Loading page...
Loading page...
This round is closed. Synced from the EU Funding & Tenders Portal on 9 November 2026.
ALLIANCES FOR INNOVATION
Alliances for Innovation aim to strengthen Europe’s innovation capacity by boosting innovation through cooperation and flow of knowledge among higher education, vocational education and training (both initial and continuous), and the broader socio-economic environment, including research.
They also aim to boost the provision of new skills and address skills mismatches by designing and creating new curricula for higher education (HE) and vocational education and training (VET), supporting the development of a sense of initiative and entrepreneurial mind-sets in the EU.
OBJECTIVES OF THE ACTION
These partnerships shall implement a coherent and comprehensive set of sectoral or cross-sectoral activities, which should be adaptable to future knowledge developments across the EU.
To boost innovation, the focus will be on talent and skills development. Firstly, digital competences have become increasingly important in all job profiles across the entire labour market. Secondly, the transition to a circular and greener economy needs to be underpinned by changes to qualifications and national education and training curricula to meet emerging professional needs for green skills and sustainable development. Thirdly, the twin digital and green transition requires an accelerated adoption of new technologies across all sectors of our economy and society and boosting STEM skills and talent.
Lot 1: Alliances for Education and Enterprises
Alliances for Education and Enterprises are transnational, structured and result-driven projects, in which partners share common goals and work together to foster innovation, new skills, a sense of initiative and entrepreneurial mind-sets.
They aim to foster innovation in higher education, vocational education and training, enterprises and the broader socio-economic environment. This includes confronting societal and economic challenges such as climate change, changing demographics, digitisation, the emergence of new, disruptive technologies such as artificial intelligence generating demand for STEM skills and talent and rapid employment changes through social innovation and community resilience as well as labour market innovation. In 2026, this topic will also address the challenge of severe skills gaps in sectors crucial for Europe’s competitiveness in line with the Union of Skills initiative.
Alliances for Education and Enterprises bring together enterprises and both higher education and vocational training providers to work together in partnership. Operating within one economic sector or several different economic sectors, they create reliable and sustainable relations and demonstrate their innovative and transnational character in all aspects. While each partnership must include at least one VET and one higher education organisation, they can address either both or one of these educational fields. The cooperation between VET and higher education organisations should be relevant and should benefit both sectors.
They intend to achieve one or more of the following aims:
Stimulating a sense of initiative and entrepreneurial attitudes, mind-sets and skills in learners, educational staff
Higher education institutions are encouraged to use the HEInnovate self-assessment tool [ https://heinnovate.eu/en] before applying, above all if they are coordinating the proposal. HEInnovate will help them identify their strengths and weaknesses in terms of entrepreneurship and innovation. The proposal and the consortium composition can therefore be better prepared and combine all the necessary expertise.
1. Admissibility Conditions: Proposal page limit and layout
Described in the Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2026.
Proposal page limits and layout: described in Part B of the Application Form available in the Submission System.
Page limit for the Part B of the Application Form (Technical Description) is 120 pages for all the 3 Lots. Within these 120 pages limit, the list of relevant previous projects is included.
Layout is described in the Important Notice of the application form.
2. Eligible Countries
Described in the Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2026.
3. Other Eligible Conditions
described in the Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2026.
4. Financial and operational capacity and exclusion
described in the Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2026.
5a. Evaluation and award: Submission and evaluation processes
described in the Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2026.
5b. Evaluation and award: Award criteria, scoring and thresholds
Evaluation criteria, scoring, threshold and process are described the Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2026.
5c. Evaluation and award: Indicative timeline for evaluation and grant agreement
described in the Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2026.
Publication of the call: 28 November 2025. 
Deadline for submitting applications: 10 March 2026, 17:00 (Brussels time). 
Evaluation period: March - July 2026. 
Information to applicants: by September 2026. 
Signature of grant agreement: September - December 2026. 
