of this, it will equip African students with the skills they need to find decent jobs” also commented Neven Mimica, Commissioner for International Cooperation and Development.

L'articolo Africa-EU alliance boosted with over 17 million proviene da Youth Networks.

It will be co-hosted by the Sustainable Ocean Alliace and the university of Tromsø, with the partecipation of the Norwegian ministry of Foreign Affairs. The theme for 2019 is “Co-creating the Sustainable Blue Economy”

The summit is taking place in the framework of the “Our Ocean” Conference. The mission of the conference is to gather together all the most important stakeholders at global level involved in one of the most challenging issues of nowadays: preserving the ocean. There will be representatives of governments, industry, science and civil society, discussing and working together to find a balance between the market’s demands and the safety of the environment. The “Our Ocean” conferences were initiated by Secretary of State John Kerry in 2014, with the aim to put oceans on the foreign policy agenda and create a platform where leaders from government, business and civil society meet on an equal footing to promote action and innovation for clean, healthy and productive oceans.

The Sustainable Ocean Alliance, based in San Francisco, aims at preserving the ocean with a collective worldwide action, spreading beyond national borders. Following the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal Number 14, SOA implemented two programmes: Ocean leadership programme and Ocean solutions accelerator. The Ocean leadership programme foresees a joint action between young people from all over the world: they apply to become Ocean leaders and then they can ideate, implement and create campaigns and advocacy campaigns, through so-called Ocean solutions Hubs.

Three main topics for this fourth “Our Ocean Youth Leadership Summit”: inspire, inform, empower. The participants will get the chance to build holistic solutions that better balance the needs of society, industry and the ocean environment. The participants will get the chance to:

• Participate in a solution-driven bootcamp to apply knowledge and technology that can help us protect our oceans
• Raise your profile and network with 500+ policymakers, corporate leaders, heads of international organizations, foundations, and NGOs
• Receive mentorship and develop your professional skill sets by learning from business, government, and science experts
• Meet with entrepreneurs who are building scalable ocean startups to help protect and sustain our ocean
• Become an #SOAOceanLeader and join our global community represented in over 130 countries.

Applications must be sent before July 5, 2019 11:59pm PST at the following link.

L'articolo Call for participants: Our Ocean youth leadership summit proviene da Youth Networks.

The resources will be distributed as follows: 80 million for the Horizon 2020 programme, in order to foster the climate research and contributing towards tackling the climate issue that threatens the whole world. As the press release says, this amount is set to comply with the ambitious target of devoting 35% of Horizon 2020’s budget to climate-related research.

The remaining 20 million will be allocated to the Erasmus+ Programme, mainly for the European Universities. This pilot programme foresees the creation of a network of 12 universities whitin which the students can move, having their studies recognized and adding an European valude to their degrees. This falls under the European Education Area view to be reached by 2025.

The proposal is still to be discussed by the EU parliament and Council.

L'articolo Erasmus+, the Commission proposes additional budget for European Universities proviene da Youth Networks.

Should Russia evetually leave the CoE, in fact, this last one could be discontinued after 2020. The alternative would be a partial agreement on voluntary basis according to the will of the member states (with extra funding needed). The formal committee will meet on 23 May, after some informal consultations. In the meantime, the affected stakeholders did not stay quiet.

The reactions

The European Youth Forum, together with representatives from the major Political Party Youth Organisations active in Europe and beyond, released a public statement denouncing the cut:

The news is spreading across Europe and the Youth organisations are already clustering to prevent the cuts that are going to affect the Youth sector. The Youth department of the Council of Europe, that works closely to the European Commission in many co-operation projects, is as much pivotal as the European Union for the education of the new generations of Europeans. The fact that political matters, as the ones behind the decision from Russia and Turkey are, can affect the core of European values, is what is being contested.

The Youth department of the CoE

The international organisation of the Council of Europe was founded in 1949 by 47 countries. It aims at fostering human rights, democracy and the rule of law. Since 1972, the works within the Youth Department are managend in co-operation with the Advisory Council. This is made up of 30 representatives from youth NGOs and networks who provide opinions and input on all youth sector activities, together with setting the priorities and suggestions.

It also ensures that young people are involved in other activities of the Council of Europe. Here, representatives of the governements of the member states work closely with young people, who are then in the position of being able to influence important decisions on the functioning of the Youth Department. That is why it is so important to push for a better understanding of the issue: the more we know, the more we can make an impact.

L'articolo The youth department of Council of Europe is in danger due to financial cuts proviene da Youth Networks.

Young entrepreneurs have the chance to be hosted by small and medium enterprises all over the European Union, with no extra costs – the programme is co-funded by the European Commission through its COSME (Competitiveness of SMEs) programme. It’s the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs Programme, that turns 10 this year.

The programme was created in 2009 and it allows young entrepreneurs to get a cross-border field training, enabling them to spend a period of time at another European small or medium enterprise. The call currently running covers the period 2016-2021 and, in this period alone, over 250 new companies and more than 2,000 jobs were created thanks to the EYE experience. As it’s stated in the call, “Small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) play a crucial role in reaching the objectives of the Europe 2020 Strategy” (here further infrmation about this last initiative).

EYE is a combination of fostering the entrepreneurial activities in the EU and, at the same time, their internationalisation, to exploit every aspect of the Single Market – one of the pillar ot the European Union. SMEs make up for “99% of businesses in Europe and contribute to 60% of European private sector employment, creating 85% of new jobs”, as reported on Forbes. Developing the skills of the young entrepreneurs is then fundamental to improve European economic performance as well, not last in terms of employability.

