The projects funded under this Key Action 2 focus on sharing, developing and transferring innovative practices in education, training and youth provision between participating countries.
Key Action 2 is divided into two main types of activity: decentralised activities and centralised activities. Decentralised activities for the UK are run by the British Council, in partnership with Ecorys UK.
Centralised activities are run by the European Commission’s Executive Agency which is based in Brussels.
This Key Action supports:
Strategic Partnerships in the field of education, training and youth;
Knowledge Alliances;
Sector Skills Alliances;
Capacity Building in the field of Youth.
The relevant Erasmus+ activities for cooperation with business are:
Strategic Partnerships aim to support the development, transfer and/or implementation of innovative practices at organisational, local, regional, national, or European levels. They offer the opportunity for organisations active in the fields of education, training and youth, as well as enterprises, public authorities, civil society organisations to cooperate in order to implement innovative practices leading to:
- high quality teaching,
- training,
- learning,
- youth work,
- institutional modernisation,
- societal innovation.
Strategic Partnerships are transnational and involve a minimum of three organisations from three different Programme Countries.
Support will be given to projects enhancing the quality and innovativeness of learning and teaching, developing new curricula, building bridges between the different sectors of education and fostering more intense forms of cooperation to achieve the modernisation objectives, including a better exploitation of open education resources.
Participating organisations can be any public or private organisation, established in a Programme Country or in any Partner Country of the world. Organisations from other countries can take part in the project as partners (not as the coordinating applicant), as long as their participation brings a clear added value to the project. Projects should last for a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 3 years.
Knowledge Alliances aim at strengthening Europe’s innovation capacity and at fostering innovation in higher education via balanced, two-way knowledge exchange with enterprises and across the broader socio-economic environment. They implement a coherent and comprehensive set of interconnected activities through transnational structured partnerships, involving a minimum of six independent organisations from at least three Programme Countries, of which there must be a minimum of two higher education institutions and a minimum of two enterprises.
Knowledge Alliances intend to:
- Develop new, innovative and multidisciplinary approaches to teaching and learning;
- Stimulate entrepreneurship and the entrepreneurial skills of students, academics and company staff;
- Facilitate the exchange, flow and co-creation of knowledge.
Sector Skills Alliances aim at targeting skills gaps, enhancing the responsiveness of initial and continuing VET systems to sector-specific labour market needs and demand for new skills with regards to one or more occupational profiles. They are transnational projects involving a minimum of nine participating organisations from at least three Programme Countries, including two member states.
Youth Capacity Building projects aim to foster cooperation and exchange in the field of youth between Programme and Partner Countries from different regions of the world; improve the quality and recognition of youth work, non-formal learning and volunteering in Partner Countries; foster the development, testing and launching of schemes and programmes of non-formal learning mobility at regional levels; and promote transnational non-formal learning mobility between Programme and Partner Countries.
Capacity Building projects are transnational projects based on multilateral partnerships between organisations active in the field of Youth in Programme and Partner Countries. The must involve a minimum of three participating organisations from three different countries, of which at least one is a Programme Country and one is an eligible Partner Country.
International Credit Mobility: a New Challenge in the Mediterranean Region (ICMED) is a project co-funded by the European Union under the Erasmus+ Programme, Key Action 2 Capacity Building in Higher Education and led by the University of Padova. Cardiff Metropolitan University in addition to other partner universities in Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and the EU are a partner of the consortium.
The Project aims at strengthening the capacity of Higher Education staff in Algeria, Morocco and Tunisia to deal with Erasmus+ International Credit Mobility & International Mobility Programmes in general, through the implementation of a comprehensive Training Programme.
By fostering information and sharing best practices, the project is expected to contribute towards an innovative, effective and efficient management of International Credit Mobility in the MENA region. More information on the project can be found here. The Project has now ended and the final project video can be found here.
Capacity-building projects in the field of higher education are transnational cooperation projects, based on multilateral partnerships, primarily between higher education institutions from Programme and eligible Partner Countries.
The aim of these projects is to support eligible Partner Countries to:
- modernise, internationalise and increase access to higher education
- address the challenges facing their higher education institutions and systems
- increase cooperation with the EU
- voluntarily converge with EU development in higher education, and
- promote people to people contacts, intercultural awareness, and understanding.
B-International is Cardiff Met’s first Key Action 2 Capacity Building Coordinating Project which has been successful as part of the 2019 Call for Proposal. More information on the B-International Project can be found
here.