6. Legal and financial set-up of the grants
n/a
Call document and annexes:
Application form templates
Standard application form (ERASMUS BB and LSII)
Detailed budget table (ERASMUS LSII)
Guidance
Erasmus+ Programme Guide 2026
Model Grant Agreements (MGA)
Lump Sum MGA
Additional documents:
Call document
ERASMUS+ Work Programme
ERASMUS Regulation 2021/817
EU Financial Regulation 2024/2509
Rules for Legal Entity Validation, LEAR Appointment and Financial Capacity Assessment 
EU Grants AGA — Annotated Model Grant Agreement 
How to manage your lump sum grants 
Funding & Tenders Portal Online Manual 
Funding & Tenders Portal Terms and Conditions
Funding & Tenders Portal Privacy Statement  
Applicants asked the EU 20 questions about this call and the EU published the answers. They clarify the call documents but do not replace them.
Yes, to try and test new curricula or new training and learning methods, Alliances for Innovation may organise learning mobility activities of students, teachers, researchers and staff in so far as they support/complement the main activities of the partnerships and bring added value in the implementation of the project's objectives.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 11 Jun 2026
Yes, one organisation can participate in Lot 1, Lot 2 or Lot 3 but with three different proposals. However, through the selection criteria, the Agency will assess the applicant's operational capacity to complete the proposed project(s), which includes human, technical and other resources.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 24 Feb 2026
To be included in a proposal as an applicant, a full partner, an affiliated entity or an associated partner you must have a PIC number. The PIC number does not have to be validated for submission of your proposal. In case your proposal will be selected, the PIC number of each organisation involved in your application, except for associated partners, must be validated before signing the Grant Agreement.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 8 Mar 2026
You have to download the templates directly from the submission system after creating the draft proposal in the area called Download Part B templates that is located on the left inside of the screen. For more details we invite you to read the online manual on how to submit a proposal.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 10 Mar 2026
Respect of the no-profit and co-financing principles is generally assumed in the context of lump sums, therefore, applicants do not have to provide information about sources of funding other than the EU grant, nor do they have to justify the costs incurred by the project.
The grant requested has to be entered in the budget table (tab “proposed budget”) and cannot exceed 80% of the total costs per partner. If it does, an error message will appear .The total estimated costs of the project represent 100%. The EU grant covers a maximum of 80% of these costs. The remaining 20% will have to be financed by the project consortium with own-resources, financial contribution from third parties, or income generated by the project.
If the total costs of the project are estimated at EUR 5 million, the maximum EU grant is EUR 4 million and the remaining EUR 1 million will have to be covered by the consortium.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 27 Feb 2026
In the table List of previous projects at the end of the Application Form – Part B, you have to include only EU funded projects that are related to your proposal.
Please insert the total EU grant amount that was allocated for each project.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 26 Feb 2026
The extent to which the Digital and Green skills are incorporated in the proposal represents two of the award sub-criteria under the award criterion Relevance for Lot 1 (ERASMUS-EDU-2026-PI-ALL-INNO-EDU-ENTERP) and Lot 2 (ERASMUS-EDU-2026-PI-ALL-INNO-BLUEPRINT) proposals. Therefore, the inclusion of these skills in the proposal has a direct influence on the quality of the proposal.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 3 Jul 2026
The number of proposals that will be funded depends on the available budget and the amount of the EU grant requested by each project proposed for funding. For the Call Alliances for Innovation (Lot 1, Lot 2, Lot 3), the total available budget is EUR 67 million (Please see Annual Work Programme 2026PDF.
Under Lot 1: for a 2-year project the maximum grant is EUR 1 million and for a 3-year project the maximum grant is EUR 1,5 million.
Under Lot 2: for a 4-year project the maximum grant is EUR 4 million.
Under Lot 3: for a 2-year project the maximum grant is EUR 1.5 million.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 7 Mar 2026
In the Funding and tender Opportunities Portal you have to submit an application form that includes the following parts: e-form Part A - structured administrative information based on the information which you enter into the Portal Submission System. Part B – technical description of the project. The form needs to be downloaded, filled in and uploaded as PDF in the Submission System. The requested annex ‘detailed budget table of the proposal’, which also needs to be downloaded, filled in and uploaded as Excel file in the Submission System. e-form Part C - Key Performance Indicators data for your project on thematic areas, participants, types of activities, EQF levels, etc..
