More participants, more projects: The successful continuation of the EU’s flagship programmes to support education, training, youth and sport in Europe.
Findings in the recently published Erasmus+ Annual Report for 2019 show that the EU’s popular education and training funding programme for the period 2014-2020 has become broader, more innovative and more inclusive. With a budget of €3.37 billion in 2019, an increase of 20% as compared to the previous year, the programme supported close to 940’000 people studying, training or volunteering abroad, and provided funding for around 25’000 projects that involved more than 111’000 organisations. While 505’000 beneficiaries took part in higher education student and staff mobility, around 192’000 participants benefitted from a vocational education and training (VET) learning period abroad. Not only did the programme support more than 24’000 schools and made class exchanges possible for more than 161’500 pupils, it also enabled almost 92’000 teacher and staff exchanges. The programme also widened its scope by offering more opportunities to people from disadvantaged backgrounds. Opening up career possibilities, the popular programme proved to have a positive impact on the professional development of the majority of participating students and staff. 2019 further marked the launch of the first pilot round of the European University Initiative (17 alliances in 2019, in total 41 alliances today, see SwissCore article) as well as the selection of the first five Centres of Vocational Excellence (CoVE, see SwissCore article). The further development of initiatives, such as the European Student Card, which aims at simplifying and facilitating participation in the Erasmus programme through secure digital administrative procedures and tools such as the Erasmus+ Mobile App, have continued to contribute to making education fit for the digital age.
Following this success, and after the long-awaited agreement on the multiannual financial framework (MFF) for 2021-2027 and NextGenerationEU (see SwissCore article), the European Parliament and the German Presidency of the Council reached a provisional political agreement on the next generation of the Erasmus+ programme 2021-2027 on 11 December 2020. Still pending formal approval by the EP and the Council of the EU, the final adoption of the Erasmus+ 2021-2027 regulation will take place in the coming months. Based on a retroactivity clause, the new programme, which will keep the ‘plus’ in its name, will formally start in January 2021. With a budget of more than €26 billion (as compared with €14.7 billion for the previous programme period), Erasmus+ 2021-2027 is expected to provide learning opportunities to up to 10 million participants. Apart from supporting flagship initiatives such as the European Universities Initiative, the Centres of Vocational Excellence and Discover EU, the new programme will be more inclusive and contribute to the green and digital transitions. As a key instrument for the European Education Area, the new Digital Education Action Plan and the European Skills Agenda, the programme will offer increased accessibility and more flexible mobility formats to people with fewer opportunities in particular. Taking into account the lessons learnt from the COVID-19 pandemic, it will offer complementary participation activities, for instance through virtual or blended mobility. Physical mobility, however, will remain at the heart of the programme. With new opportunities for cooperation, Erasmus+ 2021-2027 will foster innovative practices in learning and teaching and promote both green and digital skills. The programme will also become more accessible and user friendly through simpler and digitalised application processes.
Parallel to the Erasmus+ Annual Report 2019, the European Commission (EC) published the first report on the European Solidarity Corps 2018-2020 (ESC) programme for the period of 2018-2019. During the reporting period, the ESC enabled more than 27’000 young people between the age of 18 and 30 to engage in solidarity activities through volunteering, traineeships and jobs, and supported more than 3’750 solidarity projects. Building on this success and with a budget of €1.009 billion for the period 2021-2027 (€376.5 million for the period of 2018-2020), the now fully-fledged stand-alone programme is expected to provide opportunities to as many as 270’000 young adults to engage in solidarity activities (age limit 30) or, newly, humanitarian aid projects beyond Europe (age limit 35 years). Moreover, the ESC will become more inclusive by supporting the participation of young people with fewer opportunities in particular.