How to do so?

It works trhough a call for proposal. The main characters are the new and young entrepreneur, the hosting enterprise and intermediary organisations (IOs), that are selected to manage the programme local level.

What’s the role of such organisations? The call specifies nine main tasks:

• Promotion of the programme;
  
• Enrolment of entrepreneurs;
• Assessing applications from NEs (new entepreneurs) and HEs (hosting entepreneurs);
• Building relationships;
• Management of grants, commitments and financial support to new entrepreneurs;
• Preparation of the exchange;
• Follow up of the exchange;
• Active networking;
• Reporting.
  

Further details are available in the Erasmus for Young Entrepreneurs Implementation Manual for Intermediary Organisations (Quality Manual).

How much is the budget?

The total budget for the whole programme amounts to 80 million for the years 2016-2020. However, the allocation for each single year depends on the annual budget adopted for that year.

As stated in the call, during the first SGAs (specific agreements) arranged from 1 February 2017 to 31 January 2019, “Financial assistance to new entrepreneurs participating in a mobility action shall take the form of a scale of unit cost of maximum EUR 6.600 per entrepreneur. The maximum grant amount per Specific Agreement resulting from the first consultation for SGAs will be EUR 800.000“.

Speaking of which…

If you’re interested in youth entrepreneuership, have a look at some of the project results available here on the dedicated page.

L'articolo Erasmus for young entrepreneurs 2009-2019: ten years of innovation proviene da Youth Networks.

The proposal of European Commission

Last week MEPs voted for a set of contingency measures meant to safeguard the teachers, students and any other E+ participant currently abroad. Those were set out in the proposal that the European Commission put forward on 30 January 2019, available here.

Such proposal was issued by EU Parliament and EU Council, in order to prevent the risk that, due to the Brexit:

The current EU-27 and UK Erasmus+ participants would have to interrupt their learning mobility activities. Many students would lose their academic credits and could be obliged to repeat their academic semester or year. This would be a very disruptive impact for students themselves as well as for their sending and hosting institutions.

What will be the fate of the Erasmus+ Programme beneficiaries now?

With the time running up, the final vote of the EU Council secured the ongoing mobilities – and the ones due to start within 30 March, the “date of withdrawal”. Students, learners and people involved in any kind of E+ funded activity will continue to get European funds without any other prejudice. A big relief, considering the uncertainity of the situation.

This applies to beneficiaries of funding awarded before the date of withdrawal. And after that? Many British young people are seriously worried, and not without reason. In case of a no-deal Brexit, infact, the beneficiaries that have not started their mobility yet are still outstanding. As the Guardian reported, they can’t be sure about whether or not they will be able to count non only on scholarships (if Erasmus+ students or learners) or other types of financial support (for volunteering), but also on health insurance – the truth is that, as for now, UK citizens can’t even be sure if their driving licences will still be valid in EU-27, after Brexit.

What if a a deal will not be reached?

Actually, the funding for mobilities starting within 30 March were already provided for in the general EU budget. The issue at stake is rather that the Brexit will happen while the seven-year-period 2014/2020 of Erasmus+ Programme is still ongoing: the challenge, in a no-deal scenario, is to secure the mobilities until 2020.

The base of the proposal is the EU Regulation No 1288/2013 of the European Parliament and of the Council, that governs the Erasmus+ programme for the above-mentioned period. Basically, the contigency measures adopted these last days fall under the obligations undertaken by the UK according to the general EU budget.

As for the rest, a technical note released by the UK government just states that:

There are a range of options for the UK’s continued participation in Erasmus+ and ESC, including programme country status, partner country status or another arrangement ². Partner country access to Erasmus+ varies between different regional groups ³.

Some solutions to continue to take part in the Erasmus+ Programme after 2020 are currently under consideration. They can be either through an arrangement between the UK and the EU, so to make the UK partner country of the EU-27, or with an implementation of a series of bilateral agreements between the UK and the member states.

L'articolo Erasmus+ and Brexit: what is it going to happen after 29 March? proviene da Youth Networks.

The call is open for non-governmental youth organisations, networks and other non-governmental structures involved in areas of youth work relevant to the Council of Europe’s youth policy. 

The activities will be held in co-operation with the European Youth Centres in Strasbourg and Budapest. They will be embedded in the study session for the first semester, starting on 1st October. 

Study sessions are international youth events lasting between 4 and 8 days which bring together members of youth organisations or networks and experts for discussions on a specific subject relevant to the priorities 2020-2021 of the Council of Europe Youth sector.

The deadline for applications (1^st semester 2020) is 1st April 2019.

L'articolo Call for co-operation study sessions between Council of Europe and youth organisations proviene da Youth Networks.

The news came after the amendment of the Erasmus+ 2019 Annual Work Programme, released on February 15.

No other changes have been made. See the grant here, on our dedicated page. There’s time till the 28 of February to apply.

L'articolo European Universities, budget doubled proviene da Youth Networks.

The total budget has been increased from 12.000.000 EUR to a total of 15.000.000 EUR for the current call.

No other changes have been made to the call, available here on our dedicated page for available grants in the framework of the Erasmus+ Programme.

L'articolo Erasmus+, additional funds Forward-Looking Cooperation Projects proviene da Youth Networks.