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 4 Mar 2026
The Part B (technical description of the project) of the Application Form is limited to maximum 120 pages for all three lots, namely: Lot 1, Lot 2 & Lot 3.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 27 Feb 2026
No, mandate letters will not be requested. The Declaration of Honour will need to be signed by the selected participants at the moment of Grant Agreement Preparation.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 17 Feb 2026
Where requested in the Application Form – Part B, you have to address all guiding points presented in the Call document/Programme Guide under each award criterion. It is up to you how you will organise the answers, in one box or spread through several answers in Part B. Please make sure that all guiding points for each award criterion have a clear and comprehensive answer/explanation and that are clearly presented. Please find below the link to Info Page where you can also find some guidelines on how to fill in Part B addressing all the relevant sub-criteria of the Programme Guide: https://erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu/document/erasmus-programme-guide-2026
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 12 Feb 2026
It is not obligatory to submit the application in English, however the abstract in the Part B of the application form must be in English. Please make sure that application is written in the language of the partnership understood by all participating organisations.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 14 Jan 2026
VET providers are determined by national law. Normally, the scope of VET goes beyond the upper-secondary level and covers the post-secondary, non-tertiary level but also the tertiary level (e.g. Universities of applied sciences, Polytechnic institutes, etc.). Also companies where the country has a dual system and the company provides part of the course curriculum could be considered as a VET provider. An entity that specializes on continuing vocational training (often also called “professional training”) is also a VET provider.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 9 Mar 2026
No, a pre-financing payment of 40% will be made at the start of the project, a second pre-financing of 40% will be made approximately at mid term, upon approval of the first Periodic Report and acceptance of a technical report on the progress of the project, and the final balance of 20% will be paid at the end, upon review and approval of all the project outputs in each work packages and acceptance of the final report.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 6 Mar 2026
The list of activities presented in the Erasmus + Programme Guide under “Setting up a Project” for Lot 1 is not intended to be exhaustive. A relevant proposal should contain at least one of the listed activities but there may be other relevant activities that are not described in the Programme Guide. Irrespective of the number of activities presented, the proposal should aim to ensure quality, scope and coherence of the overall project and the relevance of the activities in relation to the objectives of the call.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 27 Jan 2026
The list of higher education institutions holding Erasmus Charter for Higher Education is available erasmus-plus.ec.europa.eu
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 21 Jan 2026
You can search for an organisation active in VET in the EPALEdatabase. You can also add your organisation to the EPALE Partner Search.
In addition, you can use partner search functions directly integrated in the menu of Alliances of Innovation Topic pages (ERASMUS-EDU-2026-PI-ALL-INNO-EDU-ENTERP, ERASMUS-EDU-2026-PI-ALL-INNO-BLUEPRINT, ERASMUS-EDU-2026-PI-ALL-INNO-STEM) as described in the Funding and Tender Opportunities Portal guidance pages. More information on all partner search possibilities in the Funding and Tender Opportunities Portal is available webgate.ec.europa.eu.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 14 Jan 2026
The results of the projects should be made freely available (see description of the award criterion Impact under "sustainability and continuation-open access" in the Part B of the Programme Guide under Alliances for Innovation action):
"If relevant, the proposal describes how the materials, documents and media produced will be made freely available and promoted through open licenses and does not contain disproportionate limitations"
This also applies when the project is completed.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 14 Jan 2026
This action follows a lump sum model, therefore, an audit certificate will not be requested with the final report. Applicants do not need to calculate this cost in the budget.
Read it on the EU portal ↗Answered 14 Jan 2026
Confirm the current call documents and submission conditions with the funding authority.
View on EU portal ↗Source: EU Funding & Tenders Portal · synced 2026-11-09
A free account keeps your shortlist and sends deadline reminders. The EUACC connector brings this call, its FAQs, past winners and similar calls into Claude or ChatGPT, so you can check fit and draft with sources.